Post by Abu 'Ata on Feb 18, 2007 2:35:18 GMT -5
Unicef report: The harsh lessons of Capitalism, money can't buy you love
The well-being of children
By Yahya Nisbett
Quality of life for children is not a complicated matter, they are either happy or they are not. Given the right amount of love, children will thrive, whether poor or otherwise, as material measures of happiness have not yet fully gripped their young personalities. However, in modern Britain, where childhood is over so quickly as children are increasingly exposed to adult culture, insecurities about identity and self-image are rife. Insecure youngsters are extremely susceptible to pressure to conform and so they adopt a highly individualistic and materialistic attitude towards their happiness.
With the current popular culture being 'street-culture' where every girl and boy admires the gangster lifestyle, conforming to the norm is becoming more and more miserable and dangerous for our youth. Hurling insults and threats at 'friends' is such a normal way of interacting for a thirteen year old, as any teacher can testify. What used to be the behaviour of the bully is now so common that nearly every child is subject to some belittling and psychological undermining. The only recourse for most children is to reply in kind and so our children's society further moves itself from affection to hostility. Amongst the more extreme examples of this culture might be the recent spate of shootings involving youth in south London.
Such pressures on children are hardly conducive to encouraging a happy life, so it comes as little surprise to read that British children feel unhappy and neglected more than any in other Western developed country today.
Overall, youngsters in the UK were more likely to feel left out, awkward and lonely, than nearly all their peers in other developed countries, the report said. Less than half of Britain's 11-15-year-olds said they found their peers " kind and helpful". The UK had the second highest number of children living in single-parent families or with step-parents. Less than two-thirds of British families said they ate together regularly. The UK easily outstripped all other countries when it came to bad and risky behaviour. British children were more likely to have been drunk or had sex than those of any other country. The UK also had the second highest teenage fertility rate. British teenagers were much more likely to be involved in a fight in the past 12 months than other nationalities and more likely to have been bullied.
Many children's films narrate the sad story of how a child of rich parents is sad and lonely even though he or she has all the toys money can buy, but is lacking the only important thing, which is parental affection. Even the toughest of people's hearts are softened by children, which is why it hurts to see them suffer. That pain is only multiplied when one considers the extent of misery and neglect, such that it almost has become an institution. Films such as Mad Max and Blade Runner imagined a future world of selfish individuals with no concern for each other. At the current rate of destruction these futuristic fantasies appear increasingly realistic possibilities if the neglect of the next generation is continued.
As a Muslim community, we are already starting to act to protect our children from such negativity. While young people's personalities are so impressionable, we are discouraging too much television, being selective about what media images they are exposed to, carefully choosing schools whose ethos reflects, as much as possible, family and Islamic values. We are becoming aware of the need to spend time with our children, showing them plenty of love, teaching them to be secure in their identity as Muslims and confident citizens. No longer can we afford to leave the TV to raise them, just sending them to daily Qur'an memorisation, then wondering why they grow up so confused.
Many non-Muslims too share our concern for the wellbeing of the young. Increasingly people are seeking to avoid the harms that the individualistic, secular consumer society is subjecting all our children to. It is just part of our human nature and many of us dread the thought of a future populated by adults having such damaged childhoods.
Our Prophet (saw) taught us to be compassionate with children. Anas bin Malik (may Allah be pleased with him) recalled: "I never saw anyone who was more compassionate towards children than Allah's Messenger. His son Ibrahim was in the care of a wet nurse in the hills around Madinah. He would go there, and we would go with him, and he would enter the house, pick up his son and kiss him, then come back." Hence Muslims feel a natural responsibility to care for all of the world's children. It is not out of gloating at the failure of Britain to look after its children, nor shallow resentment for all things western that we address this matter; rather it is out of a genuine belief that Allah did not neglect the children of His creation but gave them a complete way of life to help avoid, as much as possible, such systematic unhappiness.
In the Muslim world people see that Western societies have many such problems. People there genuinely fear that globalisation and the encroachment of liberalism in their own societies will also bear such fruits. That is why people do not want this kind of society. That is why, although people want an end to their many problems of poverty and poor education, they do not wish to replace them with other, more destructive problems such as these. It is our belief that Islam organises society in a way that minimises the root causes of such failures and so doing builds a productive society with a genuinely happy population.
Our challenge, in Britain in our families and community, and in the Muslim world through the re-establishment of a genuinely Islamic society, is to be an example and a hope for the sake of all children, who are victims of a system that has maximised individualism and neglect.
UNICEF CHILDRENS REPORT – UK scorecard
* UK child poverty has doubled since 1979
* 16.2% of British children live below the poverty line
* 35.8% have been bullied in the past two months * 35.3% of 15 year olds aspire to low-skilled work * 30.8% of young people have been drunk two or more times
* 43% Children rate their peers as "kind and helpful"
* On child well-being, UK came last out of 21 advanced nations * “There is a crisis at the heart of our society”
Prof Aynsley-Green, UK children's commissioner
The well-being of children
By Yahya Nisbett
Quality of life for children is not a complicated matter, they are either happy or they are not. Given the right amount of love, children will thrive, whether poor or otherwise, as material measures of happiness have not yet fully gripped their young personalities. However, in modern Britain, where childhood is over so quickly as children are increasingly exposed to adult culture, insecurities about identity and self-image are rife. Insecure youngsters are extremely susceptible to pressure to conform and so they adopt a highly individualistic and materialistic attitude towards their happiness.
With the current popular culture being 'street-culture' where every girl and boy admires the gangster lifestyle, conforming to the norm is becoming more and more miserable and dangerous for our youth. Hurling insults and threats at 'friends' is such a normal way of interacting for a thirteen year old, as any teacher can testify. What used to be the behaviour of the bully is now so common that nearly every child is subject to some belittling and psychological undermining. The only recourse for most children is to reply in kind and so our children's society further moves itself from affection to hostility. Amongst the more extreme examples of this culture might be the recent spate of shootings involving youth in south London.
Such pressures on children are hardly conducive to encouraging a happy life, so it comes as little surprise to read that British children feel unhappy and neglected more than any in other Western developed country today.
Overall, youngsters in the UK were more likely to feel left out, awkward and lonely, than nearly all their peers in other developed countries, the report said. Less than half of Britain's 11-15-year-olds said they found their peers " kind and helpful". The UK had the second highest number of children living in single-parent families or with step-parents. Less than two-thirds of British families said they ate together regularly. The UK easily outstripped all other countries when it came to bad and risky behaviour. British children were more likely to have been drunk or had sex than those of any other country. The UK also had the second highest teenage fertility rate. British teenagers were much more likely to be involved in a fight in the past 12 months than other nationalities and more likely to have been bullied.
Many children's films narrate the sad story of how a child of rich parents is sad and lonely even though he or she has all the toys money can buy, but is lacking the only important thing, which is parental affection. Even the toughest of people's hearts are softened by children, which is why it hurts to see them suffer. That pain is only multiplied when one considers the extent of misery and neglect, such that it almost has become an institution. Films such as Mad Max and Blade Runner imagined a future world of selfish individuals with no concern for each other. At the current rate of destruction these futuristic fantasies appear increasingly realistic possibilities if the neglect of the next generation is continued.
As a Muslim community, we are already starting to act to protect our children from such negativity. While young people's personalities are so impressionable, we are discouraging too much television, being selective about what media images they are exposed to, carefully choosing schools whose ethos reflects, as much as possible, family and Islamic values. We are becoming aware of the need to spend time with our children, showing them plenty of love, teaching them to be secure in their identity as Muslims and confident citizens. No longer can we afford to leave the TV to raise them, just sending them to daily Qur'an memorisation, then wondering why they grow up so confused.
Many non-Muslims too share our concern for the wellbeing of the young. Increasingly people are seeking to avoid the harms that the individualistic, secular consumer society is subjecting all our children to. It is just part of our human nature and many of us dread the thought of a future populated by adults having such damaged childhoods.
Our Prophet (saw) taught us to be compassionate with children. Anas bin Malik (may Allah be pleased with him) recalled: "I never saw anyone who was more compassionate towards children than Allah's Messenger. His son Ibrahim was in the care of a wet nurse in the hills around Madinah. He would go there, and we would go with him, and he would enter the house, pick up his son and kiss him, then come back." Hence Muslims feel a natural responsibility to care for all of the world's children. It is not out of gloating at the failure of Britain to look after its children, nor shallow resentment for all things western that we address this matter; rather it is out of a genuine belief that Allah did not neglect the children of His creation but gave them a complete way of life to help avoid, as much as possible, such systematic unhappiness.
In the Muslim world people see that Western societies have many such problems. People there genuinely fear that globalisation and the encroachment of liberalism in their own societies will also bear such fruits. That is why people do not want this kind of society. That is why, although people want an end to their many problems of poverty and poor education, they do not wish to replace them with other, more destructive problems such as these. It is our belief that Islam organises society in a way that minimises the root causes of such failures and so doing builds a productive society with a genuinely happy population.
Our challenge, in Britain in our families and community, and in the Muslim world through the re-establishment of a genuinely Islamic society, is to be an example and a hope for the sake of all children, who are victims of a system that has maximised individualism and neglect.
UNICEF CHILDRENS REPORT – UK scorecard
* UK child poverty has doubled since 1979
* 16.2% of British children live below the poverty line
* 35.8% have been bullied in the past two months * 35.3% of 15 year olds aspire to low-skilled work * 30.8% of young people have been drunk two or more times
* 43% Children rate their peers as "kind and helpful"
* On child well-being, UK came last out of 21 advanced nations * “There is a crisis at the heart of our society”
Prof Aynsley-Green, UK children's commissioner