Lawson, I would say that if these children are forced, then the parents are mainly to blame. BUT...so also is the organization that accepts these coerced children into their programs.
The TMO in my opinion, should only accept children who truly want to be in the program. There should be a screening process. Maybe there already is. But, is even that a solution? What if some parents offer their child. But after screening, it is found that the child doesn't want to be in the program. Then what? I'm saying it's neither straight forward nor simple. On Thursday, March 13, 2014 10:01 AM, "lengli...@cox.net" <lengli...@cox.net> wrote: Indeed I am. I am furthermore suggesting that the entire program is an ill-disguised form of modern child slavery, promoted by a known rapist in India as a mechanism to suck millions of dollars worth of "donations" from dumb TMers around the world, with the aid of the international TM movement and shills such as yourself. As I said, this is exactly the same scenario that created Jackie Chan, not to mention Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao, Corey Yuen, Yuen Wah, Yuen Tak, Yuen Tai, and Yuen Mo of the Seven Little Fortunes, and all the other students of the Chinese Opera of Hong Kong, who have provided the marital arts stunts in the Hong Kong martial arts movies for the past 40 years. ALL of them were enrolled in residential trade schools around 5 or 6. Their parents made deals with the school masters to train them in a trade (Chinese Opera) and they would work off their debt after they became old enough to perform in public. It may not be palatable from a Western perspective, but it's not exactly a rarity, and parents were convinced that they were doing their children a favor. Read Chan's autobiography, for example. If you're arguing that it is a bad thing, perhaps you are correct, but as far as I know, it is still a very strong educational model in India and certainly not limited to the TM organization. L
