The kids are alright

“We are dis­ap­poin­ted that today’s protests included a sig­ni­fic­ant num­ber of young people play­ing tru­ant from school. We would urge par­ents to work in part­ner­ship with teach­ers and the police in dis­suad­ing young people from car­ry­ing out any fur­ther sim­ilar unor­gan­ised protests” — Sir John Stevens, Met­ro­pol­itan Police Commissioner

Good grief. Is it any won­der that kids today think politi­cians and law-makers in soci­ety are out of touch with their con­cerns? We are con­stantly being told that chil­dren have no interest in polit­ics and soci­ety, yet here they are out on the streets, protest­ing against the war in Iraq, and the best response a senior police officer can come up with is some lame telling-off about play­ing tru­ant. Get with the pro­gram, dad­dio (as I believe the young­sters all say today). Get some per­spect­ive, Mr Stevens, for heaven’s sake! Does miss­ing one day of school really mat­ter all that much, when com­pared to the chance to pas­sion­ately state one’s oppos­i­tion to the war? Here’s a sug­ges­tion — if it makes you feel any bet­ter, think of these demos as the prac­tical ele­ment of a Gen­eral Stud­ies or PSHE les­son. It’s teach­ing them about polit­ics and the world. That’s a good thing, isn’t it?

I’m a cyn­ical thirtyso­mething. While I’m still opposed to the war, I can’t help think­ing in my heart of hearts that, yes, protests can still go on, but it’s very unlikely they’re going to stop any­thing now. The best I find myself hop­ing for is that it’s all over quickly, and that as few inno­cent people as pos­sible get hurt. That’s the prag­matic, world-weary approach.

These school­chil­dren, how­ever, prob­ably neither know nor care what prag­mat­ism is; they may not even be able to spell it. Good for them. They’re wor­ried about the war, they’re fear­ful, they think it’s just plain wrong — and because of all that, they’re enga­ging. Blair should be proud. Any par­ent whose kid is out march­ing should be proud too; I would be. And the next morn­ing, I would pack my child off to school with a note for their teacher, reading:

“I’m afraid that little Billy / Johnny / Melanie / Kylie (delete as applic­able) wasn’t able to attend school yes­ter­day, as he / she was march­ing through the streets of Lon­don protest­ing against the war.”

Oh, and when it comes to those all-important anti-war chants, the kids do them far bet­ter than the grown-ups. Fact.