Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by this author are their own and do not represent the official position of the Barbados Today.
Scotland has given a thistle sting to Britain’s four-nation union by becoming the first to outlaw corporal punishment to its children in all settings.
This means children in Scotland now have the same legal protection from assault as adults, and the country recognizes that corporal punishment is assault and NOT discipline.
Nobel Laureate, Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), the writing genius, once wrote: “to discipline means to teach, not to punish”.
When outlawing corporal punishment in Bangladesh in 2011, High Court Justices Md. Imman Ali and Md. Sheikh Hasan Arif declared corporal punishment to be “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and a clear violation of a child’s fundamental right to life, liberty and freedom”.
Most countries would advance rapidly – and in supersonic speed – if the ‘teachers’ who practiced corporal punishment on children in schools and madrassas were to read, learn, and apply the knowledge given by Tagore, Ali and Arif.
Good teachers who stay quiet and do not stop rogue ‘teachers’ from assaulting children bring no glory or honour to their profession and are unwittingly complicit in the unlawful action and moral wrongdoing. ]
Irish statesman Edmund Burke (1729-1797) summed it up when he said: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good mento do nothing”.
The ignorance of many ‘teachers’ on the national payroll is the nation’s greatest modern day enemy to its future and prosperity.
Sometimes being an honourable and decent person is not enough. It’s time for good teachers to speak out, act, and help correct the faults of their law-breaking wayward colleagues.
The fact the rogue ‘teacher’ has a wife, five children, a cat and two dogs to feed should be of no consideration whatsoever. He or she happens to be in the wrong profession and is causing serious damage to the nation’s most vital assets. Such ‘teachers’ need to change their ways or be made to seek alternative employment.
To many school children, the COVID-19 epidemic has come as a blessing. Not only has it given them an extended school holiday to play with their friends, but also it has distanced them from the ‘teachers’ and Imams who made their life miserable and hell on earth.
Scotland has become the 60th country to offer such support to their greatest asset.
One can’t help but wonder why the entire world cannot see that corporal punishment is wrong in the eyes of man and God and collectively make the necessary change overnight.
Children are the most valuable assets of every nation and should never be beaten. Since it is a scientifically proven fact that corporal punishment serves no good whatsoever, it just doesn’t make sense.
Besides, the majority of people deem their children to be a ‘gift from God’. Why would anyone in his or her right mind, therefore, abuse such a precious gift or allow anyone else to do so?
Sir Frank Peters is a former newspaper and magazine publisher and editor, a royal goodwill ambassador and humanitarian.
