Our Children, Our Own Flesh and Blood: Security Men and Mothers Must Work Together to Keep Their Children Safe

Security men suffer from a social and professional problem: the public's failure to respond to them in the enforcement of laws and regulations. This estrangement between the people and the security men has been treated for the first time by Lieutenant Colonel Youssef Harakeh in a book soon to appear in Arabic among the publications of the Dar al-Hayat bookshop. The Woman's Voice magazine wished to obtain an important chapter of this book, dealing with the treatment of juveniles, their supervision, and the straightening of their crooked ways by the men of the security forces.

Sons walk in the footsteps of fathers, and the young imitate what they see of the deeds of their elders. When our children grow up far from the security man, knowing nothing of his duties, seeing nothing but the yellow uniform he wears, which strikes dread and fear into their souls, the bonds between the two sides remain missing.

It is self-evident that whatever frightens is hated; and so the security man, if he is remote from children, becomes a frightening and hated symbol, and children grow up bearing him a grudge. It is therefore necessary that our children grow up acquainted with the duties imposed upon security men and the work they do to preserve public safety—and their own safety in particular, since children do not understand the means of self-protection or how to avoid the accidents that bring harm.

It is the duty of the security men, who perform many tasks to safeguard the lives of juveniles and preserve their safety, to make them appreciate their work and to win their love and respect from their tenderest years.

The child of today is the one who realizes that the security man is he who helps children across the streets and wards off from them the harm of the reckless driver; it is he who preserves the safety of roads and communications, and prevents thieves, vagabonds, and criminals from carrying out deeds that injure the public safety.

Children must know that the security man is a good citizen who spends great efforts for their happiness and comfort, and that when he is the head of a family, that family endures much deprivation for the sake of defending their safety. How many a time, on many a holiday, the children of a security man cannot see their father's face, because he is away preserving the comfort of other children.

The security man is much exposed to sacrificing his comfort, his happiness, and his very life for the sake of others. Sure, pure love and sincere affection—these we must win from the hearts of these young ones, hearts that know nothing but faithfulness in affection and fellowship.

The children of today are the young men of tomorrow; they grow up to love us and to lighten our troubles in the future, through spontaneous compliance with what the laws and regulations require.

The preservation of society's safety and progress requires that children obey the laws and regulations through our training of them and our watching over their conduct, so that from the very beginning of their lives they submit to what the rules of public safety demand: walking on the sidewalks; crossing the streets only at the marked crossings; never cutting across any road between the rows of cars, lest they be struck by passing cars whose drivers do not see them; and then giving full attention to right and to left before setting out to cross any street or crossroads.

The rules of safety likewise require of children that they not run to catch a moving tramcar, or cling to it, or hang from the back of a truck; that they not play in the streets and roads, nor run after a football that has fallen outside the wall of the school playground before making sure the road is clear. And it is for the responsible security men, men of living conscience, to watch over all such conduct on the children's part and to help them know and apply these necessary rules.

It is worth pointing out the very great importance of watching over children when they ride bicycles: requiring them to ride in a straight line, leaving room for the cars to continue on their way; to use the bell and the hand signal when going round a bend; not to ride two or three abreast in the middle of the street, so as to avoid a sudden collision; and not to leave their bicycles standing in a place where stopping is forbidden. Once juveniles grasp these rules and apply them, they will submit to them when they become men driving motorcars.

I do not say that security men should be sent into the schools to teach the children these rules—that is the affair of advancing time, which will oblige us to teach our children in the schools the rules of safety, the traffic regulations, and all the duties of the security men. But I would point out that the issuing of monthly bulletins, or a small booklet, and brief messages written in large, easily read letters, containing pictures and drawings, distributed from time to time and issued free of charge by the responsible security departments to boys and children to guide and direct them—all this yields the best of results.

How grievous the error would be if the security men neglected to watch over the children and to correct their wayward conduct in the streets...

A single mother who sees her son off to school in the morning, only to find him a short while later in one of the hospitals, is enough to fix in the hearts of other mothers an ugly, disfigured picture of the security men...

And there is nothing to prevent the security men from encouraging the summer clubs—scouting and athletic—and assisting them, indeed watching over their growth and flourishing, all for the sake of cementing good relations with the young.

It is settled in the science of psychology that if a child grows up with a warped inclination or an abnormal feeling, it settles in his soul until he comes of age.

So if our children grow up with hatred of the security men in their souls from their first years of childhood, the sediment of hatred settles within them and strengthens their bad impressions, and they incline of themselves toward the committing of crimes.

Let us draw near to the young, if we wish to hunt out crime by its roots; and let us make the children understand that he who used to frighten them—his day is done, and he has been shut up in the zoo....