Shattered Dreams: The Dilemma of Childhood

The recent gratuitous killing of Sophie Lancaster, a 20-year-old woman who was savagely kicked and stamped to death by a group of teenagers earlier in the year, seems to speak of a syndrome that has shaped the way violence is perceived by its instigators, the unfortunate victims as well as observers. Too often do we hear of vicious and indiscriminate attacks against members of the public who on most occasions have met the perpetrator only for that incident, whilst the encounter – lasting mere minutes - further engrains its ugliness on the way we perceive one another and calls to attention our human capability to transform the dislike that we sometimes harbour for others into a needless obliteration. Of course in many cases there is no sense of registering the complexities of like or dislike, “the one killed will not know why he killed and the one who was killed will not know why he was killed”. These words of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) were signalled by “The last hour will not come until...”

It seems that many an initiative to control gun or knife crime has, quite patently, failed to give recognition to the human spirit embodied in one’s decision to pull a trigger needlessly or brandish a knife to impress like-minded sociopaths. Within factors such as poverty, broken homes or child abuse which are certainly instrumental constituents, is a distrust for those who fail to provide care and love and which is subsequently sought in other groupings which are formed due to a shared negative social experience. Whereas ‘gang’ can replace ‘group’ and ‘delinquents’ can take the place of ‘youth’, in our emotive – and thus biased – observation of a problem that seems to be worsening by the day, it is indispensable - if we have any hope of seeing a significant future decline in violent youth crimes - to first reflect on the sacred space that defines our own existence, on the worth and privilege of human life that we relish and how our disdain for the less privileged only further distances us collectively from the peripheries of cohesive co-existence.

I recently asked a group of my students why they take delight in “egging” others on to fight in a playground situation involving two conflicting parties; the fact that I was not abruptly halted in my enquiry by voices of innocence from such involvement is a case in point. Nevertheless, I took the opportunity to try and delineate the hedonistic mindsets of observers – guilty participants – who shout and cheer in a gladiator-like setting. Connecting with the anxiety and fear of the schoolchild who realises that he may be received by his mother in a blood-stained shirt is where the discussion must begin. We connect to pain because we have all experienced it, we connect with fear because we have all felt it, but our emotive connection in this instance is one of physical detachment because of the comfort zone and security that we take delight in. The ugliness of physical injury, or splattered blood is transformed into something much less ugly, but I am sure that within the human spirit of a budding observer lies even a tiny glow-worm of guilt and sorrow - but this is then sadly and instantly resisted on a collective level due to fear of seemingly ‘effeminate’ emotion in the face of male – or even female - bravado.

Consequently, in some oxymoronic sense, some school grounds – traditionally identified as play areas, safe zones of fun, laughter and careless glee - have become areas of trepidation in the best case, to theatres of indescribable violence that have shocked the world. Where such a sacred space is allowed a transformation, a new meaning in our popular perception, then so too the individual that occupies that space has accustomed himself to the belief that were he to be shunned, bullied, stabbed or shot, then that would demand a violation of the cosseted public space that surrounds him; no longer do we seek out dark alleyways for our heinous crimes, for the darkness of such misdemeanour is intended for the world to witness. And the Youtube phenomenon certainly facilitates that.

The notion of losing touch with humanity has, of course, many strands, and can be observed from many standpoints based on human experiences with the other. For many a scorned child who grows up and fails to perceive another life at the end of a gun or between the blade of a knife, schooling years often play an important part in deconstructing an individual’s bearing on the things and people he encounters in later life. It is our losing touch with humanity that threatens us at an intrinsically base level; acknowledging the human spirit is strikingly mundane, albeit patently crucial and all the while ignored all to often in our consideration of the ‘other’. We must realise that vicious intrusion upon another’s life, manifested most clearly in murder, involves the breach of layer upon layer of social restrictions that we tend not to question because they are taken for granted. But it is the suspension of these restrictions in such a large segment of the population that should compel us to reconsider what we and others seem to be so sure of.

Our uncertainty about the aforementioned can be seen, in restricted part, by the tidal wave of suicides that shroud us with their sombre and haunting presence. While some of us simply shun the thought of someone hastening their human departure from the egress of worldly struggles, bringing to an end the sanctity and privilege of human life, others remain enthralled by the drama of the human experience, but too few I guess are troubled by the social forces that intrude upon a person’s life and impede his ability to continue to think and cope as we all should when things become difficult. Bullying is one such social impulsion – and a breach of social restriction.

The most dramatic artefact of a suicide’s life is of course his letter. The final letter allows us access through the corridors of human misery; we see abuse, grief and contempt from the more understandable of human emotions but sometimes there is also ambiguity – scribblings that represent utter confusion, usually penned in very few words. Again, if we were to occupy our minds with the human experience at play, perhaps the most emotive cases of suicide involve children. Where Macbeth lamented that he had ‘murdered sleep’ then in the realm of suicide, ‘sleep’, tenderness, peace and innocence are also ‘murdered’ as the once-smiling, playful, cheeky, adoring child places a make-shift noose around his soft neck.

From a perspective that many students are able to relate to, we may turn to the drama that unfolds in J.B. Priestley’s ‘An Inspector Calls’ when the capitalist Birling and his family are all confronted with the repercussions of their actions; the play is a representation of a family’s extended and moral implication in the suicide of a young Eva Smith – “What happened to her then may have determined what happened to her afterwards, and what happened to her afterwards may have driven her to suicide.’ There must be a consideration to translate (some) of what we learn into a contemporary context that is relevant for children today. Encouraging children to reflect on the moral dimension of the text – although Priestley was accentuating the dichotomy of capitalism and socialism – would perhaps allow for a consideration that the aggressiveness with which school children treat one another, the high walls of contempt that they erect and in the case of girls the bald-faced narcissism – explicit or implicit – stamps on a child’s sense of self-worth where sometimes their failure to rise to the warped expectations of their peers is what cocoons them until they feel they can no longer live – because their notion of living has been dejectedly shaped by pleasing the other or being pleased by the other. And so in the immediacy of such personal plight, disastrous consequences ensue, as it did for Megan Meier, a 13-year-old girl who hanged herself after she fell prey to a cyber-bullying campaign orchestrated by the mother of one of her classmates, who masqueraded online as a teenage boy. Sadly, then, the child’s reassuring rhyme, ‘sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never harm me’ is of course not as true in meaning for girls as it is for boys, for it is words, malicious verbal abuse, mocking, and scoffing that paint clean squares with wild circles in the confusion that subsequently represents a child’s life.

“O you who believe! Fear Allah and keep your duty to Him. And let every person look to what he has sent forth for the morrow, and fear Allah. Verily, Allah is All-Aware of what you do. And be not like those who forgot Allah, and He caused them to forget their own selves. Those are the disobedient.”

(The Qur’an, 59: 18-19)

by Uthman Lateef

Source: www.hittininstitute.com