Salvete folks, or as you might say (but not at St Bedes), Kia ora koutou…
As my greatest works show I am a highly regarded linguist and translator. My time on earth was spent telling my fellow Anglo-Saxons what those old Latin and Greek texts really meant.
Now it seems I am called on to do the same for the venerable school that bears my name. Their Principal seems to have forgotten the cardinal rule. Those who can, do what they like.
Let me translate – the parents of the boys who broke the rules of the school and also broke the law of this country, have acted rightly in using their wealth and privilege to make sure their sons do whatever they like. As Principal of their school it is your job to assist in this, not cry foul when pupils act in the way they’ve been taught – clearly you should be awarding them an A++, not trying to cramp their style by bleating they broke a school rule and the law of the country.
School rules are one thing, the laws of the country are another – I agree -but there is a third law you seen to have forgotten – the sons of the rich march to a different drum. Yes, it is an unwritten law but it is very old, the Latins and Greeks understood it, your pupils and their parents understand it, I would have thought you understood it – after all that’s what the school you head stands for.
The case has been presented to me that if the two boys had been from Manakau, or been wearing hoodies, or looked like terrorists and wearing hoodies, and they had leaped on the baggage carousel and done a wheelie into the security area then they’d have probably spent the night in an American prison being interrogated and tortured.
The question posed is – why didn’t the two students from St Bedes end up there?
It’s very simple.
1. They’re not from any educational hub in Otara, Porirua or Wairoa.
2.They have wealthy and influential parents.
3. It was ever thus.
Now I’m back to my eternal rest. Vale, vale…
