The battle of the young and the old

Of course, they invited adults to join the struggle, but on their terms. Adults have no choice on the terms of engagement - Pic by Ruwan Walpola 

Independent of what?

The word “independent” is the most casually used word by the professional writers, including a novice like me. In my view, this word has a mythical meaning. This adjective is often used before a noun, but it does not add any value to the meaning of the noun, I am afraid. Has anyone thought about what this word creates in the reader’s mind? It elevates the reader’s mind to a utopian plane beyond the on-ground reality. Subsequently, the writers build their hair-splitting opinions and arguments upon this imaginary foundation. I believe I struck balance before when I used this word. 

There are no independent critics, media, people, evaluators, etc. etc. in this world. All are dependent on or biased with vested interests. Bias or dependency could be their life up-bringing, the level of education, intellectual capacity, uphold values or own motives. I can compile a long list of dependencies or biases. The point is that the “independence” is only a mask which covers the “dependence”. Politicians deceive public saying “Sri Lanka is an independent country”. There are no independent countries in the world. Each country is dependent on one or more other countries. Collectively, they influence each other openly or secretly to achieve their own objectives. 

The society is also same. There cannot be “independent” members in a society. Hence, we must accept that we are dealing with biased and dependent individuals. There are racial, ethnic, cultural, political and religious strings attached to the people. Those ropes make them biased and restrained in their expression. Politicians misuse these dependencies or allegiances for their advantage. The most hilarious phenomenon is that the adult generation admonish younger generation, pretending that they are independent thinkers. They are not.

If independence does not exist and if dependency is a hindrance to true expression, what should we do? We need to move from the dependency to the interdependency. This means we need to accept that we all need each other to survive or for moving forward as a nation. This approach makes the society cohesive and dynamic as a team called “Sri Lankans”, appreciating but consciously disregarding, the existence of individual differences and biases. 

It is nice to see that the younger generation in Sri Lanka has realised the importance of interdependency across the society by breaking racial, religious, ethnic, political social, gender, age, physical ability and cultural barriers while respecting individuals’ right to stick to their own identities privately, without implanting those identities forcefully upon others. The modern powerful social media has helped the younger generation to witness how societies of developed countries break those barriers continually and how it contributes to elevate people’s quality of life. Rotten adults may frown upon the young generation’s “Struggle” as a childish act, but those adults are too ignorant to understand dynamism, uniqueness and progressiveness of this act. 

Generational conversation

I learnt that my father never had a political discussion with his father. My grandmother was not even in the picture. My grandfather had no desire to initiate such a dialogue with my father, in order to check how his decisions would affect his son’s future. My father followed his father’s political preferences blindly. I vividly remember the pillowcases with the printed elephant symbol and the name; Victor G Ratnayake in his almirah. Strange enough, my father also did not want to have such a discussion with me or my siblings. What was my interaction with my parents? I also never initiated political discussions with my parents. 

However, there was a slight improvement. I did not follow my parent’s political ideologies. I did not have a preferred political party. I voted for different political parties each time based on my own conviction. In 1977, as a youngster I attended almost all political rallies held in my hometown and I learnt a lot from speakers, especially from far-left speakers. It was fascinating to hear Carlo Fonseka’s colourful grammatically correct Sinhala language speeches, mocking Sirimavo Bandaranaike on receiving Ceres Medal on Food Self-sufficiency from the World Food and Agriculture Organisation. Also, I first-hand witnessed a minor incident was reported on national newspapers next day, with massive exaggeration as a major violent incident. That was the day I realised that there were no independent journalists.

Basically, elders in my family tree did not even bother to ask the social needs of the next generation. The only generational advice was to study hard, but successive generations had no idea whether they have contributed to a healthy socio-economic environment for an educated person of the next generation to survive. I believe that my family situation was a common reflection across the behaviour of the society. Otherwise, I would not have any need to write this opinion piece.

The next question is whether I had similar discussions with my children. The answer is “yes” but not by my choice. I was forced to have a discussion with them as they demanded reasons behind my societal decisions like voting and preferences on politicians. They hated corrupt unethical politicians. They loved all ethnicities equally. They were sceptical on religious beliefs. They emphatically declared that we as adults not only failed to achieve our own social objectives but also squandered their future because of the poor decision we made as adults. 

They did not stay there. They questioned how we dare mess up with their future even now. My defensive answer was that given the prevailed circumstances, we did our best. Then, they questioned, who was responsible for the prevailed circumstances and why did not we do anything about to change prevailed conditions to get better outcomes. I had no answer but to accept my generation’s failure. 

Language of younger generation

The Sri Lankan young generation has had enough of adult us. As a fact I know that they wish the elder generation vanishes from this earth as early as possible to pave the way for them to decide their own destiny. Of course, they invited adults to join the struggle, but on their terms. Adults have no choice on the terms of engagement.

By the time of publishing this, some of the demands of the younger generation might have been accomplished. Youngsters chant #GoGotaHome#. Their message is clear and loud. However, do we understand it? They see Gota as a corrupted system leader and an enabler. So, they expect Gota and the system he built, go together. The young generation is embarrassed that Gota represents them and the nation, in front of the international arena. It is viewed as an insult for their intelligence. Unfortunately, as adults, we did not have that embracement. 

Youngsters don’t care whether the current Constitution or the current legislative provisions allow or not Gota’s exit. Their argument is that the Constitution and the Law are social constructs, eventuated in response to the prevailed social demand, wellbeing and situations at the time of development. Basically, what they say is that when the adult society was a bunch of emotionally bound slaves, they would have settled to a bare-minimum bargain, but they wanted to throw away that bargained solution for good. 

I have a personal motto. “When you are angry, don’t reply. When you are sad don’t agree. When you are happy don’t promise”. The elders were sad and desperate and agreed with to a poorly crafted constitution and legislative instrument as a settlement. We all know it is a flawed constitution. Law instruments are also to be changed when flaws and injustices to the humans are found. Youngsters ask us to be scientific and stay away from historical emotions. As an example, when Sri Lanka developed the Prevention of Terrorism Act, the rest of the world said that it was not in line with the international standards. Everything we develop must be reviewed and changed when we realise products are sub-standard. 

It is said that the society get leaders they deserve. So, the society has changed for better overnight so the leaders must also be changed overnight because the government leaders are the social representatives and temporary custodians of the country. I think leaders must respect the social demand or the wishes of their employers, the voters.

There is a secondary demand that “all 225 must go”. Adults really don’t understand this and interpret it literally as 225 individuals. Hence, adults moan that this cannot be done. In my view, adults got this also wrong.

For the young generation, the 225 MPs are the symbolic representations of networks of inept, inefficiency, ineffectiveness and corruption. So, the youngsters talk about getting rid of these networks for which the 225 members give the leadership knowingly or unknowingly. These networks have more players at each social stratum including local politicians and both the blue-collar and the white-collar employees in the public and the corporate sectors. Young people want to unscramble and demolish these networks by removing network leaders, influencers and participating members. As elders, we never had such an audacious objective. 

Extreme elements say that the real construction begins from the total-destruction. I wouldn’t go that far. Young generation says that the solutions to all current socio-economic issues are to come outside these networks headed by the 225. “225-Out” means that they can remain in the Parliament passively for the rest of remaining political life in the current Parliament but only do the solutions proposed by the social leaders. This is the punishment for the 225 as they have squandered the given opportunity multiple times. There won’t be any more chances for active roles. They are the servants of the society and must do what the society want.

The societal demands and situations have been self-refined so that the current Constitution and the Law is no longer relevant. Young generation is very scientific. They look at the Cause and the Effect. The effects have been analysed and the causes have been identified. If the causes remain there, the effects would not go away. Hence, all are waiting for the elimination of the collective causes. Then only, the solution can be devised and implemented. Current leaders should not take this demand as a personal shame but as a humble duty for the nation and this beautiful country.

An arranged marriage

In an arranged marriage, the facilitator or the “Kapuva” has a bag of tricks. When a girl is to be proposed, the Kapuva works with the parents of the girl and plans the approach. Mothers’ cooking skills are attributed to the girl and her personal and social upbringing is exaggerated to show added value. For Kapuva, it is a transaction, not an emotional bond. Even, the newspaper advertisements depict unreal pictures. When it comes to a boy, the education, job status, real estate ownership, personal effects and social behaviours are inflated out of proportion. Only after the marriage both know the reality, incompatibility, weaknesses and strengths of each other. The past performance has no guarantee of same or improved level future performance. 

A Government and the Society are in an arranged marriage. The marriage has failed. There is no point of killing the “Kapuva” now. Divorce proceedings are on the table. Always, both parties have the option of living as separated parties for the sake of children (the young generation) or go for a legal divorce. There is no point of living together, hating each other and ruining children’s future as the children are old enough to understand the marriage does not work.

The challenge ahead for the young

The challenge ahead of the young generation is enormous. They need to understand that still, most of the society is undisciplined and ignorant. When people are starving, one cannot preach them on discipline. Even Lord Buddha advised monks not to preach hungry people. Hence, until living standards are elevated, discipline cannot be taught to adults. Uneducated society can be deceived by perks and handouts. Ignorance can be tackled. When there was a news that an individual had been involved with a billion rupees corruption, most of the society cannot comprehend the enormity of the crime. Public simply cannot comprehend the monetary figures beyond a lakh of rupees or a million at the most. Hence, the presentation technique should be changed in accordance with the audience. 

In Australia, City Councils used to publish public reports on local government activities, stating their activities and expenditure in terms of millions of dollars. The authorities later realised that the average people undervalue their work. Now, they provide pictograms showing how a $ 100 is spent across the various services such $ 30 for the roads, $ 20 for waste collection, etc. in addition to the total expenditure figures. So, the rate payer gets a clear message and gives the feedback requesting City Council to reduce expenditure in one area and increase in another sector. The same technique must be used when the young generation deals with the limited educated society to convey the messages. 

Hence, a billon must be explained saying, “How many low-income families could have been fed from a billion rupees; How many village schools could have been built; How many kilometres of local roads could have been constructed? Even how many loaves of bread could have been purchased, would work. This kind of explanation would deliver the desired effect in people’s minds. People still talk about daylight robbery of public money at the Central Bank a few years ago by white collar professionals. How about the amount of the national debt? Have the public realised the scale of the robbery or the debts because the numbers were in billions? This is a challenge for the younger generation to come up with a communication strategy to educate ignorant masses on their role to shape national economy. Unless they are on your side, you are bound to have a rough ride.

The impacts of blue-collar corruption are local and short-term. Until such corrupt activities become systemic and dispersed deep into the society, the effects can be absorbed by the economy and the local interventions can curb the effects. However, the effects of white-collar corruption are massive and long term. The symptoms of such corruption come into light years after the act and by that time the socio-economic damage already happened. 

Sometimes, the damage is irreversible. Usually, the general public is more worried about local corruptions that affect their day-to-day life and complain on that. Therefore, big sharks were repeatedly elected in the political arena and in the public sector while small-scale robbers were shamed in public. However, it is the white-collar corruption that would sink people’s whole life into a black hole together with the entire economy of the country. The younger generation’s attention should focus on white-collar robbers first. The idea is to change the system to prevent future robberies before catching the robbers.

If the younger generation could educate their parents, relatives, teachers, bosses, villagers, town folks with the help of decent and intelligent adult professionals, the entire society will be in a position within a short span of time to think intelligently. Such a society would not appoint wrong people as their representatives in the future. In my personal view, there are only less than 10 re-electable MPs in the current parliament. They are the victims of the rotten current system and the so-called collective decision-making aspect at the wrong end of democracy.  

Abject performance of adults

As adults, what do we do wrong? Answers to that question were classically demonstrated at the Path to Recovery presentation held a few days ago. I was really interested to see the different perspectives of the solutions, hence, stayed awake until 1:30 a.m. in Sydney time to watch the entire program live, spending more than six hours. I am not sure Sri Lankan adult population had a similar interest by judging the number of participants in the live stream. Majority of the presentation content was good and progressive. However, I would like to make a few observations.

It is true that the conductor of the program was conscious about time keeping. However, it should not have been done by sacrificing the quality of the content. We are trying to find solutions to complex problems. Hence, the solutions are also complex. Inevitably feedback to the proposed solutions or follow up questions would also be complex. There was no point of requesting the audience to ask a single line question without allowing them to explain the context of the question simply because we did not want a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. The idea of asking the question was to unravel the details of the solution. Hence, the tight control of time keeping had undesired effect to the quality of the program. The organisers of this event should have thought about this reality. It is recommended to have a follow up Q&A session for each submission on another day.

The succinctness and the clarity of presentation delivered by singularity (I brand it as the younger generation’s solution) showed that they were on par with the trends of the rest of the developed world. The adults in the audience and the fellow presenters might look at it as an impractical techno solution, but it is a fact that we, as the nation, have so much to catch up in technological and scientific fronts. Hence, a huge technological jump is needed. What we need is the will power of people and the optimism as the resources are in abundance locally and internationally. 

I had a sad feeling that our resource persons were divided and sitting in different camps. Why couldn’t we unite and be a part of the total solution? If am an influential person, I would have asked Champika, Manju Nishshanka, Harsha, Eran, Handunneththi and Chaturanga to gang up and present a combined solution to the nation. If done that, your names will be written in the history as heroes. At least, I would expect Champika, Manju and Eran to join hands as they think alike. We cannot afford to waste such valuable resources in party politics. This is the lesson I learnt from the land of “struggle”.

As adults, we try to find solutions to recurrent problems while staying within the traditional social framework, legislation and policies. This was evident when seasoned politicians in the forum presented the solutions. We need to understand that these instruments were created by ourselves and we should not be slaves of our own makings. Just think about a young family scenario. The father decided to become vegan in line with Buddhist teachings and environmental sustainability. Suddenly, his children became ill and the doctor advised him to feed them with red meat as they needed some essential nutrients early in their life. 

The father may arrogantly declare that the agreement among the group was to be vegan and it cannot be broken for ever. That father is playing with the lives of the children. The children must be separated from the father, irrespective of the father’s emotional declaration that he loved children dearly because it is a fake feeling. The agreement must be broken as the solution is outside the scope of the agreement. Hence, any solution proposed by the adults must also satisfy the pre-requisite of vacating positions by all current leaders and the constitution must be broken and rebuilt completely without tinkering the edges and dents. 

Let it go

In Sri Lanka, the majority people including politicians are Buddhists. However, they do not know the Buddhist principle “how to let things go”. Age 60 is a good medically supported arbitrary age at which one generation should hand over the affairs to the next. They should hand over the control of all socio-economic and governance affairs to the next generation. Otherwise, the elder generation would mess with the future of the next generation. This does not mean that the elder generation should not advise the next generation by sharing their experiences, failures and the knowledge. However, the final decisions must be left with the next generation.

It is heartening to see that the young generation embraces all members of the society as equal by shedding ethnic, religious and cultural shackles and treat all with respect and dignity. When I wrote my opinion piece on young singing sensation Yohani, I mentioned her as a role model for the rest citing her open approach, pushing boundaries toward independence although true independence is a myth. It was heartening to see that a few parents referred my article to their children. 

Demi-gods and slavery

The younger generation wants the adults to march with them but set a few ground rules to be fulfilled by all. One is that acceptance of all as equal. A human should not worship another human in public as both are equal in every aspect. If one wants it, it is a private feeling that should be kept in-house and in one’s own mind. However, the “respect” is beyond a private feeling and it could be shown in public in a restrained manner without falling into the worship domain. The adult generation is poorly trained in this craft and often their lack of intelligence, limited education and emotional capabilities, have led them to become slaves, worshiping other humans.

I have a few true stories to tell.

The Sri Lankan National Cricket team and the Australian Cricket team were having a traditional chat after an international match and the Australian Prime Minister entered the dressing room. The Lankan cricketers stood seriously and greeted John Howard the way they used to greet Sri Lankan politicians. Suddenly Australian cricketer Matthew Hayden, in his underpants, yelled from distance, “Hey John, come on mate, grab a beer mate”. John Howard obliged and had a beer with them. Imagine, if one of our cricketers called our President or the Prime Minster “Machan… Have a shot of Arak machan.” It would have been the end of his career in the national cricket team and possibly he would be on crutches for the rest of his life, thanks to personal bodyguards. Is the fault with politicians or us as adults? We created the politicians, groomed them into demigods and worshiped them.

Once I saw in Australian national television that a person refused to shake hand with the Prime Minister who stretched his hand and the PM walked away silently, understanding the loud message. A few weeks ago, the Australian Prime Minister was having a media talk in front of a house, standing on the road verge. Rightly, the road verge or the reserve is a crown land and the PM had every right to stand up there. However, homeowners have the responsibility of maintaining the road verge in front of their private properties, unless the government maintains it being a highway. That is why the front yards of homes and roadsides are well kept in Australia. 

Back to my story, the house owner walked towards the Prime Minister and demanded him to stay out of the road verge saying that he fertilised the grass recently and the PM and the media crew must not ruin it. The PM could have stood his ground saying that it was not the homeowner’s land. However, the PM obliged and moved away. Why? In a true democracy, the public voice is supreme. He respected the public opinion irrespective of the legal grounds. Just imagine if this has happened in Sri Lanka and what would have been the fate of the homeowner? Most certainly, the political lackies would bash him and the police would arrest and charge him for violating the law and order.

Once, I sought time off from my office duties to attend an almsgiving ceremony in the Sydney Buddhist Temple. I explained finer details of traditional religious activities to my director. Then, he asked me two questions. “Why do you offer food to a person who can afford to buy food?” I defended my actions saying, “The monks are not supposed to accumulate wealth and are purely dependent on the help of the community to get food. Monks’ job is to admonish people to develop mental peace and improve social behaviours in ephemeral lives.” I knew that the reality was far from my explanation. 

The second question was more difficult. “Why do you kneel down in front of him and worship him? Isn’t he only another human being like you?” I told him that monks were the followers of Lord Buddha and the Buddhist philosophy and I worshiped them to respect both. However, the Australian was not convinced. I think he was correct. Most of monks are not deserved to be worshiped in the manner we do. I like Buddhist philosophy (not the truth-twisted sermons in colloquial wild language by monks) as it has a scientific base. However, majority of Buddhists in Sri Lanka do not practise Buddhist principles or teachings although they listen to “bana” daily. In that sense, people in the Western world are more religious and “Buddhists” like. 

It would be a matter of time before the young generation stops visiting temples in the same manner they desist worshiping politicians. Next generations will not even follow a religion, but they will learn about all religions scientifically and understand the essence of the good and the bad. In developed countries, the religions have no link with the governance structure of the country. Practicing religions is a private matter for a citizen. We have a long way to go there but the next generation will make it happen. Kudos to them.

(The writer is a Professional Engineer working in the Australian NSW Local Government Sector. His intention of expressing views on contemporary issues is to inspire youth to be innovative and unique. He is contactable via [email protected].)