Patriot Realm

I read a disturbing story of a young girl in Australia who was befriended by a group of girls and savagely beaten at a " sleep over. "

It horrified me that, not only did they seduce this poor girl with a promise of friendship, but, when they beat her, they videoed the attack and posted it online.

As adults, we often forget that desperate need to " belong. " What we must never forget is that when we choose our friends and our " club " we must choose wisely. 

 According to the news report:

Queensland Police confirmed on Wednesday afternoon three girls had been charged over the incident, which involved the young female victim being tied up, knifed, burnt, and hit with bottles in disturbing footage shared online.

The horrifying alleged attack occurred in a home in Tewantin earlier in March during a sleepover.

The Courier-Mail reported the girl’s face was “unrecognisable” after the alleged attack, and she was forced to spend a week in the hospital, suffering from a stab wound to the knee, a fractured wrist and severe swelling.

The video of the attack was then posted on social media, albeit only the beginning of the attack. 

That is beyond comprehension to me. 

It made me think about when I was her age, being a member of the school drama or tennis club was important to me. I belonged to the school debating club, the school choir, the school almost anything club... I just loved belonging to a club. When Covid hit, with school closures and disruption to life,  we did something dangerous to our children.

I have to wonder: is this a result of the social deprivation borne out of the lockdowns? Or just a symptom of a sick society that has no rules and no punishment for intolerable and unacceptable behaviour? 

Or both? 

Removing their ability to be part of a club and replacing it with the membership of something much worse: the membership of an online clubs like Tik Tok.  

As a young girl, my clubs were fun, harmless and positive. Today, clubs formed by association can have serious repercussions. 

I gained enormous pleasure from being part of a group. 

My need to belong, in those long ago decades of school girl days, was vital to my sense of self. 

When I was 12 or as late as 14, all I wanted to do was belong. To a group. That feeling of acceptance was incredibly important to me. 

In my 10th year of school, I got glandular fever. I was off school for 6 weeks and lost all of my clubs and associations.

When I got back to school, all of my friends had moved on and I was no longer part of the gang. The Club. 

I realised, even at that tender age, that if you are not in " the club " then you have no sense of purpose, no sense of belonging. 

In those days, back in the early 1970's, we had not even heard of computers or the internet being used for social interaction. 

The first thing I did when I got back to school was to try to join a few clubs. I found that most clubs were closed for new membership. The only one open for membership was the Library Club. So I joined that. I brought the membership number up to three. 

And the 3 of us met each lunch hour and discussed how sad it was that we were excluded from joining other clubs.   We rarely talked about books, just about our misery at being outsiders.

I also joined the debating club, which we created in our Library Club. We spent our lunch hours debating each other on both teams, swapping sides to put up a counter argument. After all, we only had 3 members - the same people who belonged to the Book Club.

We started to have fun. 

Our book club and debating club, all 3 of us, had fun. We took the mickey out of the " popular clubs " and would eagerly await the school newsletter where the " Justice Club " or the " Rights Club " announced their latest accolades to social justice. We would spend our time in the library lampooning the popular kids and the 3 of us would do our best to destroy their (in our opinion ) foolishness. 

Then I did a terrible thing. 

I was befriended by a girl who said that I was really nice and she wanted to be my best friend. I fell for it, hook line and sinker.

I abandoned my two friends and walked away.

The Book Club disappeared and so did the debating society. My defection caused the collapse of that voice in my school.

I joined the cool kids and, some months later, my " friend " left school and I was dumped by my new friends.

I found myself back in the library again.

My two old friends simply said " We kept your seat. "

I have never forgotten those words. 

They did not get angry, tell me that I was wrong or make me feel like the traitor I was. They just carried on. But it was never the same. My gratitude for their forgiveness was greater than my shame but we never started the Book Club or the Debating Society again. We just sat, quietly, doing our homework and our club had gone forever. 

I cannot even remember their names.  Isn't that awful? I can barely see their faces.

But I can tell you that, after 50 years, they were the best friends I ever had.  I simply never knew it.

Belonging to clubs and being popular may sound like a good idea at the time, but those two young ladies were made of the right stuff.  What the Library Club lacked in numbers, it made up for in soul.

Just because a club has a vast membership does not make it a better club. It simply makes it a bigger club.

It is true that the Virus has altered young women, young men and older people. Much like when I had glandular fever. Social isolation has long term ramifications. 

Many of us do not realise that the membership of a club is part of who we are. 

Our need to belong. 

Our Club can be a family, a school, a love of sport or a love of chess. It can even be a blog. 

But the best club you can ever be a member of is the Club of Family. 

Never resign lightly.  The minute you walk away, never forget that the other members may not be as forgiving as the girls in my story.