Let Us Board a Different Plane

Even though I have not been alive long enough to know much about life, as most elderly people I’ve met have told me, I believe every once in a while adults have to learn a thing or two from us young people. I understand life back then was different but it’s different now too, and the current difference is almost the only one that matters. However, that is a topic for another day.

I would like to address the matter of hatred amongst our families as well as the division in relation to our future as the youth.

You will be shocked to find out that most Namibian families, though some live in denial and choose to pretend otherwise, are barely talking to each other. Our mothers, fathers, aunts and uncles throw words at each other whenever they get a chance to, be it at weddings, funerals or any family gathering. They are seething with anger, have formed groups in the families, they are attacking each other and it’s chaotic and traumatising.

Their behaviour leaves a big mark on us, the youth, than on anyone else because we stop talking to our cousins as a result of the issues between our parents and eventually we start hating each other too because our parents are telling us different stories and implanting hate within us. Just because of stories that fluctuate every time they are told, things that happened back in the days, our parents choose ignorance instead of talking matters through and coming to solid beneficial solutions. We stand divided.

Yes, our parents are to blame for such situations but not entirely because the moment we as the youth decide to follow in their footsteps and start avoiding each other, we’re to be blamed just as much because we are choosing to inherit a very dangerous trait, which, just like our parents, we will end up passing on to our children and grandchildren.

It is time to take our stand as the youth and reunite our families. It is time to start speaking to each other and making decisions that will build us and our children in the future instead of breaking us down. It is time to rise and break away from the anger and hatred our parents have built. We cannot make their story our story.

Let us create bedtime stories for our children so that instead of reading them books and singing them lullabies, we tell them how we lived in unity and reminisce about the olden days. Let us create a generation filled with love and no regrets. If our parents have decided they ‘re not going to talk to each other until death, then unfortunately there is very little, if anything, we can do. But we have our history to make and time is running out.

Lydia Mokanya is a first-year student at the University of Namibia. Email her at tuwilikamokanya@gmail.com.

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