My method of talking is not twisted. I am straight to the point. So, I want my title to be. I am very much astonished to the core after reading this article day before yesterday. I read it in the newspaper. I am not sure if I am shocked because of the news or because it was published in the paper. That paper is read by many people. Many people with read it.
The news briefly stated how a child named Osman Gani died due to his neighbor beating him up as he threw his neighbor's son's football on another person's roof while playing. The heading of the news read, 'Kicking a football is no crime.'
When I stumbled upon the news, I was curious as to what could have happened but when I read, I could not bear it anymore. Football is a widely accepted sport by all age people, starting from children to adults to aged people. So how could it be that a child was beaten up to death because of him playing with a ball of the neighbor's son and throwing it on another roof by mistake? What is this behavior called or what is the news about? It took me hours to comprehend.
Yet, I am in no state to understand it any further than what meets the eye. Later, I tried writing on Google, "child beaten to death" and what I saw was harder for my eyes to handle. I am shocked to death. I am in a rage and there is nothing I can do about it. There is plenty of news out there where children are abused even now. Even now, in 2023, children are being abused. For what? Are they abused because they play?
How can a child be abused because he/she is wanting to play? Is it, not their place to play and have fun? Questions and questions are queueing in my mind. Last year I remember writing a post about the widespread of football and the much happy I was about it. I am not happy anymore. It took a year for me to realize yet again that we are backdated. Not only Bangladeshis but all the other nations too.
It is about cultural practices. I will blame culture because even after being so much knowledgeable still, we are behaving like illiterate. So, we stand nowhere. We stand in no place to preach about technology, science, etc matters when we cannot secure our children. Our children are our youth. Those who will take on our norms and spread them.
Ironically, such bad examples are being set by us adults to welcome our children. In 2023, this is not expected. My reason for blaming culture is that culture binds one person to another and culture makes adult practice that we can be downright harsh to our children. Culture promotes that parents or guardians are equivalent to God. The culture encourages elders to be strict and oblivion to the truth.
This is a very sad story that in 2023, we are backdated. In 2023, children are getting abused in playgrounds, houses, schools, and in many more places. Which part of being human falls under beating up a child? Even thinking about it is making my head boil. I am disappointed badly.
Just last year, it was just last year that throughout the world we were cheering and being happy for the Football World Cup 2022 and here we are now, tarnishing our own enjoyment. If I take, that instead of the ball falling on another's rooftop, the ball could have hit a moving car, the ball could have broken the glass of a building, the ball could have hit a man walking on the street, it could have been anything. So, is that more horrible than taking a life? Not to forget that the boys were playing and it was all a mistake for the ball to be flying on another's rooftop.
Osman was just a 15-year-old teenager. His life had just begun. Now, he is no more. To whom is this fair? Is it fair for any children to play football anymore? Is it fair for any Bangladeshis to support football anymore? Is it fair for any human being to enjoy football anymore? Osman deserved a better life than what he was forced into. It was not fair, it is not fair for anyone to be killed for such irrational measures. Such irrational factors cannot drive our minds. How can we call ourselves adults?