Mwabi photo
As I listened to the toasts and celebration of my Godmother’s life it struck me that for her and her generation it was for the most part lives of service. I thought about myself and my peer group and for the most part it was not a satisfactory picture. The truth is by the time Godmother was my age she and her closest circle were already making their mark.
And Still I Rise
Abeni has a way of striking a chord with me.
My own experiences here in Jamaica and those of others across the region, I’m sure, can testify to what Abeni observed. In short - our generation, for the most part, does not seem to care about offering service. Things like voluntary service are virtually unheard of among many of my peers. Indeed, I sometimes feel like I’m something of a spectacle among my friends for my own inclination in this direction.
The first time I visited the offices of a voluntary organisation that I’m now a member of, I couldn’t help feeling out of place on account of my reason for being there. Most of the other volunteers who had turned up were there because they had a family member who was affected and perhaps saw this contribution as their way of making a difference (or making up for not doing something earlier?). Others were there because of some work or school requirement to log a few do-gooder hours per week. I wanted to help ‘just because.’ I thought the cause of the organisation was noble and I wanted to be apart of it. Nothing more. Yet I was the minorty there.
Obviuosly something has changed between the generation of my parents and mine. Is it the usual suspects? You know, the stuff about mass media indoctrination of ‘more for me, more for me.’ Liberalisation of our economies with its concomitant push towards ‘every man fo he self’ in the way we try to make ends meet? To be honest, Mi nuh know!
The question as it regards my generation is “Do we just not have the time to care anymore or do we just not care to care anymore?”
The little piece of holier-than-thou in me wants to go off on a rant about how terrible and wutless my generation is and that we dont but the rational side of me (two drafts of this post later) chooses to answer that its a bit of both. That is, I suspect that to a large extent we don’t care anymore, at least not in the traditional ways that caring for ones society was defined by actions of those before us. I know this sounds a bit like I had too much ganja cake or something but bear with me. I believe that my generation just was not equippted with the tools to readly translate our thoughts and feelings of concern into action for social change.
Have you noticed how quickly a well-spring of support arises whenever a new group pops up on a youth-oriented social networking site like facebook? Start a topic along the lines of “Caribbean Politics” or “Stop Brain Drain” or “[insert whatever cause of even nominal importance here].” Within 24 hours, there’s guaranteed to be a slew of new members and wall posts with people affirming the strength and conviction of their beliefs on the issue. Unfortunately though, thats where it almost always ends. As it regards the follow through to action, very few are moved to actually get up and ‘do’ something in relation to whatever the cause is.
This leaves one to wonder at two possibilities. Is it that most persons who show their support in this way are merely ‘acting’ the part because of wanting to (at least appear to) be associated, though not necessarily actually doing, the right thing. OR is it that we are focusing in the wrong direction in searching for the root of the problem? It could just be that those of us who have a mind towards citizen based, social development just aren’t doing a good enough job of finding creative ways to appeal to a whole new monster.
Since the generation before mine would include my parents I’d want to assume the best that they were all just born with an angelic propensity to do good. But nay, I know I’ve observed enough about human nature to know that most people aren’t just ‘good’ or ‘bad’ void of their socialisation. So it leaves me to ask the following questions:
- could it be that it was just ‘fashionable’ to desire to be seen to do good back then?
- more generally put, what incentives were around then that either don’t exist now or serve as a disincentive now?
- Are those of us interested in service still stuck in the ‘old school’ frame of mind with regards to how we try to attract others to our causes?
I haven’t completely worked out the thoughts I’ve presented above so see with me.
Blogged with Flock
Tags: volunteerism, activism, development, jamaica, caribbean, generation gap
In the way of setting myself some new goals, I’ve decided to embark on a journey into learning audio production. The challenge is that I’m going to learn it completely informally. That is, I won’t be signing up for any courses anywhere. Just the good ol’ web tutorials I can find, messing around and the advice of friends/associates from time to time.
