The Next Generation
For some reason or another, many of the conversations I have with
various friends these days seem to end in a similar way. After
discussing politics, problems on the job or just general frustration
with the state of society, a point is reached where the person I am
speaking to says something like: Oh well, sorting out our (Czech)
problems will take time. That's work for the next generation. People
around my age are hopelessly corrupt or compromised or just too set in
their ways.
I should mention here that most of our close friends here in the Czech
Republic are in their 40s or 50s. From them we often hear this hope that
their children will somehow make a better job of things than they did.
They have looked around them at work and in the pubs and have come to
the conclusion that nothing is going to get better until the new blood
takes charge. Their children didn't experience the old regime so they
are more pure the argument goes.
This is not just a conversation topic among friends, the phenomenon can
be seen in public life as well. Havel and other politicians clearly
favor the young up-and-comings in the political parties. They are seen
as untainted and energetic - not burdened by a complicated past. The
lauding of political virgins is almost a national obsession.
Elsewhere, young people are thrust into positions in the public service
sector and business for which they have little qualification apart from
their age. Examples of this abound.
The whole country seems to be hoping that the next generation will free
the country from its myriad problems, but I am afraid this optimism is
misguided for several reasons.
First of all, it is associated with a depressing fatalism that is all
too common in Central Europe. There is a feeling that today's battle is
already lost and society will just have to suffer in a mire for ten or
twenty years until the old folks retire. It is a passive outlook on
life: a confession of resignation.
Everyone is counting on the next generation, but no one is looking at
themselves to see what they can do. Their thoughts about the past and
their resignation about the present prevent them from getting involved
in public life to a greater extent. They are shutting themselves off
from society and remaining in those safe micro-worlds of family and
close friends. Taking some responsibility for the wider community,
joining a volunteer organization for example, doesn't occur to those
members of the middle generation.
With this defeatist attitude, one or two generations of experience are
going to waste, and future generations will be poorer for it.
If younger people do not learn morals from their elders, how can anyone
expect them to have morals at all? The country will never get out of its
moral morass without guidance. "But," my friends protest, "how can we
teach them if we all so hopelessly compromised by the old system?"
Well, if a person understands what corruption is and understands what
accommodation did to himself and to his whole generation and views it as
bad, then that person can distinguish right from wrong and can teach his
children about morals. Of course, no one can speak as a moral authority.
Young people would destroy self-righteous arguments quickly with one
question about what their parents did (or usually more importantly
didn't do) during the Communist era. But a person can sit down and talk
about the mistakes he made in the past and about the regrets he has now.
That would be a powerful and necessary lesson for today's youth.
The best lessons about democracy and freedom I have ever received have
come from talking to people who have lived under restrictive regimes.
People who have always lived in a relatively free society tend to take
that freedom for granted. Thats another reason to be a bit more
skeptical about the younger generation in the Czech Republic.
Waiting for the possibility that your children might make things better
will bring no benefits to society today. Only involvement, educating
your children and good old "drobná prace" will.
