Here are a few questions for you.
In what country are young schoolchildren seen waiting for their normally bright red mini vans at 6.30 in the morning? In what country where smoking is banned in public places for the public good, where we all have to wear seatbelts in our cars (for the public good!) but children in mini vans are exempt from wearing seat belts, or rather the mini van owners exempt from supplying the same?
In what country do nine-year-olds carry bags of homework that weigh a ton? In what country do seven-year olds go to duttrina (doctrine) three times a week to, wait for it, prepare for Holy Communion? And last but by no means least, in what country are the names of those accused of committing repeated paedophilia with children, priests supposedly, protected by the courts?
The answer of course is Malta.
As for the last mentioned in my angry list (yes I am angry), I almost didn’t believe it when this was e-mailed to me, that those who accused those priests who worked in a home have to not only suffer the indignity of waiting years for it to come to court, but also have to endure this travesty of justice of having the criminals protected.
When our judges were accused of taking bribes their names were not protected. Why are priests special? If we are all innocent until found guilty why isn’t the name of every criminal, or those accused of criminal behaviour, banned from being made public by our courts? Are priests above and beyond the law? Why do our politicians allow this?
What makes paedophilia worthy of protection, and more specifically paedophilia committed by priests?
And these sorts of issues, about our children’s protection, education and safety are far, far more important to many of us than who wins the general election. These sorts of issues move us more and I think political parties are going to realise that the issues they hammer on about are not inspiring us at all.
They are not inspiring us because the most basic issues on the subject of respect of children are not being properly safeguarded however nice it is to have a Children’s Commissioner, and however capable the person holding this post, past or present depending on your point of view, might be.
The truth is we are failing our children in this society. We are failing them in the fundamentals. We may give many of them computers, we may teach them to be computer literate, but on the really caring and loving issues we are like absent fathers or weekend dads who have to be satisfied with that misnomer of quality time.
Why does such a caring family-oriented and supposedly very Catholic society behave like this? Why don’t the views of caring mums and dads have more clout in this mixed up society? Why don’t our political classes reflect these concerns? Most of them are parents, albeit very absent ones? Perhaps the answer lies there.
The accident that happened this week to another mini van hurtling around to try and fit in two shifts, or two school runs, is a perfect example of a society gone mad. First our children don’t attend local schools because the local schools are often not good enough. Then we put their lives in danger as we wave them off to school. And once they are at school they are pumped up stupid with all manner of information when really up to 11 all you need to do is focus on Maths, English, Sports and Art. All that information they have to learn for our unfriendly Matsec exams can be started at around 12 or 13. When is this going to happen?
When are Maltese children going to be given their childhood back?
No wonder they long for the post school bar life. We don’t allow them much fun as schoolchildren, do we? But do we have to go on allowing their life, the lives of mere bambini to be put at risk?
How many children have to die in a school mini van incident where children were not wearing seat-belts before the authorities do something? Do we really need a tragedy and a gory headline to make change happen? Wasn’t this week’s accident enough of a warning?
I didn’t detect any press releases in response so it looks like the only way to be safe is to take your children to school, belted up, if of course you can afford that luxury called time, which so many parents who both work do not really have.
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