Friday, March 16, 2007

Changing "little three pigs" into "three little puppies"

'Three Little Pigs' has turned the little pigs into little puppies. This is what Honley Church of England Junior School in Huddersfield has decided not to possibly offend Muslims.

It seems bizarre to do so unless the pigs are used to spread an offensive message about Muslims. Muslim children are familiar with different stories in which animals are the main characters. So it sounds meaningless to practices discrimination on an animal that is religiously viewed differently or to use it as a possible cause of rift between the Christians who cherish raising and eating it while Muslims consider doing so as a sin.

In Morocco, wild pigs (boars) aren’t consumed but they enjoy protection. Anyone unlawfully killing any of them is subject to punishment. They are, ironically, hunted during hunting season. There are pig toys for children as some child clothes are decorated with puppy pigs. This hasn’t become an issue here to forbid such commodities.

What is feared is that some Muslim extremists view all forms of art as a sin, especially music, singing and the paintings of human portrait. They may argue that children playing the role of animals is a big sin. Watching cartoons like Tom and Jerry will make children learn bad tricks and not grow to be morally straight.

As long as a play has a meaning and with an educative message, it doesn’t matter who or which are the main characters. What matters is how it is interpreted.

Politicising the term pig will make pigs laugh at those who can come to sharp disagreement about them. Children should be helped to use theatre to make sense of what is around them. They’re intelligent enough to sympathise with and love animals. Only adults, because of their ideological views, try to make them see some as the source of sin.

To follow the logic of changing the term “pigs” with “puppies”, some may argue that Hindu children shouldn’t see or play a role in ‘Three Little Pigs', in which the wolf devours two little pigs, as eating any living creature is forbidden in this religion!

Blood Red And Goin...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Abdelilah,
We have our fair share of idiots in the UK dont we!? The people that make these kind of rules belong to the PC brigade who seem intent on tinkering with trivial and unimportant things like "the three little pigs". Such tinkering simply alienates majority opinion in this country and leads many to assume that Muslims are unreasonable and constantly demanding that we adapt our culture to fit their ways. Yet this does not represent majority Muslim opinion in this country as far as I can see. I suspect most would, like you, see the "three little pigs" as a trivial and unimportant issue. The bigger issues of how we live in a free, tolerant and multicultural society -in which people can practice their religion without demanding that others adapt to their beliefs and without restricting the rights of others to free speech - is the real issue. This type of society is possible but it is not helped by this sort of trivial idiocy.
Best wishes.

Abdelilah Boukili said...

Hi Bill,
Sometimes trivial things become an issue. They become like a tree hiding the forest. There are more urgent issues like the plight of disadvantaged children around the world.