Several days ago, a bill was introduced to the ?Parliament in the United Kingdom that called for teachers and ?educators to monitor toddlers for evidence of ?terrorist tendencies.
I know, I had to read that a few times as well. It’s a little hard to believe its ?legitimacy. But it is true.
Currently, there is a bill in the works that desires to “make sure that staff have training that gives them the knowledge and confidence to ?identify children at risk of being drawn into terrorism and challenge extremist ideas which can be used to legitimize terrorism and are shared by terrorist groups.”
My first of many ?questions asks what terrorist tendencies in toddlers would?actually look like.
I imagine some impressionable toddler who has become disillusioned with the system.
Who, for lack of ?opportunity, was drawn to extremist ideas that gave this toddler’s life a purpose in an otherwise purposeless world.
It’s absurd and completely impossible to ?enforce, or even conceive a method of enforcing, in any ?manner.
If the criteria for labeling ?toddlers were finding ?antagonistic attitudes, then almost every toddler ever born would have to be considered a ?terrorist.
Toddlers are difficult to deal with sometimes, but I never imagined that one’s poor attitude could be an indicator of terrorist ?leanings.
This is once again just another symptom of the modern-day fear of ?terrorism.
Some fears are more reasonable than others. That is why we have the Transport Securiy Administration in airports, because of fear of another crippling attack.
These policies seek to minimize the risk of another terrorist attack as much as possible. But the policy mentioned above is unreasonable because it seeks to control the things that ?cannot fully be controlled.
Of course, it would be nice if we could put a baby on the Conveyor Belt of Life and add all these pleasant and harmless things and hope that a good, productive citizen pops out on the other end.
But we can’t, because that’s not how growing up happens.
You can expose kids to all the right ideas. You can even make sure they don’t watch ?dulling television shows or play ?violent video games and roll them around in hermetically-sealed plastic hamster balls.
They may still not turn out to be the people their parents wanted them to be. That doesn’t mean that they will turn out to be ?terrorism-prone.
There is no duality of ‘good person’ — ‘terrorist.’
The group definitions themselves are vague and fluid as well.
How exactly do we ?define a ‘good person?’ And, for that matter, how are we defining ‘terrorist?’
The anarchists of the early 20th century could easily be defined as ?terrorists but they are often looked upon as better than modern-day terrorists.
In fact, some are celebrated in films such as “V for Vendetta.” Attempting to control the uncontrollable is ?foolish.
And anyone trying it is only doomed for failure. This policy is no ?exception.
allenjo@indiana.edu
