Are we a Wasted Generation?

The United Nation’s definition of youth defines youth as those who are between the age of 15 to 24. By definition, then those who are below the age of 14 are considered children. However the Article I of the United Nations’ convention on the rights of the child defines children as persons up to the age of 18. Some countries define youth at the age at which a person is given equal rights under the law, which is often referred to as the “age of majority” and in many countries age of majority is 18. Once a person passes this age he or she is considered an adult. There is also a noticeable division between teen agers (13-19) and young adults (20-24). Approximately 1 billion youth live in the world today; 18% of the world population. This means that one person out of five is in the age of 15- 24. Interestingly this is the first time in the world history that the world witnesses such a high concentration of youth on its surface. The majority, 85%, of the youth live in the developing countries with 60% living in Asia alone and a remaining 23% in African countries. It is calculated that by 2025 this 85% would augment in to 89.5%. But what is most important to comprehend is that the notion of youth is subjected to different socio-cultural, political, economic and ideological variables and it is these factors that determines who is a youth despite of all the definitions provided by any institution.

Now let us take a look at the Maldives definition of youth. In general perspective the youth fall in to the age category of  18 to 35. However the intriguing aspect of defining the youth in Maldives is to touch on the ideological perception of them by the masses. To put this in to simple language, what comes in to your mind with the utterance of youth? For most, youth is the icon of trouble. Youth is defined as an unemployed, druggies, restless minority constantly struggling along with violence to achieve their rights. Youth is also defined in terms of school dropouts and this population is one of the overtly representative fractions of the youth in Maldives. With all the hullabaloos that have been continued by this lot in the history of Maldives, the general pessimistic perception of the Youth by the masses can be justified.

With all these in mind, I base this article on a discussion we had few weeks ago. Are we a wasted generation? The question was quite shocking; something which we have not contemplated ever before but gave away few fascinating point of views of different genres.  Half of the people stated that we are a wasted generation and a few justified that we are not but most interestingly some were neutral of which the reasons and threats will be discussed later on.

One of the major arguments dragged in to justify that we are a wasted generation is that we have nothing to gain by a struggle; political achievement, and struggle obviously does not mean a physical one. Most of the young people do believe that there is no prospect for a major political revolution in the world per se. No opportunity to revolutionize the whole system as Karl Marx or Lenin did. Thus this political opportunity absence has convinced them to believe that youth has no important role to play in the political arena. But what is tragic and ironical here is that they do not grasp the importance of rightful, adequate and substantial political involvement by youth which is indispensable right now to Maldives.

The free market economy is explicitly a dominant feature of our lives. It is not exaggerating to state that we do not decide for ourselves any more but it is the free market economy which decides for us. My argument at a first glance would appear intimidating. But the explanation to this phenomenon is as follows. The term “free market” designates the fact that it is “free” and the consumer has the power to control the market by “demand”. Yet what we do not perceive is that our demand is conditioned by the “supply” it self and therefore our scope of independence in the free market is limited. Thus the supply decides what we should consume. On the other and most sophisticatedly the free market uses advertising to condition our decisions. The conditional psychological techniques executed by the advertisers unconsciously decide for us in all most all aspects of our lives. Ivan Pavlov, a Russian psychologist once did a research using a dog to investigate how external factors contribute to the gastric function of a dog and results in salving. He rang a bell before giving the food to the dog and eventually the dog started salving to the sound of the bell even without the food which is now known as “ring a bell“theory. This simply means how external factors condition a beings internal urges. The free market economy advertisers use the same theory. For instance they show us a guy using a perfume and then get a hot a girl. The condition of this phenomenon is that “the perfume” is necessary to get the hot girl and therefore urges the viewers to purchase it in order to get the “hot girl”. Thus the desire of the Other becomes the desire of us. Therefore some of the youth believe that we are denied the right to free decision making by the unconscious conditioned deciding factors of the free market and thus we are, in fact all of us are, a wasted generation.

Another cliché tic argument of the youth to justify that we are a wasted generation is the unemployment experience by the youth and the less opportunity to “higher” education especially in Maldives due to various reasons. It is on one hand a fair argument to produce because of the high rate of unemployment among the youth of the country. However this has been discussed enough and I do not wish to explain it further.

And now let us contemplate on whether we are actually a wasted generation. In my personal opinion why do we have to struggle to prove that we are not a wasted generation? Is “struggle” and indispensable part of youth? It is this ideology and discourse of youth being a noticeably a radical group that has lead us to this conclusion. Yet there are enough opportunities for us to struggle in this country. There are hundreds of political injustices and human rights violations taking place but how many of us do notice them. It is here that we again come across the irony of our youth. Most of us are blind to the ongoing political discourse or are not rational enough to analyze the political situation here, not just political but our society’s concerns. Most of us are neutral to socio-political happenings of the country and then complain that we need a revolution. Thus isn’t it our fault that we are wasted?

But now let me entertain you in the most crucial part of this article. It is the first and the only time in the world history that we witness such a vast concentration of youth on the surface of the planet earth. More than three fourths of that population lives in the developing countries and more than half of that population lives in Asia. This on one hand is a very unique and on the other hand extremely risky situation. The high concentration of youth in Asia can be translated in to so many controversial problems starting from augmenting the present unemployment rate.

However I would like to concentrate on socio-cultural perspective of this massive phenomenon. The high concentrate of youth, without doubt, predetermines a series of socio-cultural issues not necessarily pessimistic. One of the main points pointed out by the UN is that this new generation is highly sexually active. This means that there will be a high birth rate in the future which will lead to a massive apocalypse of human population and therefore the means of full filling the basic needs of this next generation should also be given a thought. Furthermore this high sexual activeness would invariably lead to unwanted pregnancies which will result in a high rate of abortions. This will also lead to the spreading of HIV/AIDS epidemic and other STIs among the youth which will lead to a desperate destruction of the youth generation. Thus as the youth, there is a struggle for us to initiate. It is time for us to contemplate on the possible solutions for the expected issues. Our youth do lack the basic sex education. Even though a diminutive syllabus is included in the education system the lessons are either not taught or loosely dealt and consequently the lack of sex education has lead to many unsafe sex practices which is even apparent right now. Thus we need to find methods to extend the sex education among the youth. Furthermore awareness of HIV/AIDS and other STIs should be given in order to decrease the high rate of epidemic infection. We would also be responsible to find solutions to feed a massive young population in the near future about all this and drugs. Following this issue there will appear other problems such as housing, health, infrastructure, education etc when accommodating a massive population.

Thus we have to question again and again, are we a wasted generation. It is as important as this to analyze the arguments of those who claim that we are a wasted generation. But above all the personal perception of this issue by the youth itself matters overtly in examining this phenomenon. The majority of this young population lives in developing countries and in Asia. Thus the responsibility that we as youth have to share is enormous. The solutions for upcoming problems must be predetermined in excess and strategies must be implemented in advance. Thus calling us a wasted generation for not having apparent struggles or simply because of the consequences of free market is highly problematic and illogical without contemplating on the future issues of the young generation. The old school theories should be dealt with proper integration so that they would not influence us pessimistically to look forward to the future. Finally, children will become young one day and young will become old and it is our duty right now to get prepared to accommodate all on the surface of planet earth despite our intensely self occupied prejudices.