Maria Montessori would have felt amused by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s resolve to finish off Hamas by bombing Gaza. She wrote classics such as The Secret of Childhood and The Absorbent Mind. But she also gave some hard-hitting lectures on war and peace during the 1930s. Collected under the title Education and Peace, these speeches elaborate on her life-long mission to make the world recognise the significance of early impressions. A child’s encounter with violence — personal or collective — sets in motion a cycle of revenge. Montessori saw this cycle as the root cause of war. A few thousand children have been killed in Gaza, but many would have survived. Montessori’s arguments suggest that these survivors will prove Mr. Netanyahu’s hope a folly.
Vulnerable to violent roles
A similar argument was presented by the celebrated Jewish philosopher and writer, Elias Canetti. In the book Crowds and Power, he devotes a section to the child’s mind. Canneti points to the seed of revengeful thoughts that the experience of violence lodges in the young mind. Over time, it grows into a full-blown motive to resist social norms. When the child becomes an adult, the resistance mutates into rebellion in many cases. Often induction into violence during adolescence occurs when historical circumstances, including technological forces, create the ground. Poverty also adds to the factors that make children vulnerable to violent roles. In a study of Nepal, Sanjeev Rai presents an interview with child soldiers who became victims of this combination of factors. In several reports, UNICEF has discussed how difficult it is to rehabilitate children who have experienced or participated in violence, into civic life.
