Blog: Letter to Our Youth

This letter has a circumstantial motivation because you are living a disturbed period and may in the sweep of events become subject to the nervousness and frenzy created by the media. After all, the common man has only the media to feed his daily thoughts with.

Media prioritise events and construct a hierarchy that guides us throughout the day. If you are living these times you need to make your personal agenda of interests and be focused on your priorities and not those of the media. These days the media are vehiculating the precedence of May 1 meetings over all other issues. Will you allow yourself to be driven by persons whose sole interest is to sell their newspaper. How do you construct your own world everyday? Will you in spite of the freedom you have given up the governance of your life in favour of matters that feed the greed of a few who want to accaparate power at all costs? How do you manage the amount of hatred generated by every politician when he talks of his opponent?

In the Labour Day pitched battle of numbers you would be foolish if you were to believe fatuously in the permanence of the rivals' hostility. The enmity they show is a game they play to please you. The more vociferous the speaker the more you should doubt his sincerity. Many can speak with equal ardour on either side of the fence. It is just a question of time. It takes a mere turning of the back to find the adversary become an ally. Each politician is a potential turncoat and you should preserve your independence of judgment in this whirlpool of emotions.

If you are capable of clinging to your focus, realise that your country is living at many other levels that deserve your interest. I am not talking of dangers that might be looming ahead in the wake of a sick Euro, not because the Minister of Finance reassured the population that our economy is not in the doldrums. I am talking of debacles that have already vented their rage on us and we have dismissed them in the welter of media-churned events.

We live oblivious to the fact that a child of 11 committed suicide because the survival of children is related to their performance at CPE. We seem to have pushed under the carpet the suicide of two girls who were students of a secondary school in the North. In spite of a few activities held to support mourners nothing is being done by the school to study the tragedy and understand the insufficiencies of character, the absence of a home that knows what children need in terms of emotional boost the bureaucratic nature of a school that believes education is a business activity.

Pay attention to what is happening outside the shores of your country and be exposed to the world. You need to know what is happening in Syria to understand the cruelty of an oppressive government, so that you may understand the value of the freedom and the democracy you enjoy. You must follow the trial of the murderer of Oslo who killed 77 people in a murder spree because he is against the policy of migration in Norway. Are you attentive to what is happening in Sudan and Mali? You will be surprised to find that man has a great difficulty to live together with people who have a slight difference. Today you need to look outside to recognise the bliss of living here. That is why you should not despair of the ephemeral hostilities in this country. Let us be content with the fact our violence in the political arena does not go beyond a colourful vocabulary that should amuse us.

Allow this temporary storm to pass by. Do not make permanent bonds and bondages and do not believe in permanent hostilities because even your leaders do not have permanent convictions.