The days of our glory

My dear Billy, Have you noticed the phenomenal number of activities in which our indefatigable young people are engaged in various fields?

It was French author and statesman Francois Rene Chateaubriand who said that “The morning of life is like the dawn of day, full of purity, of imagery, and harmony.” Deep under ashes lies the life of youth – the careless sport, the pleasure and passion, the darling joy. Youth is buoyant, confident, and strong in hope. The days of our youth are indeed the days of our glory. However, there are many among us, in the prime of senility and unable to grow old with good grace, to whom the condemnation of the young is a necessary part of their hygiene. It looks like this denunciation greatly assists the circulation of their blood. A measure of jealousy can also be detected in their system. These people have compiled a catalogue of reproaches in their spare time, and they don’t fail to hurl it against the young people in and out of season. “The young are impolite and uncouth”, they complain. “They refuse to accept authority and gossip instead of working. They are irresponsible, careless, and nothing can be trusted to them. They are not interested in their studies. “All they want is to enjoy themselves at picnics, parties and discos,” they claim. They also generalize and accuse the young people of taking drugs and engaging in free sex. They cut classes and go the seaside. A host of other accusations is often laid against the young ones. They find that girls wear indecent dresses. Young people have no respect for elders. They go to incredible lengths to make themselves ridiculous, with their piercings and slashings and tattoos. They don’t care for the feelings of others. They are a band of self-seeking, selfish characters, an utterly useless, hopeless lot who have turned to drugs, pornography, rape and prostitution and have taken a downward path to damnation. Indiscipline is a way of life with them. Youth demands unbridled freedom of action and resists authority to the point of violence. Like flood waters let loose, they destroy everything on their path. They have no sense of values, nor do they respect age-old customs and traditions. They are never grateful for what is done for them. They have no patience. Whenever they need something, they want to get it immediately. They don’t care whether their parents can afford it or not. Some even steal money to afford their luxuries. They like speed and adore noise. Their homes have become a shrieking cacophony of sound with the type of music that they play these days. Age is given neither the respect not the attention that is its due. Many families are dominated by the ephemeral whims of youth. Everything, the fashions, the music, the ideas, are built around some passing fad which is here today and gone tomorrow. Permanency is seldom sought, never revered. Youth is running after frivolity and rushing the world to its ruin in the process. At school, instead of studying, they keep disturbing the class and making all sorts of silly remarks. They have no respect for their teachers. They vandalise the school premises. But what do the young people, the butt of these criticisms, feel about it all? Naturally, they resent every word and reject it wholesale. Even if they are prone to admit some of the vituperations, they cannot stand the generalization. And I believe they are right too, my dear Billy, because we must not forget that what we call youth problems are first and foremost our own responsibilities as adults. They have simply inherited a world which their elders have bequeathed to them. If they are rebellious, they are only rebelling against an old system which no longer responds to present-day needs and circumstances. They are protesting against war and terrorism, against discrimination, against corruption, injustice, the exploitation of man by man. They are fighting for justice and equality, for a world in which they will have a rightful place to live. What right do we have to blame them for becoming what we have made of them, my dear Billy? The young ones are waging their own war against the hypocrisy of the time. They want to build their own world of love, friendship and compassion and reign supreme there. They are engaged in a process of pulling down all the walls which we, their elders, have erected and replacing them by bridges. The problems facing the young today are a matter of great concern and urgency. Their characteristics, their attitudes and psychology and behavior, their unfathomable well of energy which can at any moment overflow into generous self-sacrifice for the benefit and welfare of others, or into blind violence, demand deep consideration. Never has youth offered as faithful a picture of its true spirit or shown its virtues so strikingly or its faults so glaringly, never have the talents of youth been so richly exploited or their love of risk put to greater task, never has life been so demanding upon the youth as today. Young people should be allowed wide scope for initiative. The spirit which characterizes young people may, if given an outlet, create dynamic adults. The elders should not try to crush or suppress the young ones under the weight of their so-called superiority or experience. The purpose of the elders should rather be to help the young generation to be themselves so that youth’s eternal promise of regenerating the society is never lost. It is heartening to see young people involved more and more in regional and national programmes of activities, my dear Billy. This active participation in nation building enables them to assume responsibility, and these activities, besides providing knowledge, lead the young to discover for themselves new scales of values. We should be proud of our youth, my dear Billy.