Childhood Lost

Would you show your child this picture? Why not? (I'm assuming you said no...) I would really appreciate your opinion on this first question as well as on where I go with it, but essentially I want to know your views on the "sanctity" of childhood. A relatively new concept considering the age of humanity, why do we as a culture feel the need to "protect" our children from the often gritty and violent realities of the world?

Our recent study of children's lit. came to mind this afternoon as I was reading the news. For those not aware the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a warrant for war crimes and crimes against humanity for Sudan president Omar al-Bashir. This is huge. Though it has failed to make many front pages Sudan has been in turmoil and civil war for over 20 years, if you've heard anything about it you've most likely heard of the region of Darfur and the genocide that killed some 400,000 civillians and displaced millions. Essentially it's a mess and the international community has been remarkably silent throughout. But that's politics and politics doesn't interest me. What does concern me is the prevalent use of child soldiers that has escalated in the later and more recent stages of the conflict. It's a long story that I won't get into here, if you're interested in this subject I would recommend you look into it. (A good place to start would be an organization called Invisible Children, which provides the story of the displaced and abducted children forced into military work for a rebel militia in Sudan that opposes the government in the civil war).

Ok long story short that picture was drawn by a rescued child soldier during the rehabilitation process. There are tons of various drawings along this line that are recurrent among those involved in the conflict. These are just their doodles, this is their normal. They have only known violence and war. These children (most somewhere between 7-15) have killed, raped, and burned entire villages, sometimes even their own families. I don't know if I have a central idea that binds this together, I thought it was interesting how we were concerned about the content reaching our own children (or potential children in the future) yet these kids were denied their "normalcy" and will likely be unable to be rehabilitated into a functional role in society. Basically it pisses me off and I want to hear what you have to say about it.