People who use children as a means of delivering a complex, highly politicized, and controversial message are cowards. No one wants to confront a child, and in any case, the child can hardly understand the message being delivered, so any sort of argument is pointless. So for the person using the child, the hope is that the innocence of the child is a shield that will allow the message to be delivered without serious opposition.
Here are two examples of this sort of behaviour. They are different only in a matter of degree. Though many people will be enraged by the comparison I'm about to make, the fact is that is both cases, children are being used as proxies in an attempt to avoid a confrontation that will cause the message to be challenged, and possibly refuted.
Here is the first example. It is very extreme:
The 10-year-old Palestinian boy stopped at an Israeli checkpoint yesterday with a bomb in his backpack. A bomb was discovered with nails and bolts designed to be set off by remote control -- a bomb that would have killed both the boy and Israeli soldiers.
Apparently the boy had been paid by Palestinian terrorists to bring the bag to the border, but had no idea what was inside.
Now an example with far less dire consequences, at least immediately, but nonetheless involving the use of a child who did not understand what she was doing:
Canada has seven-year-old Gillian Wiley, another adorable moppet, who is being promoted by eco-warrier David Suzuki as the star of his "If I Were Prime Minister" campaign.
As part of the campaign, he utilized YouTube to invite prime ministerial postings. "Tell me in 20 seconds or less what you would do," says Mr. Suzuki.
Mr. Suzuki's favourite candidate so far is little Gillian. She delivers the message that if she were living on Sussex Drive, she would make some big changes "so that we don't destroy the planet with fossil fuels and carbon dioxide." She castigates SUVs, wants to stop the tar sands, and tells the camera that "Kyoto is not enough." This Littlest Pigovian wants to "institute a carbon tax right away."
Explaining why she did it, she points out, with admirable candour, that it was because her father had told her that afterward they could work on her cardboard castle. Her Dad, Keith, confesses the obvious: that he wrote her script, but he points out that he did it for her, and we should not doubt his good intentions.
Am I comparing Dr Suzuki** to Palestinian terrorists? Of course, that should be obvious. But only inasmuch as both are using children to deliver a message, knowing full well that children don't understand the message, and with the hope that as children, they are less likely to be confronted.
In the case of the terrorists (the Palestinian ones), Israeli soldiers were just fine with stopping a child and confronting him. Lives were saved, including the child's.
I wonder if anyone is going to do Gillian a favour and confront her, instead of letting Dr Suzuki continue to use her.
David Suzuki is a father. He should know better.
**Peter Foster of the Financial Post seems to make a point of refering to David Suzuki as "Mr Suzuki". Suzuki is a Ph.D., and I don't mind using the honorific.
