Quentin Bryce鈥檚 blonde hair gently falls back into sprayed place as it billows in the breeze. She smiles for the media after swearing in Gillard鈥檚 third ministry.
My hair stuck to my forehead after a sweaty lunchtime bout of boxing. I looked like a Beatle. It was a nondescript day for me. Neither here, neither there.
My eldest son, seven years lod, sat in his classroom listening to his teacher, knowing he would go home to his mother, to food, to safety, to love.
Another small child of the same age, plus nearly 50 others were rescued from chains in a darkened basement in a Pakistani madrassa, left without food, and beaten. Beaten for 鈥榖eing out of control鈥�, rehabilitation for drug addiction that may or may not be true.
Children and teenagers sent by parents who can ill afford education, but believe their children are receiving religious studies. Learning not of higher prophecies, rather the lowest of acts. Acts compounded by propaganda. A garden of hate.
Propaganda through these unregistered 鈥榮chools鈥� is enough for me to stare into the brown eyes on the screen and wish that those boys grow up without hatred and wishes of extremist proportions. They belong in the same world as my boys.Gillard鈥檚 new ministry had the privilege of education and freedom, growing into the people they are today. Policy issues aside, we are a safe country.
Halfway across the world, I wonder what goes through people鈥檚 minds sending their children away, locking them up, mistreating them and then expecting them to be upstanding citizens. Ignorance is still a crime.
It just doesn鈥檛 make sense, the inequity in life disturbs me. How do children grow in this environment? They are our next leaders. Noble or demonic, they are next in line. The darkness that grows in extremist minds doesn鈥檛 blossom into anything. Instead it bleeds onto the ground when it is expelled.
