[Opinion] Children and Demonstration

One day, a twelve-year-old Palestinian boy Rami Jamal Aldura and his father ran across a group of demonstrators on their way back from a secondhand car shop. Under a shower of bullets by the Israeli army, the father and son crouched against a wall. The boy turned pale with fear and ran to his father. “He is a little boy. Don’t shoot him!”, his father cried. But an unconscious bullet penetrated the boy’s stomach, and he died on the spot. On September 30, 2000, the French channel France 2 aired this terrible scene which raised worldwide shock. The mother of the dead boy mourned bitterly and said, “I’ve expected that this will happen some day….

Every time a conflict with Israel occurs, Palestinian children often attended street rallies with adults. Aldura was one of those children. On that day, Aldura’s mother made him accompany his father to the market in order not to get him involved in a rally. Any conflict around the world may have their own reasons. However, children are not capable of recognizing the confronting viewpoints in balance. It is so natural that they are biased to their own parents’ thought. As time goes by, the increasing conflicts between adults will completely harm their own children. Their kids eventually cannot go to school, neither are they well-protected under safe circumstances.

From some time ago, we can also find our teenagers and children at rallies more and more in Korean society. The nationwide rallies for the death of two Korean school girls last year and the recent protest movements of Puan County against being designated as nuclear dump site are the examples. Every kind of candlelight rally involved children and teenagers without exception. But it is not convincing that those children shouting “U.S. Army’s withdrawal” understand their request correctly with any background knowledge on complicated political-economical angles. Some may say, “Children will learn what democracy is by these activities,” nonetheless, democracy is achieving a mutual agreement from a variety of opinions rather than just persist in one’s own view.

The government announced that it will work for revising regulations with a view to protect children and teenagers against violent demonstrations and rallies. That is quite reasonable. From this measure, I wish that our children will not be abused as a ‘shield’ during the rally. However, the question still remains as to how well the legal controls can be adapted to reality. There are not little obscure elements in defining whether it is legal or illegal. After all, what is more important than law is the thought of adults. Adults should first drop their thoughts on considering the children as a ‘means’ of demonstration. Our children deserve a stay in their own place.

Song Moon-hong, Editorial Writer, songmh@donga.com