There are limits to my tolerance

for "multiculturalism". That has quite possibly been very evident of late but the idea that a young child can be accused of some sort of cultural insensitivity because they draw a picture of their mother or their father is absurd.

As I said here some little while ago I was "asked" not to drink water in front of a young Muslim boy recently. I was at the railway station. It was a hot day. Children are not expected to "fast" for Ramadan but he apparently was.  I didn't actually need to make a decision about whether to "offend" or not because the train came in.

But this is not a Muslim country. I do not have to cover my head at all times. I could eat pork if I wanted to eat pork. I don't eat pork but I could if I wanted to do so. I could own a dog. I am friends with Jews and Sikhs and Hindus and Buddhists. I have a friend who plays cello in a symphony orchestra and have been to the concerts of that orchestra. I can write a letter to the editor and nine times out of ten it will be published. I recognise "free speech" has limits but it is there and will remain there if it is not abused. In the next two weeks I will vote in our state election because I have passed the age of twenty-one (now eighteen). 

There is a vast difference between my life and the life of women in not just Iran but other majority Muslim countries. At the same time I am being told I need to "accept", "be tolerant", "understand" and more when they wish to bring in restrictions on those things into this country. It may be that I do not need to abide by those things, although they would prefer me to do just that, but I do need to accept those things.

And now it seems that here, just as they trying elsewhere, I need to accept that children need to be "taught" that they cannot do what is deemed to be "offensive" to a belief system they have no part in. It seems we need to restrict their learning of our cultural literacy. Our cultural literacy is extraordinarily rich and diverse. It has taken in so much from everywhere and given back as well. All this apparently no longer matters. It matters more that others are not "offended".

Well, be offended. Be offended because failure to learn our cultural literacy and, with it, the capacity to understand the cultural literacies of others will lead to stagnation.