As I begin to round up permit me to make the following further observation of the doctrine of silent treatment:

1. It is very common in our continent. It appears to be the way we have accepted to deal with the most sensitive issues of our life. Therefore it has become the natural order. It is a doctrine, we must deliberately work against if we must defeat all the scenarios of the doctrine shared above.

2. The Doctrine of Silent Treatment will never be in the best interest of our children and other children. It will only do more harm to children.

3. The Doctrine of Silent Treatment must never be embraced as an option in handling child protection issues. We must always fight decently, consistently, contentiously and knowledgeably to prevent and remedy abuse of our children. Our cardinal principle in doing the foregoing must be the best interest of our children. We must not be selfish by looking out for our children alone. It must also be our cardinal principle that ‘injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,’ as Martin Luther King Junior said. In this case, we must accept that injury to one child is an injury to all. Therefore if anything negative happens to your child in a school, the best option will not be to silently remove your child from the school. I think the most decently and selfless option is to bring the issue to the attention of the appropriate authority in the school. Give them the opportunity to address the issue. If they prove incompetent, then you may remove your child as the last option, but you may also need to go a step further to sensitize other parents on the issues as a way of forcing the school to sit up to its responsibilities. The question must always be what explanation would I give to my conscience and posterity, if I do not speak up to a revealed injustice to my child, which may spread to other children as a result of my cowardly and selfish submission to the passive doctrine of silence treatment? If we develop the habit of submitting to the doctrine of silent treatment, we only empower evil and when evil is empowered, it festers and when it festers, it become a big untamable octopus to whom all of us become cheap preys.

According to Franz Fanon “Every onlooker is either a coward or traitor.”  Permit me to share copiously, the deep philosophy of one of the greatest human being living, who when he was being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986 was called a “messenger to mankind.” Elie Wiesel submits against the doctrine of silent treatment: “The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.”  He further states, “There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” He concludes, “We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”

Permit me to conclude this sobering piece with the instructive words of  Martin Niemöller, when most of the German elites would not challenge the madness of Hitler, which later led to a pogrom, to which close to 70 million people were slaughtered, representing 2.5 percent of the population of the entire world at that time. Niemöller submitted, “First they came for the socialists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist/ Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist/ Then they came for the Jews and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew/ Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.

Thank you for visiting…Think the CHILD…Think TODAY…Think the FUTURE…

Note: Excerpted from my forthcoming book: ChildProtectionCREED Handbook. Watch out…