The Lost Generation

The name of this blog post seems a bit cliched. Im not talking about the lost generation of the American history . I use this cliched phrase because it is the name of one of my worst nightmares.

The existence of such a feeling began for the first time a few years ago, when we were recruiting some people for an energy sector organization. I was responsible for these recruitments and was a panelist. We usually like to say in our public discussions that we have lots of talent but our youth has no opportunity for employment. However, the young people we were interviewing had serious deficiencies in knowledge, understanding ,expression, work ethics. Most of them were not worthy of being employed. That evening when I drove back home, I noticed for the first time the pursuits of people in our streets. Usually idling, gossiping, or doing work without much interest, not able to make a success of what they were doing, and our young people, not adequately educated, lacking exposure and knowledge, many of them unemployable.
Everywhere I go, I meet young people like this. Lacking adequate education, weak ethics, weaker work ethic and motivation. Listlessness and lack of belief in their own ability to make things change. But we have used the earlier generation at the alter of expediency, of jingoism, of vested interest. They have not done well.
Last night, I was watching tv and there flashed names of young men who, in the nineties, were responsible for political shootings. They had such illustrious names: Naveed Nusrat, Minaj Qazi, Saulat Mirza, Mustafa. Surely their educated parents spent a lot of time to give their children meaningful names and did not foresee the future that would befall their sons. These are just a few. In the name of ideology, in the name of Jihad, in the name of social norms, our young people have been used and abused. Their minds have been played with so much that this generation finds it difficult to believe in anything, even themselves and their ability to control their lives. Why should they? Can we even decide whether a crime is a crime or not or where and when in our history should we start holding people accountable? when the normal definitions of right and wrong seem to blur and merge more and more as we progress to the higher echelons of society, how can we expect our young people to find their way out of this labyrinth of life? The only thing that holds a person together in adversity as well as in times of fortune, is belief and values, ethics, which one holds on to as the winds of upheaval blow. What do our young people have to hang on to? what kind of lives have they seen their elders live? what kind of social values have they grown up with? Only and only hypocricy, selfishness, twisting what is right to make it wrong just to suit people who have might? They have not learnt indolence on their fathers knee, they have learnt how to be a sponge, how to prey upon your near and dear ones instead of pulling your own weight and being proud of it. They have learnt self abasement and sycophancy, not self respect and respect for difference of opinion. They have seen brain washing and indoctrination without question, not tolerance and quest for real knowledge ,which starts with a question, not acquiescence .
So we have fifteen year old boys, beautiful , brawny, blonde, bursting with vitality, leading terrorist attacks in Charsadda, rather than leading a hockey or football match in high school, or doing charity work during school breaks, like my fifteen year old daughter does. There is a disparity of class and what a child from a specific family background can expect from life in our country. They are taught at the outset not to presume to be equal. Then why should they not be listless and slackers? they cannot be sure if they have a level playing field. And they are right. They don't. Unless we give them one, we will keep churning out multitudes of such directionless people. We say we have a huge youth bulge with great opportunities fro growth. But what we consider gold is turning into dust before our eyes.