Is discrimination so bad?
Declan Chellar June 29th, 2008
I have always thought the Northern Europeans were a fairly sensible lot and if asked for an impression (no, I’m not going to break into the “Swedish Chef” from The Muppet Show), I would say that they are less prone to political correctness than the Irish and (in particular) the British seem to be.
However, I have just read an article on the BBC website, which tells the story of a school in Sweden which has complained to the Swedish Parliament about an eight year old boy because he invited all but two of his class mates to his birthday party.
According to the article, the school said that “if invitations are handed out on school premises then it must ensure there is no discrimination”.
No discrimination? None at all?
The etymology of the verb “to discriminate” is that it comes from the Latin discriminatus, past participle of discriminare, from discrimin-, discrimen distinction, from discernere to distinguish between.
And before any smart-arse points out that they would have said it in Swedish rather than English, the Swedish for “discriminate” is “diskriminera”, so the etymology is the same.
There are several related but subtly different definitions. Let us discriminate and choose the meaning that most closely fits the circumstances described in the article:
“to make a difference in treatment or favour on a basis other than individual merit”
The child invited everyone in the class but two. That certainly sounds like discrimination as defined above.
And what is so wrong with that?
There is no hint in the article that the two uninvited children were of a different colour, gender, religion, number of heads, language, football team or anything else that might normally be associated with unfair discrimination.
There’s a key word in that last sentence: unfair.
Apparently the school said there should be “no discrimination”. Not that there should be no unfair discrimination. No discrimination. None at all.
What utter crap.
The article goes on to paraphrase the offending boy’s father, who supposedly said that “the two children were left out because one did not invite his son to his own party and he had fallen out with the other one.”
So, I’m not inviting you to my party because you think I’m a bollix and and I’m not inviting you over there because I think you’re a bollix*.
Is not wanting someone at your party because you think he’s a bollix discrimination? It certainly is.
Is it unfair discrimination? Absolutely not. It’s nothing more than inviting only your friends.
I hate it when words get hijacked by the politically correct. And yes, Brother Francis who used to beat us with a cane for making spelling mistakes in primary school and who told us that it is wrong to hate, I do mean hate.
So if you are politically correct, you can fuck off.
As for the Swedes, why the hell didn’t the school head not discriminate against that teacher for being a gobshite*? Why the hell did the Parliament not tell the school to piss off and stop annoying them? Sweden must be a brilliant place to live if that’s all they have to worry about.
I wonder if that school in Lund, ever gives gold stars to children who do particularly well in class. Discrimination? Surely not!
For the benefit of the Swedes, here is a list of valid reasons for discriminating against someone:
- They fart like a cowboy
- They regularly punch you in the face
- They chain smoke and you are asthmatic
- They only listen to Country music
- They wear counterfeit designer gear ^
- They sell drugs
- They are bollixes
- They think you are a bollix
* If you are not Irish and you wish to gain a greater understanding of the usage of these terms, please refer to Introduction to Dublinese #1.
^ And no, not because that makes them cheap… because that means they are breaking the law. Ha!
