Another Human Rights Case

Mortify a mother by telling her that her young child is behaving in a barbarous manner and you're identifying yourself as a philistine, a social moron. Who else would take a mother aside and inform her that a seven-year-old boy, from a culture not quite consonant with Canada's polite dinner-table conventions, is behaving boorishly as evidenced from his table habits.

And, as a new Canadian, he is expected to use cutlery to tackle his food in a circumscribed, 'Canadian' manner. This is honesty, brutal frankness. No, it is not.

It is crude and unmannerly interference with the comfort and good feelings of a child. Reflecting a total lack of critical, empathetic values. A child uses a fork to cut up his food, then moves the result onto a spoon which he then raises to his mouth; a formulaic manner of eating that is common in the Philippines. Does this make the child a threat to society in some peculiar way?

Good grief, get a grip. A mother told her son is eating "like a pig". Well, who wouldn't take umbrage at that absurdly unfeeling insult? Adding insult to injury it was not just the lunch-time monitor who made comment but the insensitively crude principal of the Montreal school who recommended to the mother that her son should eat "like a Canadian". What the hell?

It seems clear that those involved weren't getting through to one another. Gratuitous insults should be recognized for what they are, and those issuing the insults should apologize. People on the receiving end of cultural slights are justified in feeling aggrieved. They should stand their ground and insist on their right to be respected.

Making an official case to the Quebec Human Rights Commission? Surely there are other avenues open for hurt feelings to be ameliorated by a reasonable exchange of opinion.

What if this had happened to someone born in Canada of a 2nd-generation mother who simply saw no need to teach her children social table manners? Wouldn't that mother have a case too? Would she threaten to bring a case before a human rights commission? She'd likely tell the principal to shove off.

You go to the school and raise hell. Demand an interview with the principal, with the teacher, with the offensive monitor, and if you're not satisfied with that outcome, then enlist the support and assistance of the school board's administrators. They do respond. They do bring balance to the issues involved, and there is satisfaction to be derived from a civil exchange.

Stupid insensitivity needs to be brought up short. It doesn't, as in this case, merit a $17,000 fine, nor does it merit international censure and hard feelings all around. What also works is to apply social pressure by informing the local newspaper of the absurd situation where a school principal is involved with humiliating a child because of his 'unorthodox' eating habits.

It's a far better way of getting to the heart of the matter, and of seeing that public opinion is on side, simply because this represented an inflated incident of insensitivity, inexcusable because it was directed toward a vulnerable child whose mother had every right to be incensed and demand the matter be addressed.

Respect, after all, is a two-way street. Courtesy cannot be legislated, and hauling the matter before a quasi-legal court of appeal is overstating the case and ends up creating additional, unnecessary social barriers. Such insignificant differences need never create divisions between people if they're reasonable individuals.

A mother's irritation at her child's ill treatment should have made those responsible shamefaced, and readily apologetic. And there the story should have ended. A child's exposure to different ways of public behaviour is easily transferable and adopted; he would of his own accord have been "Canadianized'.

And if not, so what?