No childhood, in the name of God?

 

This text was written in 2009.

Many policies to protect children and adolescents in Europe. What are the results? What's changed? What about the rest of the world? What is the effectiveness and responsibility? What conclusions can be drawn after so many conferences and approaches to it? And has the state of the children changed?

 All children are innocent. Until proven otherwise. They are all born immaculate, whatever that means. And, following European cultural paths, they all survive childhood and adolescence, with this and that problem, with this and that desire, carrying on their backs the weight of the culture of their parents and of the cultural agents close to them. If the religion is Catholic, of course, they will follow in the footsteps of their parents, who, you see, follow in the footsteps of their grandparents, great-grandparents, and so on. 

Cultural heritage is intergenerational, since both and sometimes three generations coexist simultaneously, sharing principles and values, participating individually or collectively in what exists and is given as their own. It is an integral part of society. Many come of age still with throwbacks to Peter Pan or Alice in Wonderland. And we consider this, when excessive, coping strategies that the child-almost-adult has adopted in order to be able to continue to move forward. 

We know of cases, specific or not, unfortunately, of misery and hunger that are contingent on healthy growth, I am referring to the physical and psychological aspects. The cases of sexual abuse within the family, the silence bought by fear and shame, prostitution and the need to stand up alone, in a society that is more or less Catholic, more or less selfish and centered on capitalist and hypocritical values.

Europe is constantly spewing these veneers in the media and, at this time of crisis or economic disruption, such cases are becoming more evident and become "commonplace". Moralism always shouts slogans that, feeding the structure of misery, have no pity on individuals, families or classes. The European child has a committee to look after his rights. This child cannot work, cannot be exploited, cannot be harassed or abused. Our child can play in kindergartens, under the careful eye of their mothers or baby sitters and throw tantrums, asking for this and that. The European child is given what is rightfully theirs. The right to grow up with expectations of the future, with objects of attachment and satisfaction in the present, with photo albums and other soft memories to mark a past of family and affective bonds.

And in the vastness of the world, where there is everything, vultures and swans, buildings and monuments, ex-libris and renowned historical pasts, other people and other cultures, there, in other meridians, where the human body sympathizes in pain and rejuvenates itself in the sunny life of every day, there where we know the geographical location on the world map,  There the children help in the economy, being whipped until they make a wound, creating sacks, making bricks, building houses, picking fruit and opium, crushing seeds and, at the end of the day, giving thanks for the space where they sleep squatting next to each other, left to themselves, orphans of parents and religion, thirsty for childhood and humanity; We are shocked, but they are dying every day, snorting glue, at the hands of whips, of abusers, of child pornography, sometimes dying and sometimes killing so as not to be killed or to appease the anger of adults... Children who one day learned to spell the first letters by imitation and the next, knew the boss who gave them a bowl of water with lentils and saffron and a thin blanket in the middle of bricks where they could rest for 6 hours.

These children have no name, no zip code, no bureaucratic existence, no ties to the state that exploits them, no love or play, never heard of Barbie, Ken or the Wicked Witch. Nor do they know that in other hemispheres there is childhood. They are victims every day as long as they live, of greed. of envy, anger and hatred, of difference and slavery, of culture and religion. They were born in the wrong countries at the wrong times in times of inhumanity and for them, circumstantially, wielding a gun pleasing their superiors is like doing their homework to be able to use the PC in our culture. They grow up begging for hatred. I believe that they are unaware that there are different forms of life. That is life at its most basic. The only one they can have. 

And there is no Red Cross or Médecins Sans Frontières that will make them reborn. They obey the conditions and circumstances created. And we, passive, discordant and moralistic observers, we who only know this side, our discord is worth zero. Because as long as there are children without childhood, we will all be guilty and complicit in this development.