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Authors, sign in!Several years ago, I read a book called Children in Danger
As I was reading Three Cups of Tea
It also made me think of our absurd ignorance.
A Republican congressman from California interrupted Mortenson in mid-sentence, challenging him. "Building schools for kids is just fine and dandy," Mortenson remembers the congressman saying. "But our primary need as a nation now is security. Without security, what does all this matter?"In my work in the inner city, I, too, have learned a few things. Much like Mortenson, I have learned that the kids in the inner city aren't any different from other children. They don't grow up wanting to be prostitutes pimped out by their mothers or drug dealers who will spend a lifetime with a felony on their record. They are no more born to be violent than any other child. They do not simply decide to become criminals, hoping to terrorize people.Mortenson took a breath. He felt an ember of the anger he'd carried all the way from Kabul flare. "I don't do what I'm doing to fight terror," Mortenson said, measuring his words, trying not to get himself kicked out of the Capitol. "I do it because I care about kids. Fighting terror is maybe seventh or eighth on my list of priorities. But working over there, I've learned a few things. I've learned that terror doesn't happen because some group of people somewhere like Pakistan or Afghanistan simply decide to hate us. It happens because children aren't being offered a bright enough future that they have a reason to choose life over death.
For the very same reason Mortenson spoke of, those characteristics and acts are results of children with lots of potential not being offered a bright enough future that they have a reason to choose life over prison or death.
Why can't we recognize this??
Published February 8, 2009 by Janet Morrison |
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| Tags:
Afghanistan
Crime
Education
Equality
Pakistan
Terrorism
Violence
War
