'The role of young people in creating change.'At the risk of being predictable, I’m going to start with a quote, or maybe I should more properly call it an anecdote as I may not have the exact quote verbatim. John Stuart Mills, the well known Victorian writer, philosopher, theorist, jurist whatever you choose to call him, once said about the working class of the time, that they lie constantly, and yet they are ashamed of it. At some later date, he was elected A liberal MP, and at a public meeting he was confronted by a crowd of working class people who challenged him, did he make such comments. He was forced to admit he had. This was greeted with uproarious applause.
One individual, who led the group came commended him, with the comment, the working class do not need flatterers, and rather they need fighters.
I feel that in this context, that quote applies equally to young people. We do not need lip service backed up by a total lack of interest, or a patronising attitude bordering on the contemptuous. Statements that young people’s issues should be the sole preserve of young people, and that that should be their main area of focus are misguided. The corollary of this is they should steer clear of the big issues. - ‘Let’s allow young people to their issues, and we will get on with the serious business of running the country.’
Young people should be included in the deciding of all the issues, and all people should have a say in youth issues. There should be no special pleading, youth has a right and a duty to get involved, the same as any other person, and we should not allow them to be corralled off. Let’s not be trapped in to including young people just because they are young people – that’s not valid, and far from being empowering it is disempowering.
Rather, when we are considering, the role of young people in creating change, We should consider, what do we have to offer that is specific and unique to young people, and that’s why we should seek to get young people involved.
So to get down to the nub of the matter, what is change, and why do we need it?
Change is essential to the development of humanity. Without change there can be no progress, and conditions will stagnate and deteriorate.
Of course not all change is positive, so we need to ask ourselves what change do we need to make.
Do we want to instigate change or have change imposed upon us?
What are the changes that we want to see and to make?
I’m going to introduce a dirty word here – politics -
What specifically does this mean? Politics comes from the Greek word polis, meaning City State, and politics is simply the actions which benefit the state, or more pertinently, the community.
So when I say politics I do of course mean party politics, but I don’t just mean that. Because any action we take to benefit other is political, and indeed an inaction can also be political.
Involvement in Trade Unions, NGO’s Charities, church groups, Trade unions, Student Unions, Credit unions, and so on, is by its nature political.
Which is why I have never bought this idea that young people aren’t interested in political activity – in my opinion, it’s a nonsense.
You look around any community or campus in the country and you will see countless young people involved in political activity. No I don’t mean in your Young Fine Gaels, and Ógra Shinn Féins, I mean in groups like Suas, the SVdP, or the Free legal advice societies, Youth Clubs, even the scouts, along countless others. Young people are as willing as ever to get involved in activities that can make a difference in their communities or in the wider world.
There must be a question there as to how political parties have failed to engage with young people, given they are evidentally community minded.
I take it by your presence here, that everyone here is interested in change. The question at issue here, is what is the role of young people as a group in actually helping to create conditions for change, for implementing change, and indeed for leading change.
I’m not going to stand here and say that we as a generation have a unique genius or insight in to change. Some among us will, and so among us won’t.
What I will say, however is that young people do have a flexibility and an openness to change that may not be shared by older people. They are less likely to be institutionalised or ground down by the system. Think about it. Someone who has been within an organisation, which functions at an adequate, if not perfect, level, for 20 or 30 years, will rather ‘tinkering’ with the problems, rather than take a more holistic approach.
On the other hand a young person is far more likely to say, ‘hold on, why are we doing it that way, we need to try something entirely new, to take a whole new approach’, whereas an older person might react, well, it’s worked perfectly well here for quite some time, let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. And of course, both can be right and both can be wrong.
But it’s this dynamic that is crucial to anything that actual works, and actually promotes or is open to change.
It is this tension and co-operation between the young person who is fresh and innovative and willing to disregard perceived wisdom where it is faulty, and the older person who knows not to throw the baby out with the bathwater which brings about thoughtful, and considered change.
But if we as young people neglect our role in challenging, then we are actually stifling change.
We as young people don’t actually have to win all the arguments, but it is very important that we make them.
In the horror of the northern conflict – let’s not get in to the rights and wrongs of it here – the impetus for change was lost on many, jaded by the conflict perhaps, or who maybe saw it as intractable. It required people, on both sides, to open up to a new way of going forward, to accept that there was a need to go beyond traditional outlooks.
These leaders, I won’t go in to names for fear of omitting someone, appealed to young people across the divide, and brought them to consider the possibility of something new, a new way of doing things
These people, these leaders, often relatively young people opened the door for a new Ireland, didn’t drop cherished traditions, rather they had the courage to look beyond those traditions, and beyond those values, to a new way of working.
There is a value in traditions. All living traditions presuppose change. Without change, long established traditions stagnate, atrophy, and die, because they lose pace with society and become ill fitting with a changing society.
For example, look at the GAA or the IRFU. Two solid traditional organisations, with a wealth of history behind each of them. But neither has ever been more popular than at present. They have proved innovative and able to keep up with society, as evidenced by the modernisation of stadia, professionalization in a broad meaning of the word and so on.
This is because the space and the mechanisms exist within these organisations which allows for that tension I have discussed.
It’s no co-incidence either of course that both count as among the largest organisations with youth involvement in the country, and have huge youth projects.
So to return to the nub of the question, to what is the role of young people in creating change.
We have to visualise it, and get involved in the making it happen, and we will get it wrong, regularly, but the advantage is that we are not afraid to make mistakes.
Ireland will be what we make it, based on the values that young people prioritise.
In terms of the tangible change I want to see, I simply want to be involved in the building a new Ireland. One which has as its core, the rights of its citizens. The right to be free from sectarianism, racism, sexual discrimination, the right to education, the right to social justice, and the right of the people to be able to control their own destiny, economically, socially, and democratically. Where young people are at the forefont of change, and positive change.
We have no option but to create a new Ireland, in our own image. Because in fact there is a different Ireland created every few years, - the question is, who will make it, what will it look like.
It’s the same thing of being responsible for change or having change foisted on us.
Change comes from/through social involvement. One of the biggest era’s of change in Ireland in modern times was the early part of the last century, when enormous amounts of young people. But how much were party politically involved in that pre war period? Precious few. But young people were involved right across the board in actions that benefitted their community.
For example GAA, Gaelic League, flourishing of Anglo Irish Literature and theatre, trade unionism. Huge organisations of immense importance and relevance to the people who were involved, and which materially benefitted their lives. This were the key political forces of that period, and ultimately they would be the fount of much party political change in the subsequent years.
As someone involved in politics, yes i am involved to play my part in ‘X, Y, Z’.
This is my sphere, and many of yours as well, where I feel most comfortable. But I am under no illusions that this is the only, nor, arguably, the most effective. We see that movements such as the US civil rights movement achieved extraordinary things without ever becoming a party political organisation.
But this is where I am at, this is where I am confortable
I recently read an opinion piece in the Irish Times, by Hugh McDowell, on young people in politics.
He said that he had never once heard any contemporary of his express the ambition of achieving High political office. He claimed that the recent controversy around Ivor callely and his expenses was met with complete Indifference, and that this was symptomatic of the disregard for politics and politicians among young people.
But that this was a concern Ireland’s youth will be paying the economic price for our current governments profligacy with our money and that we needed to get young people to re-engage with the political process.
He ventured a number of solutions, for example a list system of electing TD’s and making politics a more attractive career for graduates.
In many ways this is the received wisdom, and indeed, I find myself in agreement with him on a few points.. Hugh McDowell was right to highlight the fact that many young people feel disengaged from the political process. Young people have been most unmercifully targeted by the government in their desire to cut their way out of the recession. Youth unemployment and emigration have skyrocketed, young people’s dole has been cut and community facilities largely aimed at young people have been savaged. However this has been met with little or no resistance. Because young people have no real vocal, effective, lobby, they are seen as an easy target. In this context, the disengagement of young people from the process is of particular concern.
However, as I read the prescriptions i found myself thinking, is this really the issue? For the people I grew up with, in my street, is it truly list systems and electoral reform, and making politics a more attractive career that is really going to change things?
For my money, Hugh had his priorities in a perverse order. Certainly, we need our best and brightest young people to consider politics as a worthwhile endeavour. However, surely to focus almost exclusively on the representatives, rather than the represented, is symptomatic of the wider malaise in Irish politics, which is stopping our generation getting seriously involved.
Young people bring energy vibrancy and a willingness to challenge, we have seen that young people engage politically outside of party politics, so i don’t believe that it being an unattractive career is what is holding people back. Indeed some might say it is already an attractive career.
I also recall thinking, as he mentioned a few young TDs currently in the Dáil, that yes its positive to have young TDs, but these TDs don’t properly represent young people, or at least not the young people I know. Young people aren’t so foolish as to think that just because they elect a young person, that they will represent them any better (wording?)
What will re-engage young people is quality representatives who are interested in, and willing to fight for, their point of view, to get involved in meaningful two way engagement, and to work, and that is what we are singularly lacking.
It’s also incumbent on young people to grasp the opportunities which now exist, to recast the political system in their mould. That won’t be achieved by a new elite cadre of young, well connected politicians, but by ordinary young people, refusing to take cuts or inaction on unemployment lying down. If we can achieve that, all the old certainties go out the window.
Whatever of our differences on this panel I’m sure we can all agree on the crucial role that the youth wings and youth groups within political parties and it’s something which can be lost in the public perception of these groups. But that role in arguing their corner and creating a space for young people to bounce off each other, to learn from one another and to makes mistakes is crucial.
If you want to empower people if you want to get them to show leadership, you have to give them autonomy, you have to leave them the space to make mistakes, which is something Irish political parties do poorly.
This is what brings young people on. Give them their head, let them have their say, and if we are wrong, call us on it. And we will be wrong, of course we will, on occasion, but that’s the only way of developing leadership skills. There will be wins there will be losses, but arguably the most important are the draws, where youth and experience collaborate.
When I was considering what I would say here today, I was speaking to my father, and he put it to me in a very simple and succinct manner. Why did you take a year out of your degree to go travelling around the country as national organiser?
Because the answer to that question, is the answer to the question at hand today. The actions I took were based on that desire to enhance my party by reinvigorating it with young people, young people who could inspire debate, and challenge the perceived wisdom, and to advance our struggle. Thats what it boils down to.
As the poet once said ‘Riddle me this wise men, what if the dream come true?’
The role of young people is not only to dream the dream, to consider, to wonder at the possibilities, but to actually try and put that dream that big idea, into action.
I believe in a United Northern Ireland which remains an intregal part of the United Kingdom just like England, Scotland and Wales where all traditions are valued and respected.
