According to the 'Star News", students of "Middle Eastern appearance" are excused from singing the National Anthem at a Victorian school - the Cranbourne Carlisle Primary School - as part of a "great tolerance and understanding of the heritage and culture of others" by the school principal.

At a recent assembly for Year 2-6 students at the school, a teacher stepped up and announced that any students for whom singing the Australian Anthem was against their culture, could leave the hall and return later. According to the principal who was questioned later, it was a month of mourning for some students who, in that month, could not attend parties, listen to music, or "paint their nails". Avoiding singing the anthem of your country was not mentioned, but there you go!

Anyway, up to 40 or these very young kids left the hall and returned after the anthem had been sung. Whether or not all kids of "Middle Eastern appearance" chose to leave is not reported.

I wonder: did the parents of these presumably ordinary suburban kids ask for the exemption? Given that we are told about the 'differences' in Muslims, did they even know that they were supposed to be in 'mourning'? Or, was it simply that a school princpal and her acute sensitivity, decided that these kids should be shown up in front of their mates as being 'different'?

When I went to primary school, we had saluting of the flag every morning. Seventh Day Adventists were exempted, and they stood against the wall looking hunted and miserable.

We don't seemed have moved very far, do we?

There you go ttbn, multiculturalism at it's finest.

Try to imagine how we would be treated if we were in some of these foreign countries and wanted to recite our religion, say chrisianity for example.

Need I say more!

Mind you, had I been offered a opportunity to skip certain activities as a kid my teacher would have been knocked over in the rush to the door. Ha ha!

But for other reasons.

So what's the alternative? Pulling those kids on the torture rack until they agree to sing? or having the kids stay and sing in a mocking squeaky tone, substituting dirty words for the original?

The teacher did well. The real question is, why are children forced to attend school in the first place?

Since when does the golden-rule not apply to children? Since when is it OK to do unto others what you would hate if done to yourself?

another failed leftist ideology which they now demand others fix.

It was an over-sensitive over-reaction that isolated them.

The pupils could have remained in the room in their usual places and sung or not sung as was their choosing. Nothing worse for children than noticeably being the odd one out. Nothing needed to be said. Of course even in that case there would be the fool of a teacher who would be looking very noticeably at the children to show how 'supportive' s/he was.

What BS.

At first glance it's appalling — not least because the whole point of multiculturalism is that everyone should be free to determine their own culture.

But thinking about it a bit more, it does make sense to allow those who want to avoid listening to musc during the mourning to leave the room while the others are singing. But I'm intrigued — who mourns under those conditions? And why?