KEY POINTS:
When I used to walk each day to the local religious primary school, the state school kids used to call out "Catholic dogs stink like frogs in their mothers bathing togs". It was a common enough taunt in post-war New Zealand for those of us who belonged to
what was then a declared minority, rather than today's celebrity religion that even Tony Blair is considering joining.
But it didn't take long before us Roman Catholics decided to ignore the blandishments of the priests and nuns (to be truthful, one or two did egg us on) and give the taunters back as good as we got by substituting the words "Protestant dogs" for "Catholic dogs" (and worse).
We were easily identifiable in our uniforms, panama hats and white gloves back then and ready targets for those within the power structure who believed the secular state should prevail over the Catholics, who still put religious dogma and Latin as the top subjects for daily lessons.
We must have looked particularly out of place to the state school kids on those days when our faces were masked by white veils and our bodies covered with cloaks as we took part in religious celebrations. We learned that mud sticks when young boys delighted in throwing clods at our white dresses.
But the hate we emitted when we slammed back against our taunters, or opened the taunting ourselves, felt real.
Much as it does I am sure for those young Muslims who now find themselves caught in the fundamentalism of their times - defending their burqa and their values against what they see as Western domination and encroachment in a world where dogma and doctrine submerges rational thought.
In our case, the hatred never really erupted to a dangerous stage, as by the time the boys were pulsating with testosterone they were away to private Catholic secondary boarding schools, thus ensuring a form of segregation.
Only those from poorer families, whose parents were not astute enough to organise scholarships if they could not meet the fees, had to go to the local college.
But the religious lessons still continued as the local priest tried to keep them sacred from the seductions of the more worldly life to which that they were exposed.
In those days, before there was anything like a race relations conciliator, it would not have taken much to ignite those feelings into something much more dangerous, perhaps akin to what we now call terrorism, if anyone had decided to take serious advantage of our youthful naivete, or if the conditions fuelling our anger had deepened.
But we were in New Zealand, not Ireland, and grateful for that. It was not until my own father's wake that I learned that he and some other Paddies had joined the Hutt Valley branch of Sinn Fein while lads.
I'm still not sure whether my dad's mate was joking or not when he said they had all signed up for the NZ Army as quick as they could after World War II was declared so "we could get close enough to shoot the English".
My father never struck me as particularly rebellious, or even remotely political. I am sure that seeing the effect of war close-up removed any romance he might have earlier had for the glorious fight.
His music was Danny Boy, not the Patriot Game those of us who had not tasted any real conflict liked to sing.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the world was ruled by the Protestants - the Anglicans and Presbyterians were our bete noire.
The Freemasons - who were definitely not Catholics - determined who got which high-level jobs.
It was commonly accepted there would never be a Catholic prime minister, and it was Jim Bolger, an Irish-born import, who finally broke that mould some 30 years later.
But over time, as we added science to our curricula and became exposed to the outside world through television and contested against each other at sport, we changed. Religious differences were submerged as other causes predominated: Women's rights, the youth rebellion, and international travel quickly bridged the old differences.
Time did the rest as new generations became less hostage to the hostilities that their forefathers failed to leave behind when they first migrated.
I'm not so sure that time will easily heal the differences that divide some Muslims from the "West".
But British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made a good start by branding the doctors who tried to bomb a London nightclub and Glasgow airport as "criminals", rather than falling back on the slogan "Islamic terrorists" that would have come so easily to Blair's lips.
The latter slogan may well be literally true. It's also figuratively true that, by trying to bomb a nightclub on ladies' night, a message was being sent about Western women's behaviour.
But by using the language that unites us rather than divides us, rather than demonising Muslims, Brown is creating space for all sides to move closer together.
Better that than continuing on a path which would ultimately see Britain's children continue to divide.
