First, there were the baby boomers who came of age in the 1960s when no one over 30 could be trusted, the establishment was the enemy, and peaceful revolution was the overarching goal. Then came the ’80s, the “Decade of Self” when disco was king and Wall Street woke up to the machinations of Ivan Boesky and Barry Minkow.
The ideals of the 60s and 70s died with the assassination of John Lennon, the hell of My Lai, the Cambodian death camps and “Midnight Express”. Royal marriages fell apart, violence in the Middle East only subsided intermittently, and Colombian drug war bosses took to the streets of America’s urban centers. Generation X came to the forefront, waging wars in Bosnia, Kuwait, and Somalia that were acceptable only for their difference from the mud and chaos of Vietnam.
Who will first engrave the stamp of their generation in the 21st century? Generation X is still young, but it is already assimilated into the American culture in general. Will right-wing youths born against their will to condone murder and punish women in their goal of giving life to unplanned and unwanted fetuses in a world where overpopulation is the root cause of so many evils: hunger? , the pestilence, the war? , genocide? Will they be the patriotic and clean military guards and reservists who plundered all of American culture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo?
15 years have passed since presidential candidate Bush spoke of a kinder and gentler world. It has been 30 years since President Jimmy Carter tried to cool the Middle East through logic, compromise, and good faith. 40 years have passed since we sang “Let’s give peace a chance.” It has been 5 years since we all thought that sword beheading had died with the middle ages.
In the more recent past, there have been explosions in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, killing and maiming thousands. 800,000 people were hacked to death in Rwanda in 10 days, as the world watched and waited. In Sudan, killings, rapes and torture continue unabated. Natural disasters numb the senses and expose our helplessness over nature.
When we were children, we saw the images and heard the stories of the Nazi Holocaust and we cried in disbelief, guilt and shame. The entire world swore that it would never happen again, even as the Soviet Empire was killing millions of its own citizens. 60 years after Hitler’s megalomania was crushed, the world is still full of hatred and violence. Barbed wire rots away in too many bloody and doomed landscapes.
Where will we find a new and better generation to carry our torch to a brighter future? We watch our children, busy playing violent video games, listening to hateful rock music, and watching destructive movies where carnage and the will to power reign. Will these be the saviors of the world?
Humanity hesitates on the evolutionary path that lifted us out of the swamps and created a world of luxury, knowledge, and immense creativity. Our goal must always be to eradicate the evil destructiveness that seems to be an integral part of being human, while nurturing civilization, intelligence, the will to give and take, and the love and forgiveness that are also part of our complex nature. .
On January 1, we fast forward 5 years into the new millennium. It has not been an auspicious start. It is up to us to stand up and be counted. With our lives, with every act we do, with every word we speak, we must bear witness to the beauty, creativity and altruism of humanity and forever reject the lower part of our being that has dominated for too long, too long.
Happy 2005.