Young adults need education, not somebody manipulating their minds for their own personal agenda. The days of pulling a fast one are over, as far as the Generation Next is concerned, as they are under pressure to perform, more knowledgeable and much saner and therefore cannot be taken for a ride easily. Over the years we seem to have manipulated the youth, even got away with it, but all bad things also sometimes do come to an end.
Lately, we Goans seem to be instigating the youth to get angry on a broken system, by lamenting on the sorry state of Goa, which by the way is the complete making of the present generation. Hearing the lament we hope the Generation Next takes the bait, get riled up and fight a battle, which is not entirely theirs in the first place. The lament is aimed to provoke the Generation Next by calling them lethargic and that they have absolutely no regard to the massive destruction of Goa or the government policies that are detrimental to Goans.
For too long by our crooked ways, we have used the energy of the Generation Next to escalate fights, mostly phony ones, that help politicians prolong their lucrative careers and along with it the careers of their inner circle. An inner circle that usually creates phony issues, get the Generation Next all enraged and use that pent up anger to make deals that only benefit the politician. For the record, most phony issues are resolved by politicians making a grand entry into the scheme of things, settle the issue for the time being, receive applause from ignorant citizens and get elected for yet another term. This is the method they have followed with much success decade after decade, by staying relevant and reinventing themselves and stay glued to their positions. The sorry part is that Goans never seem to understand their design and fall for the same narrative.
Issues are a dime a dozen, the language issue, the corruption issue, the Mopa airport issue, the migrant issue, the reckless destruction of the environment issue. History should have told us by now, that barring a few genuine people that fought for these issues most of these issues were high- jacked and redesigned only to consolidate the position of the politician, so that they can keep the citizens under their thumb for decades. We did not deserve democracy and the Generation Next seem to figured out this crooked method and are therefore very suspicious of any issues that are being raised.
The circus playing out in Maharashtra only goes to show there is nothing called party in office or party in opposition. They are all the same with their main goal is to take control of the citizens. All those angry speeches during election rallies were a sham after all, only to rile up the naïve public. While some opposition camps in the heat of the moment might genuinely be angry at each other, only to realize that their bosses have made deals with the opposition while they were asleep. Goa is no different, so why should the Generation Next get fooled all the time. They might not say it in many words, but the Generation Next is completely disheartened with the conduct of elections in particular and democracy in general. So the next time they decide to take a holiday on the day of the elections, let’s refrain ourselves from teaching them their duty to vote.
We have so easily squandered an opportunity given to us by our Generation Past. If we broadly classify three generations, the Generation Past that lived during the world wars, the Generation Present the ones that were born after Independence and the Generation Next or the Millennial born in or after 2000. Arguably the generation present should take most of the blame for all the problems this country is facing and will be facing in the future if we don’t change course soon. Even on the environmental front we have messed it so badly that we are now leaving a very fragile planet to the Generation Next. We made a mess of democracy, precisely because we never understood the meaning of it.
For those that might still take the bait, and fall for those phony issues, be prepared for back stabbing by politicians once their objectives are met. In a large and diverse country such as ours, issues are going to prop up all the time and in that situation all pillars of democracy need to work in tandem so we come up with the best solution. If we only expect politicians to do all the heavy lifting than they are eventually going to run out of ideas and we the people will be failing in our duty towards the nation. Duty does not mean fall for the first provocation a politician makes, duty actually means hear out the issue a politician or his inner circle is trying to make, analyze it with a cool head and then take a call. Democracy is all about independent thinking and less of herd mentality. People who attend political meetings lack that independent thinking and therefore attend them only to give a chance for politicians or their inner circle to take them for a ride.
‘Angry birds’ is a fantasy video game where the birds are fighting a common enemy, but all said and done it’s just a game. For those who are in the business of getting Goans angry on issues that only end up making the politician stronger, have a heart, it’s the Generation Next humans you are dealing with, not some fantasy birds. They have plenty of issues to deal with in this new world order, let them deal with those, rather than waste their time. For Generation Next it will be a challenge to identify real issues and phony ones, the faster you are able to make a distinction the better.
(Plastino D’Costa is a
business consultant)
