The "Unpoliticized" Youth

             The youth is the future of our nation which in fact is a pale blue dot in a pale blue dot. Indeed, it is a fact because they will replace the old ones after they are nurtured for the real world. Yes, they are the future because they are the potential working force that will raise the status of the economy. Moreover, we can export them to the global community to work for transnational corporations and much so there are those who still wish to strive inside our nation. If the future solely means having a stable job and then contributing to the national budget then the future is indeed promising.

            The means in preparing this youth through education is one way to rear them for a future. Education serves as that requisite wherein they are fully trained for the world. However, mostly of the educational institutions here in the Philippines are problematic. To some extent, there is indeed a monopolistic hold of quality among the private schools wherein most of the public basic education can barely compete. Even though that there is a huge salary grade difference between public and private sectors, but indeed there is a good influx of teachers who chose to teach in the private sectors regardless of the obvious salary grade. Or is it because there is still the popular notion of the status and prestige you have upon working in a private school? Or just an escape from the problematic government run schools?

            Although both learning environments did manage curriculum wise to impart as much as possible the necessary skills for the future labor force, but the aim in this presentation is not to show from what sector holds the very skilful and or technically superior graduates. There is indeed the existing disparity between the two, but here, I find that that is not the thrust I am considering. In the growing demand for graduates who will serve as cogs in the machinery, they have been trained to be so specialized and highly single minded or linear to their field and then tying it up to make it soon as their means for survival. Even though that indeed it brought them the happy life, but only as individuals and to those who are biologically approximate with them. They have forgotten that we live in a society and that we have a responsibility not for ourselves alone, but also to the others to whom we are immersed with.

            The education sector is indeed focused into more of the rearing of the youth for a future career, but never into an active participant in society in terms of politics and social modifications such as contribution to policy makings and reconstructions or amendments laws. These students are immersed in a learning environment for so long a time in which this kind of politicization or “activization” is not even embedded into them, maybe because of the environment’s neutral nature or a cleverly made strategy to numb the human resource and reduce them to mere cogs in the machinery, just parts and therefore lifeless. Lifeless and then only gives an only economic contribution by just expanding the profit machinery of the enterprises.

            Inasmuch as critical thinking is concerned, much of it is only aimed for academic purposes and less is used to understand society at large. More so, stories inside the classroom are so irrelevant to the social structures present that are really in need of attention. Or, maybe there was no effort to integrate as much as possible a kind of critical consciousness to any subject through any hypothetical or real situations that can be presented thereof. Math problems like apples and oranges are not designed to at least stimulate awareness of the socio-political sphere one is in at. Even the tortuous stigma of falling asleep is ever present in a history or social studies class and indeed it has ever growingly made a long lasting effect to the students to consequentially dub this class as boring and dragging. The consequence thereof is apathy to these subjects resulting to a trivial understanding of the past or far worse, no understanding at all. It has always been the sickness of the present to forget the past and that is why history repeats itself, as Hegel said “What we learned in history is that we never learned from it, that is why it repeats itself.”

            The stories of the revolution and of the class struggles were dimly emphasized and sickly made trivial. “History is a history of class struggle” as Marx would put it and the struggle is left to rot in the memory banks of the students with no clear understanding and even praxis; then the story of the revolution is nothing more than a relic, a term that will be tantamount to one point in an enumeration examination. Moreover, by the end of the class, the songs of the heroes, sung and unsung remain just an event of the past with no inspiring impetus to use for the present. Furthermore, the awareness of the students are not even stimulated to be conscious of the present conditions of which is akin to that of history in which the solution which gave a beautiful dialectic is the event of the revolution. Local and world history felt the drastic change and the call to progress through revolution whether intellectual or militant. The case is, this was not clearly planted into the consciousness of the students; therefore, at the event of graduation, they will be just a neutral piece that will expand the corporations.

            The banking model of education has led students to just become mere recipients of knowledge and thus is the fate mentioned previously, as Paolo Friere suggests “men and women (should) develop their power to perceive critically the way they exist in the world with which and in which they find themselves; they come to see the world not a static reality but as a reality in the process of transformation”. Thus, transformation is only possible if the people with raised critical consciousness had come into the spotlight, who are open to their ideas for change and drastically calls and makes happen a social phenomenon such as a revolution that aims to change the present oppressive system. Sad to say, Bonifacio and Rizal are just mere topics, not served as an inspiration, unlike how the 1^st 300 movie ended.

            Media too is one avenue wherein these students are immersed into, whether through the use of the internet or the classic television and radio. Most of our youth is exposed into these but with an inch of suspicion that this mode of communication owes its existence to big corporations that funds its existence by being its avenue for product propagation. Moreover, why would big corporations allow the proliferation of subversive materials that will eventually guide the people to contradict their rule? Then the youth are pacified by happy songs of commercial jingles and “starstruck-dom” making them allured with these pain relievers. Every after the news are the teleseryes that makes them forget the issues and usually in the end of these news are about popular artists and updates in their love lives. People really need a dosage of their kind of opium to make them numb of the oppressive system, thus making them neutral and thriving in an unjust social structure. People need a religion, whether it be media or the real “apathetic” religion that will numb them, as Marx said “religion is the opium of the masses.” I say, opium and after a certain dosage, I can just sing whole-dumbly Pink Floyd’s song Comfortably Numb.

            Culture wise, within the family table, it is a rare thing that the average family discusses about politics. As much I have sat with many gatherings, that kind of talk is one of the most forbidden and unpopular discussions thereof. Once you start the topic, then suddenly a moment of silence arrives to make your voice a lasting fleeting echo and then somebody will just start of with another topic, leaving your words just a call to have a momentary break. Culture wise, socio-politico awareness and critical consciousness is neither an appetizer, a main course or a desert. Therefore, in the respective homes of the youth, then, there is a discouragement of such talk.

            Much of what I am saying has been about the present conditions that are proving very effective in numbing the consciousness of the youth. Culture, Media and Education has been proven a sedative, an escape from the real life. No wonder, with a so sarcastically perfect environment such as this, the youth is led to less of a participant of the world he is situated in. Unpoliticized, non-critical, apathetic, such is the present condition of the youth. Watching Les Miserables made me think of Gavroche being highly less or even absent person in our society. Once the youth will graduate, they will be neither a Marius, but a mere worker, could be a Spongebob which is an awful tragedy. The youth has been properly immersed in a society which numbs them, which disengages them from the social reality that needs their participation. Therefore, I present to you the unpoliticized youth, apathetic and not promising which are all well furnished by the perfect environment that moulded them. Apparently, this talk is just about the problem. Good enough that we seen the disease, in order to find a cure. Just like a snake bite, the anti-venom is in the venom. The youth is the problem, but a right reconfiguration of them will lead to a solution, that is, an environment that stimulates them, and make them socially active.