This article is meant to contribute to the prickly debate under way in my lovely Zambezi Region as far as the acceptable morality levels of the youth are concerned. I thank the NBC Silozi Service that allows residents to call in and express their views concerning the behaviour of today’s youth.
The fascinating part of the show is when the programme turns into a verbal duel between the youth and the non-youth. It is indeed remarkable to gather that all adults claim to be standing on high moral ground! The youth, on the other hand, point the finger of blame right at the doorsteps of their parents and at the offices of those in leadership.
The majority of the parents and other leaders who care to call in and participate in the programme often blame the youth for especially consuming alcohol and forgetting about their social responsibilities. These include, in the main, paying little attention to school activities. Parents wish the youth could grab the opportunity to participate in popular sports activities such as soccer, netball, boxing and cycling. Sports participation has in general been on the decline in our region.
Yes, of course, I fully agree the conduct of some youth in the Zambezi could be described as preposterous and grotesque. The consumption of alcohol has become fashionable and indeed the measure of one’s acceptable civil conduct.
One is considered ignorant and uncivilized by opting to lead a teetotal life. One’s academic achievement does not win them respect among the youth.
Respect is earned by frequenting beer halls and offering to buy them alcohol as they sit there waiting for alcohol messiahs.
Their thirst for alcohol cannot be quenched. They infest every single beer hall every single day of each week and consume alcohol as if there was no tomorrow. They would be seen vacating these alcohol taverns only on the break of day. Insults are hauled at whoever comes their way. That involves the elderly and the very important members of our society. They even have the guts to haul insults at the police.
Public property such as telephone booths is vandalized and stones are hauled at the windows of public buildings such as schools. Petty crimes such as shoplifting, cell-phone grabbing and even knife attacks at beer halls have soared.
The shocking statistics of HIV infections is not enough to scare the youth from frequenting these places that have proven to be the big gates and broad highways to poverty.
Gone are the days when the youth gathered at sports fields to do and watch sports. Beer halls are the only places our youth converge nowadays.
They rarely mourn the death of their parents and their sick father lying on his deathbed is enough to raise expectations of happy days ahead.
This owes to the fact that the demise of an employed father accords them access to his pension funds. The pension funds see them gain some prestige at these devilish drinking dens.
There they would be the bosses and every one would be kneeling in front of them begging for a round of alcohol.
It is indeed a complete demonstration of utter moral bankruptcy, immorality at its highest order.
I can pronounce the majority of the youth in our region morally insolvent.
Dear compatriots it is like a house on fire with all exits sealed. How do we save the children locked in the burning house of immorality?
Once again, all adults who take part in the call-in programme claim to be standing on high moral ground. They point and boast about their days of moral beauty. They claim to be the tutors of high moral values. One realizes that all parents distance themselves from the wayward conduct of their own children.
Who is to blame for this kind of behaviour in which our youth are mired?
Yes, of course yes, alcohol and other related light beverages are easy to access nowadays.
These young people are exposed to the ‘hard stuff’ right in their homes. They begin to take a sip from their parents’ leftovers right on those tables in their homes. They begin to smoke dagga they buy from the man next door. They are led to this callous marijuana seller by their own father or mother who also happens to be a regular customer.
Their parents know where the ganja gardens flourish but choose to remain silent. The silence of parents sees the harvest of this green ‘little devil’ flood the streets. Here it sells like hot cakes.
The frequent domestic fights and the foul language of their parents find a receptive and fertile ground for the immature brains of these youth.
These kids also hurl similar insults to everyone that they meet in the streets of our lovely Katima Mulilo.
The surreptitious bedroom tête-à-tête flies from parents bedrooms and settles in the ears of the innocent ones. Videos of adults mired in the actual act of sex are uploaded on Facebook and What’s Up saves to usher them into the mobile phones of everybody, including pastors. The voices of adult men and adult women are saved as ringtones on the phones of the young people we accuse of being wayward. These voices discuss sex and sexual organs are singled out and pronounced with greater zeal. Young people are exposed to how extra-marital relations are solicited at the expense of their own love-thirst mothers.
They imagine how their mothers languish in those homes riddled with ‘zero’ love.
Adult men demonstrate callousness by abandoning their wives of more than three decades and swoop on these vulnerable ‘sweet sixteens’ who are always on standby.
These ‘sweet sixteens’ prove susceptible due to their lower levels of literacy. They grab the opportunity of spending the whole night drinking with this outdated fellow whose HIV status they do not even know.
Sleeping next to this man in an expensive Zambezi or Zambia hotel proves to be as sweet as honey.
These men, though, prove tough competitors for the young boys who do not have access to the resources adult men use to win the affections of young girls in luring them to those sexual snares. Therefore, these adolescents opt to turn on the wives of adult men who have taken up their own young girls by virtue of the purchasing power young boys fail to acquire.
The failure of the young boys to acquire job opportunities is blamed on poor academic infrastructure and high levels of nepotism in our region.
The exchange of women between boys and adult men has seen age difference between lovers in the Zambezi rise to more than twenty years.
Adult men of forty-five years fall in love with damsels of eighteen. Young boys of eighteen enter the beds of post menopause married females.
These two different generations decide to merge in marriage despite generational gaps that define how they perceive life on this bedeviled planet earth.
I think my readers now understand my claim that it is indeed remarkable for all parents in the Zambezi to claim that they are standing on high moral ground. We have failed our young people in so many respects. The leadership of the town has the opportunity to see to it that the interests of our youth are equally handled. The leadership continues to run business in a manner that only spells out advantage for those who have centuries of established connections with those who occupy positions of influence in the region.
There is no doubt that sport has proven to be a weapon that has managed to lure young people roaming the streets and beer halls.
I am tempted to agree with the sentiments of one of the boys when cornered to tell why he felt the Zambezi leadership had no interest in addressing the interests of the youth in our region.
Lishokomosi did not mince words to say our region does not market and fund sports properly. It does not invest in the sports fraternity wisely.
I fully concurred when he said sports bring diverse communities together and harnesses power and motivation to address regional issues.
He rightly argued sports foster regional development by establishing a shared bond between people and breaking down prejudice within communities.
Sports would lead to people putting personal ideals aside and rallying behind their region.
Yes, of course, the people of the region would support their region in sports, as opposed to supporting a particular preference group.
Sports could be used to pacify the volatile Zambezi communities that are riddled with hidden tribal hatred.
Sports would ensure the Zambezi Region boasts a healthy workforce. An unhealthy community is a burden to its own health facilities.
Such a population could be the reason clamours to refurbish our state hospital have been on the increase. We are a sickly population that spends more on medical issues than on anything else.
The HIV prevalence rate has reached proportions of embarrassing levels. We are the region where the leadership has not seen the significance of establishing public fitness centers.
It is embarrassing to see young unfit males with protruding beer bellies.
The region needs leaders that can serve the interests of the current generation and be responsible enough to invest in the generations of tomorrow. It is actually the best way to bridge the gap between our generation and the future one other than through generational marriages.
The form of leadership that addresses the interests of the residents by favouring one tribe over another has failed our region dismally. It is a bedeviled practice that saw day right at independence when locals from either west or east of the region assumed leadership positions.