Manning: Kids not so innocent

Prime Minister Patrick Manning lamented that youngsters are not as innocent as they might once have been, addressing a conference on family life held by the National Muslim Women’s Organisation at Queen’s Hall on Tuesday. Noting that we live in a changing world, he said changes could be positive or negative, and that there were some changes we could do without. Manning said: “Perhaps hardly anywhere else is the negative fallout from rapid change more apparent than in respect of the changing values among our young people...It is not my intention to discuss such changes at this time. Suffice it to say however that as a global trend the age of innocence of our young people keeps going down. What children are prepared to do and say, indeed what they are prepared to practice often seem and prove to be of a far more worrisome nature than in times past. “Our children are today far more exposed and there can be no doubt that the negative competing influences beckoning them are far greater in number and intensity.”

Noting that our challenge was to offer children positive options that were just as compelling as the negative, Manning said: “The State cannot do it alone. The State, the family and the community all have important roles to perform. This is a collective responsibility.” He earlier noted that Islam emphasised the brotherhood of man without marks of social distinction and that the Holy Qur’an admonished that we be promoters of peace. Manning congratulated the organisers of the event which he hailed as a demonstration of the power and potential of our womenfolk.