Friday, January 2, 2009

Gangs of Barrydale

It's school holidays and kids are everywhere. Nice to see kids around, for a change, even nicer considering that kids are restless and first or late they move somewhere else.


I like kids.  Some of them are very nice and not too noisy, they smile and say hello, and off they go. I like them when they play soccer, possibly not in the street, and I don't mind at all when they roam the village.


Unfortunately... there is always an "unfortunately" in life, some of these kids team up and turn into gangs whose primary endeavour is to chase, brutalize and kill any little creature they can lay their hands on.


And they take things seriously, believe me: they throw stones at dogs in people's properties, chase cats with sticks, torture small animals etc. To make it short, whatever these kids catch is dead. 

Last year I saw some of them trespassing into my property for the pleasure of killing a young hadada chick. But what impressed me the most was to see them poking with sticks the nests of the swifts on the river bank. A thorough job, all nests were destroyed.


WHY? 

What's wrong with these kids? How can anybody be so systematically cruel with animals, and specially with swifts, the most tender harmless creatures?


Yes, all right, kids are kids and here and there do things like that, but in all honesty I've never seen such tenacity and zeal. 

This isn't the occasional cruelty of children. It's more than that, I'm afraid.


I wonder how is it possible that parents, teachers, church ministers or just senior members of the community  never cared to do something about. 


How is it possible that nobody understands that if there is no love or respect for nature and all its creatures, there can never be love, respect and understanding for fellow human beings.


I believe this is an issue that should concern us all. Any suggestions?


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The children should be taught respect for everyone and everything, if not at home, at school. With the principals' permission perhaps there is an Afrikaans speaking person in the village who would be prepared to visit the schools on a regular basis and give little talks to the learners about the importance of curbing this destructive urge. This would have to be a special person to get the message across to encourage the youngsters to preserve and care for all living creatures.

Anonymous said...

Seems a very good idea!
Let's find the right person. I've nobody in mind except perhaps Peter Takela (I apologize if the spelling of his name isn't correct).
Anybody knows how to contact him?
Who else?
Thanks for the suggestion
BD

jurgen said...

We have the same problem in our small town.

I think that the problem lies with the way these children are brought up. I dont think that they have been taught to respect one another, to respect other people, peoples property and other creatures. Perhaps they have such problems at home that their lives are just about survival and nothing else ? Perhaps the poor conditions that they live under ( whole families crowded into a small room ) that they are exposed to all sorts of things that they should not be exposed to.

Something needs to be done so that this cycle of abuse does not continue.