Every generation is as good as the one that generation leaves behind. Recent crisis in London raise serious question older citizens of this generation must be asking one another and that question is: Are chickens coming home to roost? One cannot help to ask whether the character of this youth is the product of our creation. If we, the gatekeepers of the future of these young people are honest and sincere about our responsibilities to these young people the answer to this question would be a capital yes.
We have failed. We have failed this generation we are leaving behind in just about every aspect of life. When I was growing up in Onitsha in the Eastern part of Nigeria in West Africa, I had only one choice as a kid. That choice was to go to school. My only job and responsibilities as a kid were to go to school, make good grades, be a kid and enjoy being a kid. As a kid growing up in Onitsha, I and the kids in my community had no doubts we would have a bright future if we went to school. Every healthy educated person in our community growing up had a job. There were jobs waiting for High School, technical school and college graduates upon graduation. We had faith in the system. We believed in our dreams.
We had a sense of community. We were supported by our immediate families, extended families, elders and every adult member of our community. The adults in our community were deeply interested and committed to our upbringing. They invested in our future by their actions. They loved, nurtured and impacted wisdom on us, bearing in mind we were the future gatekeepers of the people that would come behind us.
Our school teachers took special interest and pride in their profession. They understood the importance of their position and their influences in the life of a young person and took their responsibilities extremely personal and serious. These teachers went extra miles in their commitments to the lives and futures of young people they were entrusted with. These teachers made rounds to weekdays and weekends activities their students were involved in. The teachers praised, cheered their students on and also disciplined them when appropriate with deep and sincere love. They were educators, mentors, role-models and in many cases played the role of parents.
The elders and adults in my community took raising every kid in our community as their responsibilities. The adult who disciplined a young person did not have to be the kid’s parent/s or even his/her relative. After a kid was disciplined, the adult took time to find out who the kid’s parents were and paid them a visit about the behavior the young person was disciplined for.
We were taught respect for self, life, for other people, authority figures and the community we lived in, all rooted in the values of our cultural child and adolescent rites of passages handed down by our ancestors. These rites of passages addressed integration of a child’s mind, body, and spirit with all the important components of child and adolescent well being.
It really takes a village to raise a kid. It took every adult member of my community to raise the kids in my community. More were expected from those who were blessed with more and they gladly shared. A kid like me and my siblings who lost a dad very early in our childhood did not have to feel the pain and emotional loss of a father because there were many fathers in my community who proudly filled the role of fatherhood to us and other kids like us.
Since the end of the Nigerian civil war in 1973, things have not been the same in the community I grew up and the country at large. Many infrastructures and resources including schools were destroyed in the war. Even thought the country is very rich in oil and other natural resources greed, corruption, selfishness and total lack of consideration for others became the other of the day for those in power. Emphasis on education, job training and jobs became the things of the past.
Cultural infrastructures that gave hope, inspiration, confidence for life and future, which also provided spiritual foundation and planted the seeds for young people to dream went out the door. Adults stopped caring for the youth like they did for centuries. Young people gave up hope, faith and dreaming.
Young people who are viciously angry and without direction began to emerge. Desires and motivation for education and job training among the youth drastically diminished because there were and still no jobs for them to take. College graduates roamed the streets with their degrees and few jobs.
The rich got richer and no longer willing to share their wealth while the poor got poorer. The condition began to bread viciously angry young people who developed hatred for their community, authority figures, success and people who are successful. Young people drifted to crime and lawlessness as a way of acting out, survival and also simply as a way of spiking people in government and authority.
What just happened in London is a snapshot of the monster we as a society have created over the years around the world. This vicious hate and gross disregard for life and community the world just witnessed in London from young people was long coming.
Here is what the society has given this generation of young people. We have given them no directions in their lives. We failed to teach this generation of young people values, respect for self and community. We failed to give them the same education and job training opportunities our fathers’ and their fathers’ generation gave our fathers and us.
We made it extremely difficult for young people to get education and job training by exponentially raising the cost of education and job training out of their reach. Young people who desire to be education and don’t mind borrowing money to go to school will have that financial burden hanging on their necks most of their lives. The worst part of the raw deal these kids have is that there is no job guarantee for them after graduation and they still owe the cost of education that earns little or nothing.
These young people are smarter than we give them credit for. Their respective governments have all the resources in the world for fighting wars and not enough to invest in their education, job training and creating jobs.
We have told these young people for years that all the the government has to do is keep wealth in the hands of few citizens and these few wealthy citizens will create jobs for the rest of us. The rich keeps getting richer. Majority of these young people still do not have job. Many of them are coming home to dad and mom sitting at home because both parents have lost their jobs.
Many of these young people have lived or may still be living with their parents in the streets and under the bridges of their city high ways. Can we see why this generation of young people is so viciously angry and also so emotional detached from their communities and infrastructures in their communities?
Can we not see the monsters we have created among this generation of young people? What will it take? What will it take for us to wake up and pay attention to our young people and their concerns? What happened to our souls and spirit of human decency that prevented us from feeling physical and emotional pain in the eyes of our fellow citizens?
How did we become a generation so selfish and inconsiderate of others to the point we care less about the future of our young people? How did we become a generation that cares more about fighting wars than we care about investments in the future of our young ones? These are questions we as a society must begin to answer in order for us to become a happy, healthy, wealthy and peaceful society.
The truth of the matter is the same adult fingers we are pointing at the behaviors of these young people are also pointing back at us. It is time we look ourselves in the eyes of our souls and take responsibilities for young people in our communities and their lives’ challenges. If we do not, more of the same viciousness the world just witnessed in London this past week will continue to happen around the world. The world better wake up and wake up fast to the needs and challenges of our young people.
Dr Chris O’Banye
http://internationalinstituteforwellnessandintegratedhealing.com
Tweet: drobanye@iiwih.org
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