EDITORIAL
While the state, youth and planning departments ought to be fully supported in their obligatory tasks of implementing the national youth policy, we should not shy away from reminding ourselves of the real and basic facts that are the real impeding factors to youth developments more than anything else.
For one, we do not even have an apt consensus of what is the basic definition for youth.
This inconsistency has deeply affected us from the village and levels urban way up to the highest national elite echelons of the society.
The results of the confusion have caused conflicting social norms vis-à-vis social norms conflicts! With the society addressing itself as being in the same age bracket, the culture of lack of the sense of belonging have sort of clashed with the lack of sense of responsibility.
In other words an order of etiquette that would have otherwise been a disciplined one is inevitably starkly missed.
What actually needs an express and surgical operation is a bottom up means of addressing the youth issue by focusing on the priorities as per age bracket as given by Dr. Sa’ad (7-24).
This would call for a primary radical crush program in schools (both secular and non secular) on pastoral teaching.
Then the same radical crush program should be run in juxtaposition but at a secondary level while focusing on the adults (through the media or mosques) to remind them of both their individual (as parents) and collective (as a society) senses of responsibilities.
The argument here is that there is no need of building posh offices and numerous grand stadia hence at the end of the day see the earlier pitch competitors during the day turning enemy arch-rivals at the nightfall and wage unending wars of running battles around the estates.
The other argument here is for the older men and women of the society to own up their age brackets and accept the societal norms of a civilized society. This way we would not see small boys and girls roaming around during school hours, pelting people with stores, backing abuses to passers by or better still the eye-soaring and heart rendering acts of youth clinging to the back of all types of vehicles.
Furthermore, as in the spirit of the golden old days, people would then profusely thank those who pastoraliry or physically guide their wayward children in public; hence they would thus be indebted and do the same to others in reciprocation.
It can be understood that the opportunity cost that has rendered youth issues out of the picture can be traced back to both the military regime time and the rebuilding period which prioritized other things instead.
This however can not (and never) be excuses as to why planners failed to allocate ample areas (land) for youth and social amenities.
Yes, if not addressed, the youth crises are a time bomb waiting to explode any time, soon rather than later.
This editorial was original posted on 15th July 15, 2012by The Horn Tribune, an English weekly published by the Dawan Media Group in Hargeisa Somaliland
