There may be hope that the current younger generation can clean up a lot of messes that have bedeviled their elders and will otherwise be dropped in their laps.
For example, it is hoped that young Republicans, who grew up never really knowing Ronald Reagan as a demi-god, will ditch the corporatism of the radical Right and the Tea Party lunacy and restore moderate conservatism to the GOP.
And, in Gaza, there are signs that a youth movement is surfacing that is fed up with both sides, Israeli and Hamas, that have plagued their lives and their future.
Gaza Youth's Manifesto for Change is an extraordinary, impassioned
cyber-scream in which young men and women from Gaza – where more than
half the 1.5 million population is under 18 – make it clear that they've
had enough. "Fuck Hamas..." begins the text. "Fuck Israel. Fuck Fatah.
Fuck UN. Fuck UNWRA. Fuck USA! We, the youth in Gaza, are so fed up
with Israel, Hamas, the occupation, the violations of human rights and
the indifference of the international community!"
It goes on to
detail the daily humiliations and frustrations that constitute everyday
life in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian slice of land that Israel and
Egypt have virtually sealed off from the world since Hamas was elected
to power in 2006.
"Here in Gaza we are scared of being
incarcerated, interrogated, hit, tortured, bombed, killed," reads the
extraordinary document.
"We are afraid of living, because every single
step we take has to be considered and well-thought, there are
limitations everywhere, we cannot move as we want, say what we want, do
what we want, sometimes we even can't think what we want because the
occupation has occupied our brains and hearts so terrible that it hurts
and it makes us want to shed endless tears of frustration and rage!"
Yes, yes, and yes. I am convinced that today's youth, globally, have been left no choice but to throw over the order of their parents and grandparents who cannot bring themselves to genuinely address the needs and aspirations of future generations. This is nothing more than the just due of those who have scorned posterity for the sole purpose of bettering their own bloated existence.
The simple and incontrovertible fact is they cannot live out their lives in anything resembling our comfort and security without accelerating, by whatever means necessary, the generational transfer of power.
2 comments:
""Here in Gaza we are scared of being incarcerated, interrogated, hit, tortured, bombed, killed," reads the extraordinary document. "
This is like the kids in Quebec. None of them were killed, but many where beaten, incarcerated and tortured for daring to question the regressive austerity of the government.
This is why, Anon, some of us foresee the 21st as the "Century of Revolution."
From environmental degradation and the host of ills that spawns to our rapacious over-consumption of the Earth's renewable resources, particularly water, to the destabilizing impacts of inequality of income, wealth and opportunity - the future we're bequeathing to our young people and the generations to follow them is inherently unsustainable.
They'll have no choice but to overthrow our order. We've seen to that.
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