Where are the Champions?
By: Geo (September 18th, 2008)
Three boys aged six ran a “sex club” at a Brisbane state school demanding and receiving sexual favours from girls one year their seniors! The Brisbane father said his son was one of a trio seen performing various sex acts in a toilet block.
His revelations came as uproar was sparked by another story, which told how the sexual assault of a seven-year-old girl by a young classmate was dismissed as a “childhood experiment” by a country school principal. The young victim was forced to perform oral sex on the boy who had threatened her with violence.
Meanwhile, on the Sunshine Coast, a gang of nine-year-old boys has been accused of “grooming” children as young as five to engage in sex acts. Investigators were told victims were rewarded with candies.
Allegedly this problem of moral decline is clearly not limited to the young. Apart from problems of child abuse, anecdotal and statistical evidence seems to suggest that Australians at every level and over every age break more laws than ever before. A cynic might argue that this could simply be a function of an increase in the quantity of laws and regulations or atleast a result of more media space and attention devoted to such incidents. Yet the objective evidence shows a clear rise in the incidence of law breaking.
If we look more closely at news pouring in from all over the world, we will see that it not just as a regional phenomenon! Moral and legal boundaries are being challenged and pushed to extend beyond current limits in every area. So are the laws and regulations that define the societies worldwide outdated? Do we need to redefine these boundaries in the name of liberty!?
We could debate and try to form a consensus or atleast a majority, regional or global, provided these things were limited only to the adults. But when the limits are being tested by “six year olds”, we seriously need to consider if just redefinitions will help at all! Is there something fundamentally wrong that our children have started living like adults and adults like……. socio-political animals?! What are we maturing into? Or should I ask, what are we evolving into?
What seems is that if we are not careful, our society will rip itself from the inside out. We are definitely under attack every day as our morals and ways of life are being challenged. The most important reason for this is the lack of good moral leadership. If the leaders and influencers of the upcoming generation can teach and live a good example, we can provide a good life for future generations.
Who are these leaders? Who are these influencers? Who can be the champions? Of course the leaders of nations, the popular icons (music, sports, film etc), parents and teachers, and then last, every individual. Though I would like the highlight and dwell on roles needed to played by parents, I will talk about the last and most important champion of moral reform, the “individuals” themselves.
Its important to not to just cultivate our own gardens, and live in a comfortable family life, but also to participate in shaping the courses that govern our collective thought: and to have a say in the ‘collective destiny’ of humankind. People need to be good and to be the cause of something that will better society as a whole.
Henry David Thoreau said,
“Be not simply good - be good for something.”
To have enough influence to create a moral change, we need the individuals themselves to have the drive. This drive is something that cannot be forced or impressed upon any individual. Moral reform of the country is a big movement. If the individual is not deeply committed to the cause, it will not last, nor will it have to drive to push the much needed moral change. It takes conviction brought upon by the individual’s free will.
Possibily these agents of moral change, these champioins, maybe a minority when they begin but history testifies about the influence and end results of minority movements. Most freedom struggles, be it Indian or American, were a minority movements, and a minority movement is all it takes to make a nation aware of a problem. It can be likened to the ripple in the pond. All it needs is one starting ripple, and it will spread much farther than it started.
Where are the champions?
Tags: australian kids, child abuse, laws, leadership, liberty, minority, moral standards, morality, schools, sex club, six year old