Blog: Diagnosis of Aggressiveness of Youth

Schools, parents, the elders of our society, the police, authorities responsible for correctional centres, Child Development Units, family planning institutions are all paralyzed by the kmlm behaviour of young people. It is said that the female population in schools in Form II and Form III has been contagiously affected by the liberty effects of violence and aggressiveness.

It is not important to know what actions to take before we have understood the motives of the children's behaviour. Let us start with girls. Their total lack of self responsibility, the vulgarity of their expressions, their obsession with sex, their fascination for male companionship, their passion for cosmetics and all the tinsel fineries of a sophisticated upper class bourgeoisie which lays heavy emphasis on external appearance, their too early exposure to and practice of sexual activities – all these bespeak the relations influence of a wrong education which has taught of equality of opportunities but forgotten to make women realize that each one makes her status.

The absence of a moral awareness is the natural consequence of an upbringing which favours convenience at the experience of conscience. The girl is taught to grow by doing things and being successful in having them done without caring for their moral significance. At home these girls have grown up without any responsibility because their caring parents have thought their studies should occupy their whole life so that they may emerge successful out of poverty. They have made the worst blunders of their life because one home teacher that gave them upbringing was one that exposed the child to verbal abuse, aggressive responses, sexual promiscuity of parents who spare their haven from others with curtains. Children have been witnesses of sexual acts committed by seniors in the house. Some brothers have brought pornographic films which they have shared with sisters. The female population today has lost the virginal innocence associated with the girl of the romantic myth. Just make a sentence with ambiguous undertunes. Girls are first to extract the sexual references and will giggle before the meaning dawns on boys. We have a female population that has an innovative sense of liberation and their rights. Those who are mature know where to cover the lid but the immature ones give way to the call of their senses and are trapped by a member of older men who are taking advantage of these immature girls avid for transient pleasures, knick-knacks, perfumes, trendy clothes, easy cash. It is known that in certain State Secondary Schools lesbianism is current. Prostitution is rife in schools and people like bouncers of casinos have been able to enter the roost and lure the weaker girls. School leaders are unaware of this new phenomenon characterizing their students' behaviour till they hear of the escapade of one who disappears from home for a few days.

This is not the just a culture change. It is not the expression of a desire to have girls with the demure appearance of the sixties. There is a turbulence that shows a degradation that our parents cannot stop. Listen to the cries of these parents who beg that the kidnapper gives back the daughter as long as she is safe, sound and alive. Parents are the first victims of this upheaval.

Boys create gangs and they delight in violence, the language of the house. Smoking, drug addiction are another means of escape. Many boys take their drinks together with father and mother who are sundowners. In fact it is the arrogant father who has not taught his child to be respectful towards elders who is responsible for the mayhem created by young delinquents. The conceited young man who flouts authority can go to the extent of slapping his father, punishing his mother for what he cannot afford. These parents forget to set the limbs to giving. A child cannot have all if parents cannot afford all. I have found children having more than they deserve, squandering what they do not need while parents choose to live in indigence. Are children treated to learn to deserve what they get? No? They seem to obtain all they ask for by right. These brats live beyond their means and have not learnt to set constraints on their wants. They would prefer to contract a debt to buy a computer rather than accept to use the school hardware because they cannot afford it. These poor parents are forced by their greedy children to buy sophisticated mobiles so that they may feel at par with their more fortunate school mates. What are we, parents, teaching this generation? We are teaching them to kill for Rs 25. We teach them to snatch what they cannot obtain by their act means have we taught them restraint, simplicity, humility? To stay without what you cannot afford is not a shame, but humility.

Another major weakness we have found in our youth is their impatience. They need to have everything fast. Waiting for one's turn is another sign of simplicity. And they lack it. There are certain values that poverty creates and that we must cultivate in wealth. Having everything for the asking makes the gift become trivial, effort a useless strain, the pleasures of receiving a rare emotion. In fact the strengthening of the middle class in the 80's set certain standards that have not been abandoned in times of fast change. Every adolescent must realize that he/she has to deserve what is obtained. It is this realization that is absent, and therefore, there is an absence of gratitude in the youth.

Many elders have become victims of the plagues of society. Greed, corruption, immorality are present in the daily lives of many senior members of our society. Our young people are first of all produces of the home and later receive influences from outside. Our houses are rotten places where the child grows unsafe, insecure, with violence and aggressiveness, learns drinking habits and sexual abuse. There are houses where girls witness their mother's adultery, where fathers bring mistress at home. This society has fast become a world of hedonistic pleasure seekers.

It is astounding to hear teachers asking for the resumption of corporal punishment. We are being asked to give headteachers, Rectors, teachers the permission to punish children. We should make laws about the number of strikes corresponding to the nature of the offence. We should specify the degree of punishment to be applied when striking the offender of a teacher. We know that some will find in corporal punishment a means to express their vengeance against the child or the child may simply become a surrogate for the punisher's fantasy. Some pupils will get hurt and this will have to be accepted as the collateral damage of punishment that is legally permissible. Who will decide all this? The State Law Office? The association of Rectors, who will look like a congregation of butchers determining conditions of slaughter. How about the trauma corporal punishment can create? Such a punishment fits a docile society, sheepish and obedient, aware of limits of freedom and the extent to which they can express their disagreement with elders. Today such a democratic line does not exist. The young person feels he is equal to his senior. All have the habit of using a language of authority even towards elders. Have teachers thought of the retardation pupils will seek to settle scores with the punisher/the teacher who is vested without authority of the school is powerful within the school compound – not in the streets. The street gangs will seek amounts for the humiliation their member has undergone. Soon you will find knife stuff, molotov explosions in the streets because of the violence permitted at school. No! there has to be a better means of rehabiliting these delinquents. The road is long and that because it has taken years to corrupt the child. It will take years to make him realize the wrong he is doing to himself.

The school of Bunwaree has failed to eradicate absenteeism inspite of his much vauted sms. He has failed to bring discipline into his schools in spite of multiple committees that have sat to solve this problem. A certain number of the Ministry was given the responsibility of producing a paper on violence reduction in schools. After two years this paper is still in the making of a solution to problems relating to the child cannot be found by persons who are themselves cut off from realities.

Violence is tearing oneself from nature or fearing another against nature's law. We need to look at our institutions and understand that we are all living like animals chasing carrots tied to our tails. We are torn away from our real selves because we are constantly facing ourselves to overtake norms. We are not realizing how alienating our teaching is, how our teachers are teaching what they themselves cannot understand and therefore cannot transmit to children, that our school leaders are drunk with power that makes them think of themselves as stalwarts, and that they are miles away from the consciousness, thinking process of our children.

A hundred proposals can be made to eliminate violence. Have we looked at our political works to see how much violence they feed on, how much aggressiveness makes every act they perform while their political discourse flourishes with words of peace as blessings. Do you think the child does not grow up in the violence we are daily giving birth to thinking we are working for their welfare?

Weakness of character is an indicator of the unpreparedness of the human for life. Character building is not just the home task, but also that of the school. Our schools have no character and, therefore, cannot shape character. The Ministry of Education has not reflected depth on its genuine role. It is concerned with patching up, bridging gaps.

It is also time that we cannot expect too much from state institutions. Possibly the Mauritian has to think of investing in new institutions, managed kjerfjk, where the child is kept in a unit for admission, attended to because he is a child of our Mauritius, not another person's ward, where the teacher is not a bureaucratic, but a caring sharer. We must now think otherwise, not in the same groove which will lead us from frustration to frustration.