Broken Families Broken Society Broken Youth: Part I

Recently I was given the privilege of writing the script for a skit competition which was held during the College Week. The proposed theme of the skit was, “Challenges faced by Today’s Youth.”

The offer was accepted without much alacrity. However, before long I realised that it was indeed a beautiful opportunity for me to analyse and see what really are the challenges faced by today’s youth. I was in a way obliged to spend some time to seriously examine the status quo of the youth, and this I did in the context of our Naga society.

Initially, many ideas flowed that would make a nail-biting plot because it looked as if the challenges that the youth of our society face are innumerable. To mention here but a few: addictions to drinks, drugs and similar substances, unemployment, delinquency, illiteracy, poverty, suicide, Westernisation, Koreanization, addictions to gadgets and things of that sort.

Interestingly, each time I considered each of these cases, it dawned on me that these are but just results of greater challenges that the youth of our society are encountering. I could not proceed with any of these cases to create a plot.

Nevertheless, after all the reflections that I had and having considered many cases, I came to a conclusion that the real challenges faced by the today’s youth of our society are broken society and broken families. I really can’t with absolute certitude affirm that this is the truth. In any case, I have a feeling that it is truly the corrupted and disordered structure of our society, worst still our families that stand as a hindrance for the youth of our society to fully realise their potentialities.

I personally feel that the youth are constantly searching for genuine values that will make them happy in their lives. It is in this search that they encounter the adult world, which often seems to be diluted, corrupted and broken.

I humbly admit here that I have limited insights. But to my mind, the structure of our society and our families are broken down. No justifications, I feel, are required to approve this fact. If we look around, these hard realities lie open for us to see. We are aware of how our society functions. We are greatly ashamed and saddened to learn that the system of our society is not in the best of conditions. Our society is not in the situation that we all love and want to have.

Our society has glorified materialism. We are after positions, powers and possessions. It is in this yearning that we have given way to corruption, oppression, injustice and other evil practices. From here, I believe, arise what we consider challenges, some of which I have mentioned above like, unemployment (we hear of false practices in the distributions of jobs); illiteracy (we all know how our schools function); addictions (Nagaland is a dry state, but we wonder why many die due to addictions); and the list can go on.

When the opportunity arises, I shall deal at length and shall try to give some comments on these realities and I shall also try to examine the family life of our society. But, for now, let us do all that we can, so as to make our Naga society a better society. When the youth of our society are not haunted by the evil of corruption, injustice and oppression, our society will begin to show signs of good health.

Yes, the concerns of the youth are those of the present. They are not merely concerned with making a society for tomorrow; they are not tomorrow’s heralds. They are truly the reflection of our own age. Let’s fix up our broken society and I believe we shall have better youth. We will have a better today and we can be assured that our tomorrow will also be good.

Chichanbemo George Patton
Salesian College, Dimapur