HAS the Religion of Perpetual Outrage cowed us to such an extent that government agencies now feel the need to take offence on behalf Muslims?
It would seem so, judging from the latest example of surrogate outrage widely reported in the media today.
Becta, the government’s educational technology agency, via its Bett Award judging panel, has turned down an award for The Three Little Cowboy Builders CD-Rom.
This digital book re-tells the classic Three Little Pigs fairy tale, and was turned down from Becta’s annual awards list because - yes, you’ve guessed it - “the use of pigs raises cultural issues” and could offend Muslims.
Aimed at primary school children, the CD-Rom was also thought offensive to those highly sensitive souls working in the building trade.
Why the judges did not go the whole hog way and express outrage on behalf of cowboys is anyone’s guess.
The Three Little Cowboy Builders has already been a prize-winner at the recent Education Resource Awards – but its Newcastle-based publishers, Shoo-fly were astonished when they were turned down by the Bett Award judging panel, which also found “stereotyping” in the story of the unfortunate pigs:
Is it true that all builders are cowboys, builders get their work blown down, and builders are like pigs?
The judges, therefore, “could not recommend this product to the Muslim community”.
The book’s creative director, Anne Curtis, said that the idea that including pigs in a story could be interpreted as racism was “like a slap in the face”.
Ms Curtis said that rather than preventing the spread of racism, such an attitude was likely to inflame ill-feeling.
And she wondered whether secondary schools could no longer teach Animal Farm because it features pigs.
She says her company is committed to an ethical approach to business and its products promote a message of mutual respect - and that banning such traditional stories will “close minds rather than open them”.
Becta, responsible for technology in schools and colleges, says that it is standing by the judges’ verdict.
Merlin John, author of an educational technology website which highlighted the story, warns that such rulings can undermine the credibility of the awards.
When benchmarks are undermined by pedestrian and pedantic tick lists, and by inflexible, unhelpful processes, it can tarnish the achievements of even the most worthy winners. It’s time for a rethink, and for Becta to listen to the criticisms that have been ignored for a number of years.
3 Comments
Um, what? Will all stories featuring pigs and/or pork now be verboten?
Aye caramba.
I think there’s something potentially more serious here than muddle-headed PC idiots being overly concerned by others’ sensitivities. When I blogged about this a couple of days ago I got a message from someone in Qatar who mentioned an incident about a year ago, in which a copy of Winnie the Pooh on sale there had been censored by someone blacking out all the images of Piglet. Apparently, the book had been imported via Saudi Arabia, where some of the more hardline religious police take the view that all representations of pigs are forbidden.
So while it would be natural to suggest that the judges here, and other similar nincompoops, are merely misunderstanding Islam, there are indeed anti-pig extremists in Saudi. And we all know that Saudi religious conservatives have deep pockets, and like to fund projects abroad. So the time may come when Muslims influenced by Saudi propaganda start to take the initiative: at which point, Winnie the Pooh might start to disappear from British bookshops. I’m starting to worry about this.
Heresiarch has a point. There are a few people I know of who would fully recommend that all pigs are indeed taken out of books exactly for this reason.
Post a Comment