By: Jumana Nounou

ده جيل مش متربي” “هو ده الجيل ال هيحرر القدس؟” “جيل بايظ و قليل الادب”

I think we all once heard those words. All we get is judgements about what we do and what we don’t. If you’re going to judge, the least thing to do is to take a look at what we’re facing everyday. Our time is NOT like yours. Our generation, specially in Egypt faces many struggles and different types of pressures and none of the elders take these things into consideration. And I want us to acknowledge the things that we are facing in order to figure something out that could civilize between the generations.

Firstly, in order to understand what we are going through, we have to point out the differences that we face everyday; the ones that elders might not get.

For example, technology. In the past few decades, there has been a huge technological development. Everyday there’s a brand new device (phones, laptops, video games, etc…) that has the ability to do something the previous generation never dreamt of. These devices have opened many doors to the house of social pressures. Technically speaking, we waste most of our time checking out the latest trends, gossip and fashion so that we can keep up with everyone and everything. In the past, you took pictures only to keep memories. Things are different now. Now, we take pictures to pose and model. Full makeup and designer clothes. When you are 13 and this girl in your group wears makeup, she is the coolest one. When you’re 14 and this boy starts smoking, he is the coolest guy. We don’t have time to have fun. We compete. We compete on everything . Who gets more likes. Who has more followers. Who is the most popular person. Who is the girl that every girl wants to be and every boy wants to be with. Who is in a relationship. Who is not? Who smoked weed first? Who seems happier? Yes, we compete in… in the appearances of happiness when most of us are unhappy. We are controlled by social appearances.

Consequently, 13 year old minds now are way different than 13 year olds 30 years ago. The internet has exposed almost everything for us. We can now know anything without making any effort. We see different people and ideas from all over the world. We are exposed to different cultures, religions and unpopular opinions. It’s hard to convince us with anything because we don’t just see what you see. We see everything.

In the past, it took you a great effort, and a lot of time and money to explore different cultures. Because in order for you to do that you had to actually travel to this country physically and spend time with its people. Right now, your mind could be in Korea with BTS while your body is in Egypt.

Furthermore, you, older generations, have to take this into your consideration because you could be talking to a 12 year old expecting him to behave like a 12 year old when he is actually behaving like a 15 year old. And yes it really matters.

Do you know why this happens?

In my opinion, it’s because technology makes everything pass so fast. Ever since technology existed, things have been running way too fast for us to catch up. Time passes so fast that we don’t have enough time to have any fun. And the only time we have, we spend it on taking pictures to compete with others.

In this past decade, Egypt has suffered unstable political and economical circumstances. We have all witnessed very hard conditions. We always feel unsafe. We see our parents, cutting off relations with their close friends due to different points of view and different priorities . We see parents getting divorced due to these differences. We see people getting killed and imprisoned because they want to express themselves freely. These past few years, we have seen the worst come out of people when they legalize the crimes against the ones who are different than them. We see people backstabbing their relatives for money. We see death. We see hunger. We see outrage. We see corruption. We see inequality. We see terror. We are terrorized by everything and anything. We are always doubting everything and everyone around us. We are scared to express our opinions due to this corrupted place we call Motherland. We see our governments steal. We see enforced disappearances. We see void provisions. We are segregated. We see despotism. We see oppression. And we are expected to solve all these problems. We are burdened with the elder’s mistakes.

” هو ده الجيل ال هيحرر القدس”

I’m sorry but which generation lost Jerusalem? Who couldn’t defend it? You ruined everything and you expect us to just solve it all with smiles on our faces? Does that even make any sense?

And the problem is that we don’t know which side we take. We see everything yet we are confused.

Of course, due to these hard political conditions. Egypt has suffered more more difficult economical conditions. Maybe some of us don’t really care about politics nor freedom. But all of us care about food. We want to eat. I’m not talking about the extravagant life. I’m talking about the essentials. We need to be provided with enough food, drink, clothing and education. That is the least thing that we could ask for. But this too some might have the shortage of. Everything is so expensive and overpriced. And due to the technological developments. We have to keep up with these things when a lot of people have shortages of food. And we have to keep up with the fast fashion. And we have to go out a lot and travel to keep up the social image. If we don’t keep up this social image. Then we will not be appealing for everyone else to be befriended.

Right now, you need to realize those differences and acknowledge them. You have to understand that we are not like you and we can’t be.

” لا تؤدبوا أولادكم بأخلاقكم ، لأنهم خلقوا لزمان غير زمانكم ”

Al imam Ali, prophet muhammad’s cousin said these words. It’s really important to use them in our daily lives. Everything I pointed out in this article is because we have to figure something out. I’m not saying that you (elders) have to change all your ways towards us. And I’m not saying that we have to change all our behaviors towards you. But we can learn to be civil. And for all the burdens that we are bearer with. We don’t really have much choice. We have to keep moving forward. It’s our reality now: whether it’s political, social or economical. Unfortunately it’s now our burden too and we can’t just sit around and do the same mistakes the previous generations have been doing and let the next generation inherit all these dilemmas. We will not be able to solve them all. But the least thing to do is try. There is no doubt that we are flawed. And of course we are different. But that’s the point. Our flaws and differences differ us from others. That is where beauty lies.