Our youth seek to embellish their worlds according to their own perspectives. Being sanguine about the future, they have a tendency to face adventures, live an independent life and practice the freedom of thought and action in their daily life. Moreover, they feel a strong sense of intrinsic love for beauty. Therefore, they feel impelled to eradicate the impediments and experience the life vicissitudes by their own. These facts are supposed to be recognized by parents and elders.
Ill-fatedly, our youth’s psychological needs are constantly overlooked within families and they are urged to condescend to imitation. In addition, they are labeled “irreligious” for violating the traditional taboos or behaving against the taste of their senile parents.
It is youth’s inner needs to experience the facts of life and analyze the outcome of their actions. Parents, teachers and religious scholars are a need to give some rational and kind advice rather than to dictate their own frames of mind. Likewise, freedom of thought is the basic needs of our youth. Some may argue that they are subjugated to feelings and emotions and, therefore, they are highly susceptible to error. But youth are not impeccable creature – they are only human – and need freedom of thought whether to think rightly or wrongly.
In spite of the youth’s aversion to dos and don’ts, parents demur their ways of clothing or walking with vitriolic verbal attacks. They are accused of besmirching family’s reputation for lax way of clothing. The elders seek to impose their own mentality and even taste of clothing on their scions. They ignore the needs of the teenagers, who are ready to shoulder the responsibilities, to freedom of action.
Youth are accused of violating moral values and social norms. It should be noted that the youth tend to behave according to their own way of thinking. For instance, they grow a strong sense of feeling for beauty on the grounds of their psychological structure. In short, they focus on the beautiful aspects of life and such slight issues may lead to strife between the youth and the old. So, when the obsolete traditions, which originate in the conservative frames of mind, are violated, the elder accuse them of breaking moral values, social norms or religious taboos. Therefore, the schism between the two groups widens.
Parents teach their children religious guidelines in a fractious manner. For example, they shout at them in early morning to wake up for offering prayer. Moreover, they indoctrinate their children the angry face of religion such as Hell, gigantic insects, blazing fire, painful tortures and other of such ilk. Pointing out the negative aspects with violent behavior will fill one with puissant sense of hatred. Furthermore, when their children make a small mistake, they heap harsh invective upon them.
The traditional platitude about religion cannot satiate the youth’s spiritual thirst either. Many religious messages remain in mystery for our youth, and the clergy do not bother themselves to explain and interpret them to accord the social needs of modern age. I mean that, for example, if the philosophy of Hijab be explained to our female youth, we need not force them wear Hijab, they will do voluntarily. Or if we explain the philosophy of prayer to them, we need not shout at them every morning to wake up early, they will do earnestly.
Rudolf Karl Bultmann (1884 – 1976), a German theologian, talks suitably of demythologization in modern world. He believes that some myths have been combined with religions which are in contrary with rationality. Bultmann persists that the mythical issues should be interpreted in a way so as to be acceptable for the contemporary men.
For clarification, Bultmann cited the first-century view of the universe in which people thought that the earth was a sphere, with heaven above and hell beneath; in this sense it formed a “three-tiered” universe. He explained that people of that time used this mythical view of the universe to explain the divine in human terms.
Karl Marx was also talking of demystification. He believed that in the past people lived in a mysterious world and now we are supposed to demystify it. Hence, our religious scholars have to shoulder the responsibility of demystifying religious guidelines and interpreting them in modern term – so as to be understandable for our youth.
The media also play a negative role and influence our youth to a large extent. In the current age of eruption of information, our youth are inundated with foreign cultures and non-Islamic values. Our local media broadcast foreign serials, amorous films and music and romantic programs without feeling an iota of responsibility. To write with candor, the local media hardly ever hold the national cultures and beliefs in respect. Thus, the media are liable for spoiling the morality of our youth.
It is beyond doubt that the youth play pivotal role in a society. Besides being entitled with their rights, their psychological needs must be considered seriously by the elders. Their natural tendency, mentality and frames of mind and their lifestyle, which roots in their personal perspectives, should be held in great respect. Hence, the parents and the elders are supposed to revise their attitudes towards them. Likewise, the cultural activists, especially those who run cultural programs in local media, are urged to consider the vulnerability of our youth and play their role positively in this regard.