Not Safe, Only Safer

I come from a land under seige. A land beset by murder and rape and kidnap. If you want your children to be safe, then you keep them within eye view at all times. They don't play in the garden on their own without someone watching them. At good private schools they go to school through a secured gate with a buzzer. Many homes are surrounded by high walls and security fences and alarms. If you hear a noise in the middle of the night you don't go out for fear you will be overpowered and killed. There are plenty of stories about babies being raped, as well as the very elderly, and people being killed for R5 (less than a dollar) or a cell phone.

Now I find myself in a much safer country with exactly the opposite viewpoint. Children as young as eight or nine walk home from school alone. I see children playing in the street sometimes or walking to shopping centres. People seem to think I am overprotective for always watching my children to make sure they remain safe. What makes it more worrying for me, is that my children may sometimes be looked after by people who have become complacent, as they have always assumed it to be safe! I am not saying, be suspicious of people around you, but I do know that horror is possible in this world! Is it okay to trust the good intention of every passing stranger, sure nothing will ever happen? You cannot not know who will be walking past your child, waiting for an opportune moment to strike. I see the phenomenon of complacency akin to a tamed rabbit who is used to dogs and who does not run when a strange dog comes along, but a wild rabbit is on guard always, knowing there is danger about.

Ironically, the  people who others seem to worry about here, don't strike me as a safety concern. And I probably see others as posing safety concerns, where this is not justified. Is this merely a discrimination mindset at work, or is it also the phenomenon of unknown danger, as we fear what we have come to fear?

I wish I could forget past trauma, but when you have seen dark, it is hard to see only light. This is a different country I am told. It is safe. Yet I think, it only takes one errant person to snatch my child. It is not safe! It is only safer!