Pearls of Wisdom – Go Renegade And Stuff The System

By Pearl Bullivant on February 5, 2016 in Other

Pearls of Wisdom has reached its ten-year anniversary and during that time I have never found cause to react to the myriad of complaints received as a result of my outrageous and boundary-pushing column. I’ve been accused of being a bra burner and a communist, I’ve been told to “like it or leave” (in reaction to my ardent assault on gentrification) and I’ve even been threatened with legal action. But have I reacted? Have I bitten back? No, I’ve put up and shut up because I’m fully aware that most of the criticism has been ill considered and written off-the-cuff in a fit of anger before my column is even fully digested. And, being a compassionate person, I empathise with the anger, impelled daily by the SMH’s headlines to dash off a letter of pure rage, but my zen-like persona takes over and I down a G&T instead, even if its 9am.

But this month, in celebration of my first decade, I’ve decided it’s time for me to bite back in reaction to criticism of my December column, ‘What Would Jesus Do’. It’s not the first time Pearl’s column has been falsely criticised by a professed ‘Christian’; I recall that one of my columns incited a letter war between ‘Believers’ and ‘Rationalists’, even though I have never revealed where my sentiments lie and have, in fact, referred admiringly to Jesus’s creed and socialist beliefs.

However, the letter titled ‘Pearl’s Article Offensive’ in January’s edition has really pushed my nacre cardigan buttons. Starting with the criticism of the Banksy portrayal of a crucified Jesus toting shopping bags and then going on to state that I have ‘trivialised’ the great man, I was totally flabbergasted. Oh my God, lovey, can’t you see that I was using the grace of Jesus to take the piss out of society’s obsession with consumerism at Christmas? In the words of another January letter writer (‘Unethical Change to Ethics Form’), “I don’t understand why a religious faction would feel so threatened”.

And threatened they are, but this is where I fight back. I’m fighting back by offering advice to the Maroubra mother who penned the letter regarding the removal of the ethics option from the Department of Education enrolment form: Darling, don’t fight the system; instead, go renegade and stuff the system up with a mass but subversive campaign, harnessing as many parents as possible. Send your kiddies to religious education, but insist that your ‘religion’ is Jediism or Dudeism, and that you are ‘deeply disturbed’ and find it ‘unacceptable and offensive’ when the school’s pastoral care is unable to accommodate your child’s religious beliefs. Send them armed with a plethora of rational questions each week designed to fluster the scripture teacher and cause outrage. I suggest you use the late comedian Bill Hicks’ ‘Dinosaurs in the Bible’ as a reference point.

As a collective group of parents, your guerilla-like tactics will have that pew-warming Premier back flipping in no time and the little tick box will mysteriously reappear on the form.

PTL, Pearl.