I will await the inevitable sting in the tail spin when you work your way around to it as usual. By a circuitous route you will be dumping on Australians somehow, right? Australia Day being on the way.

Dearest Foxy,

Until Sikhs start stabbing old women and young pregnant women in the back with their ceremonial daggers, I think they should be free to wear them. Cultural respect and all that.

Actually, I don't think I've ever seen a Sikh wearing one.

On the other hand, if I saw a young bloke waving an ISIS flag and what might be a gun or a knife, I would keep out of his way, and let the police do their job, as quickly as possible.

Love,

Joe

otb,

Are you incapable of having a normal well-reasoned discussion
without stooping to personal insults?

Obviously not.

The only inevitable "sting" only always comes from
yourself.

How about actually trying to take part in the topic of the
discussion. Try sticking to the topic. You can do it.
At least give it a go. The rest is simply stirring.
You do have a problem but I don't want to play your game.
Besides deliberate provocation is against forum rules.

Dear Joe,

The biggest danger does not come from adults,
but is in school where other
children
who have no concept of specific
religious practices would consider
it great fun to taunt the child in
his costume and attempt to
remove the religious dagger which
could cause serious injury.

Bullying is common in all schools.

I have a relative who at the age of ten was sent to a
religious school his parents were migrants from post-war
Europe and they would give him sandwiches with meat on a Friday.
Of course, on Fridays, meat was forbidden at that time by
religious teaching and his habit of eating meat was
frowned upon. The kid was looked upon as being "different."
In other words if you did not conform -you were picked on.
Don't eat meat on a Friday. Not at that school.

Other children would therefore take his sandwiches
away and throw them into the rubbish. Fortunately, the victim
learned to put up with this. In later years he grew extremely
tall, and bullies at his school learned to respect him.
(they were afraid of him).

Therefore, being different - whether its clothing, sandwiches
or anything else that makes one stand out from the others,
will have its disadvantages. In the case of daggers - more
serious problems can result. Kids can get hurt.

Dearest Foxy,

You suggest that ' .... in school where other children who have no concept of specific religious practices would consider it great fun to taunt the child in his costume and attempt to remove the religious dagger which could cause serious injury.'

Hypothetically, I suppose it could. Do you know of any instances ? Even in Britain, or in Canada ?

Mind you, if I was a kid again, and there was a Sikh kid in the class with his dagger, the last thing I might do would be to try to pinch it from him. Literally.

Wait a minute: would Sikh boys wear daggers to school ? Wouldn't it have to be a sort of manhood symbol, a bar mitzvah sort of thing where they got their daggers as a symbol of their new standing as protectors, at fifteen or sixteen ?

Lots of love,

Joe

Dear Joe,

The kirpan is a religious symbol similar to the cross in
Christianity. You can Google the kirpan. There's an
interesting article in Wikipedia in which there was a
case in 2008 in Montreal where a 13 year old student
threatened another student with his kirpan.