Wind In My Head: Call Police!
Wind In My Head
Saturday, March 25, 2006
Call Police!
When I was in college, the song that best described the state of affairs in school was the song Every Breath You Take by the Police. Even though my college prided itself in not having a rule book, we liked to believe we were living under a little totalitarian dictator. People got hauled into her office because they were going out with one another, not making out, just going out. Their parents got hauled in too and were lectured on how they were bad parents because they didn't put a stop to the dating that was happening. She knew everything that went on in the school. She even knew that I didn't sit for my end of year exams because I had some strange virus that hit my brain- my classmates affectionately named it Brain Rot. So because she seemed to be omnipotent and omnipresent, and because we thought we were a clever bunch- we would dedicate this song to her every time we had an opportunity.
Every breath you take
Every move you make
Every bond you break
Every step you take
I'll be watching you
Every single day
Every word you say
Every game you play
Every night you stay
I'll be watching you
After all, we were upstart snotty Humanities scholars who thought we were so cool because we were anti-establishment, knew what totalitarianism meant and thought PC's (Practical Criticism) sole purpose was so that we could be clever like that . We also thought we were the coolest thing in the world because our choice of words for vandalism went along the lines of "antidisestablishmentarianism rocks!". Of course, on hindsight , I think we were just plain idiots.
Anyway, I was reminded of the song yesterday when we were at the travel fair. WMD was there giving out flyers to the visitors at the travel fair. They were part of a move to try to stop child sex tourism in the region. A move I heartily support! Men who go away to have sex with young girls and pay premiums on their supposed virginity just so that they can prove their virility ought to be strung up, by their balls and other incriminating appendages.
The minute we stepped into the fair, we were inundated with flyers, mostly price sheets for holiday destinations. But among them was this one yellow flyer.
It was bright and it was eye-catching. Unfortunately, I think it must have been a rushed job, from the copywriter to the ad agency to MCYS because if you glanced at it very quickly, the words that stood out were "TO HAVE SEX WITH CHILDREN" and if you read it in the context of all the extra curricular things you could do with a phone camera, the line "EVERYONE WILL BE WATCHING" would take on a whole different meaning. And either way, it wasn't very good.
Gai had volunteered to help distribute these flyers and we told her to go stand near the counters selling holidays to Thailand and Indonesia and purposely shove it in the hands of men who even slowed down to consider making a query at the booth. But that didn't work so well. Apparently, people shyed away from the flyers because they had actually taken a quick look at it and thought it was from a travel agency with adult tours. Some denied that they would ever be interested. Some scolded her for promoting such a thing! Others were just ignorant. Women asked stupidly "why are you giving it to me?". Er, if you don't know the answer than you're adding to the problem too, missy!
The intention behind it was good. Really. I think the proposed legislation- to be able to prosecute these men who help support the trade's existence- is a few years too late. But better now than never. And this is one of those things that I'm going to constantly use my soap box to expound. As long as my kids hear what I'm saying and take it along with them when they graduate, my job is done. The campaign in Singapore, it just needs re-looking and quite a bit of reworking. Perhaps Tym, who spent the earlier months of this year doing some copy work, could come up with a better one. Haha... kena arrow!
N.B. For those who are able to read into the real meaning of the flyer and really want to help and find out what they can do to stop child sex tourism, this is quite useful.
Technorati Tags: Stop Child Sex Tourism, WMD, NATAS
Ondine tossed this thought in at 22:59
