Did you play
truant, cheat in homework, lie to parents, disrespect authority, use
profanities, badmouth people, play pranks, skip church, hate the world,
watch pornography, obssess over clothes, indulge in video games, smoke
cigarettes, shoplift, drink alcohol, run away from home?
How were you punished?
Did policemen arrest you at your home? Were your personal items seized? Were you interrogated for 36 hours? Were you imprisoned? Were your hands and feet shackled in chains? Were your personal details exposed in public and your character and family smeared by newspapers and TV?
Or were you a 16-year-old who was a class monitor; who investigated the
meaning of language and films; who nurtured in your mind such strong
opinions about people, society, politics and religion that you couldn't
wait to share them with the world? And that you also decided you will
hold fast to these beliefs, even as the government arrested you,
shackled you in chains, threw you in prison, smeared you and your
family, while a stranger slapped you in public?
What kind of a 16-year-old were you? What kind of judgement will you pass on other 16-year-olds? [By Martyn See, used with permission.]
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