British Govt. Agency: "3 Little Pigs" Offends Muslims

While the Malaysian government is busy censoring Christian kids' books, the British government has excluded a digital version of "The 3 Little Pigs" from its educational technology awards for "concerns about the Asian community and the use of pigs [raising] cultural issues." The feedback from the judges explaining why they had rejected the CD-ROM highlighted that they "could not recommend this product to the Muslim community".

The book's creative director, Anne Curtis, dismisses the government's criticism that the idea that including pigs in a story could be interpreted as racism. In a statement, she said her company is committed to an ethical approach to business and its products promote a message of mutual respect. Banning such traditional stories, she asserts, will "close minds rather than open them".

I have numerous Jewish friends who, like Muslims, do not eat pork products. I have never once heard any of them complain about "The Three Little Pigs" being offensive to them. I have Hindu friends as well, and haven't heard them complaining about children's stories featuring cows. I'm virtually certain that my Jewish and Hindu friends would find the suggestion that they would take offense at animal stories to be as ludicrous as I do. They know what is a legitimate cultural insensitivity and what is political correctness taken to a ridiculous extreme.