By Dr. Andreas Onoufriou *
"Better than ever"
This was the motto of the senior students of Paralimni High School. What followed was what I saw on social media, smoky flares, and chickens and other animals walking in terror. In the videos I saw (Famagusta News) no student seemed shocked, they were holding their cell phones and some voices were saying "Jesus", "Oh my God".
I am a teacher and I wonder: If this is really a custom, as I read, and it has been done in recent years in this Lyceum, to what extent do we do prevention programs in schools for delinquency, violence, verbal and physical bullying.
When the performance of Italian director Romeo Castellucci ended in Nicosia in 2019, because a horse appeared on stage, Castellucci wrote a letter in which he spoke about the sanctuary, coexistence with animals and the idea that as living beings we share the same destiny. As we are hosted on earth, so are they, as we will die. I quote an excerpt from the letter:
"There is a form of hospitality that claims the possibility of real coexistence with our neighbors, the animals. That claims for them a state of life from which they have been eliminated… It is the resumption of a meditative attitude towards animals and their mysterious stay and survival ".
To what extent do we teach children the above view? Through what educational processes and policies do we teach the view that we are not superior to animals and do not decide on them but coexist with them. I met students who respect and love animals, but also many who only want expensive "breed" pets and not from a shelter, who will probably later leave or give them to their grandmother to take care of them at best. I also met schoolgirls who did not want to eat meat and others saw them as aliens because they disagreed with the way animals are killed and the reckless use and waste of animals but also others who are hunters and believe that rabbits, chickens and pigs are raised for to slaughter them and eat them. The same students who on Swan Thursday may have brought vines to the skewer and sieftalia festival that I wonder is still allowed.
In many final graduation speeches (when they were still taking place, before the bats were sacrificed in Wuhan), a mother would say with a sigh, "Our children are our eyes, they are the future, we look after them like the apple of our eye, and we hand them over to Cypriot society." ». I wonder: Do we see the same things? Who is the pupil of the eye, who is the mirror? The same ladies in the parking lot in Larnaca who said in front of their children to their compatriot from Russia "Do you want a drink, do you want a drink (pointing the middle finger)…"
Are these our children?
Is this the future?
Is this Cypriot society?
Are we the Cypriot society?
Dr. Andreas Onoufriou, teacher