Nursery World - To the point... (49)

Our weekly columnist Beatrix Campbell sees implications for children in the current conflicts between cultures Children may not appear to be adversaries in the extraordinary global eruption of religious tumult, but in a fundamental sense, they are.

Children may not appear to be adversaries in the extraordinary global eruption of religious tumult, but in a fundamental sense, they are.

Children live with racism more directly perhaps than any other group.

They encounter racial, religious and sexual intolerance in their everyday encounters in schools, playgrounds, parks, streets and shopping precincts.

The tumult of the past week or so bears directly upon children's multiple identities.

The loss of a key vote on Tony Blair's bill to create a new offence of racial hatred was quickly deluged by a global tumult that exposed its weaknesses. The most obvious was the clash between freedom of speech and religious sensibility provoked by the Danish cartoons crisis. Less obvious was the failure of race hate charges brought against the far right British National Party.

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