Where are the voices of the youth today?

MR IAN Lloyd reminds us (The Mercury, September 5) about the intensity of the chaos of the present world. In the same edition of the newspaper, Mr Kevin Govender points to next year’s Football World Cup host, Qatar, adding another “feather in their cap”.

Where do these opinion pieces intersect?

Mr Lloyd expresses fear for future generations. Mr Govender, meanwhile, makes it clear that Qatar is an autocratic state where tomfoolery will not be permitted.

Two worlds on the same Earth: one that chooses to colonise other people’s land and resources and even blatantly misbehave in foreign territory. Typical European impertinence.

The other, like many Arab states, that imprisons people’s minds, where people are not permitted to think too much, selectively utilising religion to keep a few rich, but treating, especially poor labourers from other parts of Asia, as third-class humans. But the rest of the world smiles away at the fun and games offered by that exciting soccer event to come. Human Rights! What’s that?

Mr Lloyd includes Winston Churchill as somebody that could have helped to save the present world, forgetting the racist manner in which the British prime minister treated Indians during the last years before that country’s move towards independence.

And India! Forgetting it used to be the “biggest democracy in the world” and is now gradually moving towards being more widely recognised as yet another apartheid state where minority groups are being persecuted, using religion and caste as an excuse.

Chaos is truly the correct world, Mr Lloyd.

A final observation: check out any newspaper for similar opinions and weep that it’s only older people that are regularly expressing their opinions regarding these very serious issues.

Where exactly are our young academics? There was a time when white students (albeit, just a handful) did say something. Remember Nusas? University refectory? Also, what really happened to those enquiring minds that some Muslim student organisations displayed in the late ’70s and early ’80s, who dared to challenge the apartheid government, when instant detention was always a threat? Where are the voices of youth? The usual excuses of looking for a job, or eking out a living, or striving for promotion up the corporate ladder? Forgetting that we, as young people, also faced some very hectic challenges, too.

The question arises: Do our young people deserve what’s to come when they elect to remain silent? Does the constant tramping on human rights internationally by a relative minority deserve to be totally ignored by our young minds? Mindlessly?

EBRAHIM ESSA | Durban