Guiding them towards peace
MINI KRISHNAN
|
While it is important to change our attitudes to corporal punishment, we need to ensure that children grow up emotionally mature.
|
Photo: H. Vibhu
Where are we headed? :
Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men…
Martin Luther King, Jr.
The month of March this year brought three bits of news that appear to be disconnected but are probably linked at a subtle level: one, an offer from a company in the U.S. called Celestine Inc. that for $10,000 they would rocket a gram of human remain
s — ashes — to the moon; two, a report in The Telegraph (U.K.) that there had begun, in the U.S., a new sport for future fitness: parents supervising young children (less than 10 years of age) fighting hand to hand in a cage. There are a few rules such as no direct punches to the head or chest and the children have to wear helmets. But otherwise parents were quoted as saying that such arranged and controlled clashes were good for bonding, to increase respect for the other, helpful in building the all-important attitude, and self-confidence. Not a word about goodness or kindness escaped these adults in the interviews they gave an astounded press. Lastly, in South Korea, the performance of a play, night after night, included spraying five litres of blood on a thrilled and squealing audience.
There is probably no link at all with a new book on the gladiators of Rome except to remind us of what we have not left behind. Two thousand years ago, the sports stars of ancient Rome were professional fighters. For years they trained in gladiatorial schools before being sent out to fight for public entertainment. They were pitched either against people like themselves or wild animals. All of this was done for sport. The book says that these “games” lasted several days with the crowds screaming for more death and gore, the more painful, the more pleased they were. Some emperors staged “battles” in which people were actually cut down and killed as on a real battlefield.
Fighting our fears
It seems we can strew our ashes on the moon to satisfy the vanity of the very rich but in spirit how far have we travelled since gladiatorial days? How long before real deaths are staged for audience satisfaction and all rules of decency shattered for entertainment? Already the list of horror films has grown, signalling that the world over, something which all creation myths and religious systems have warned us about, is on the move: the unleashing of our own darkness. In the Mahabharata, Duryodhana chose armies over the Divine Charioteer. In the New Testament, the crowd chose Barabbas and sent Jesus Christ to a painful death. Just 70 years ago, some of the most intelligent, artistic and thoughtful people in the world handed over their country and themselves to Adolf Hitler.
Do we have a taste for catastrophe?
Time to act
It seems we have reached a time which calls for the declaration of an Ethical Emergency. When children lack the power to protest or choose for themselves and reach adult spaces either because they were led there carelessly or were allowed to wander into those zones unsupervised, should we not offer a balance that will counter the shocks and restore interiority? One of these solutions would be to honour and teach the principles of non-violence and peace through a programme that builds emotional intelligence in children. Just as the child is oriented to learn Math or Geography, s/he can be oriented to Peace Skills and educated in them. We need to guide our children to recognise and manage their feelings, their daily relationships, their links and — as they grow older — with the global community and their home, the planet.
Guiding missiles depends on technological skill. Guiding minds calls for everything we’ve got by way of inner strength, compassion, truth and justice. It means teaching our children that these are not just words. Kahlil Gibran said that the soul unfolds itself. Will this happen in a cage where children are encouraged and ordered to fight one another?
Email: minik@satyam.net.in
Concept & Series Editor, Living in Harmony, a Peace and Value Education series (Oxford University Press, India)
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Magazine
