Current issue: Vol.1, No. 2 May 2001

Go to Content page Feedback More compassion and less rules for the African youth By Laurenti Magesa The youth are usually perceived by older generations as an embarrassment and often even as a problem. This is the case throughout the world and over the centuries. The youth wear different clothes (in some places if at all); they sport different hairdos (sometimes described by their elders as weird); they sing different songs (to the ears of the preceding generations, wild noises). In short, they generally tend to do things differently that their elders. Moreover, the youth usually harbour high expectations and can therefore be rather radically intolerant of societal and institutional failures and injustices. For older people already set in their ways and lifestyles, the youth appear impatient and too rash. This is often a source of irritation, not to say conflict, between the generations. The curt but bitter exclamation is usually “the youth of today!” In Africa where, through the globalisation process, change is happening perhaps faster than anywhere else in the world, the generation gap is very wide and potentially harmful to both sides. The rift shows itself not only in such rather superficial, even if significant, activities such as the manner of dress and social behaviour. These are symptoms of more fundamental factors to do with cultural, religious and moral values. Increasingly the African youth in general are questioning some of these “traditional” values, previously held as sacrosanct by the generations before them, especially in their institutional form: the position of youth, women and children in society, the role of religion in life and the value of certain social institutions such as marriage and the family. By so doing, young people may appear to older generations as rebels, a perception that threatens to alienate one generation from the other. But if Africa is not to collapse, and to manage the consequences of globalisation, the ideal is co-operation and mutual understanding between generations. The church, as Pope John Paul II showed on World Youth Day at the Tor Vergata University in Rome in August this year (2000), has both a role and a stake in this. If there is one thing that characterises the mind and spirit of the youth, it is the need for change, felt as the desire for betterment of individuals, human groups and the environment. Paradoxically, even when they indulge in negative and often destructive behaviour, such as drug taking, promiscuous sex, downgrading of marriage in favour of living together (“shacking up”), apparent lawlessness bordering on anarchy and such like, the youth are deeply searching for betterment. The role of the church is to recognise and acknowledge this spirit in the youth and to guide it. Because the young people do not find “faith, fun and friendship,” as Vladimir Felzmann put it in a recent column, the church needs to help them find them. We love you The way to do this is first of all for the church to be close to the youth, to be part of the youth, and the youth to be part of the church. In terms of generations this is what the Pope at 80 meant when he exclaimed, “you young people make me feel young.” He knew fully well that there had not been only prayer, but also sex and drugs during the World Youth Day gathering. Yet as he keenly realised, there could be no way to capture these young people in his “classroom” and teach them against these corruptions except by accepting them. Sensing his genuineness they enthusiastically and repeatedly shouted back, “we love you, Pope John Paul,” which, of course, the Pope thoroughly enjoyed. There was obviously communication taking place here across generations. Such communication is essential for the health of the church and to keep its youth within its fold. “A kraal without calves,” as African pastoralists well know, “is an empty kraal.” Felzmann, youth chaplain in the Diocese of Westminster in England, wrote: “The young need to feel that they are a part of the body of the Church; that they are an asset, not a problem. They want to work with the Church, rather than being served by it.” They want to feel that they belong, Felzmann emphasises that the church is also theirs. For this genuine communication between young people and the church needs to take place, and it can happen only if institutional church embraces the impatience, the enthusiasm and the youth's desire for change. In other words, the youth must be allowed to make the church feel and be young. Can the African church do this for the African youth? Can it make them shout back to it in so many and various ways that “we love you?” The future of the African church and, indeed to some extent, of the African continent lies in the success of this process. The African church's social, religious and spiritual priorities are also those of the African society in general, which in turn consists in the African youth's aspirations in particular. They include justice, peace and stability, and the consolidation of human rights and human dignity. The only question is how to reach them. Different factions in society have, as we all know, manipulated for their own ends the enthusiasm of the youth for these goals resulting in the tragedies of Rwanda, Eritrea, Sudan… the list is almost endless. At the same time the African church has by and large lacked flexibility in its approach to the youth, often unwittingly contributing by its doctrinal rigidity to these and other equally serious tragedies in the form of abortion and death by AIDS. Not only that, the church has through its lack of doctrinal and pastoral flexibility often succeeded more in alienating young people from it than gathering them into its arms and bosom. But there have been sentiments of “we love you” too from the youth, as when the church as clearly and courageously distanced itself from those elements in society bent on war, oppression and destruction. Archbishop Emmanuel Kataliko of Bukavu in the DRC comes immediately to mind as a very recent case. The church in Rwanda, during the height of the genocide in 1994 however, cannot on the whole be said to have been a particularly shining witness of the friendship and love that the African youth ardently yearn for and seek. The wound caused by this unfaithfulness to the spirit of togetherness, reconciliation and love will take a long time to heal. In drugs, sex and apparent lawlessness some African youth mistakenly feel they can find peace of mind and heart, love and justice. The onus is on the church as mother and teacher to lead them to alternative ways towards these noble and divine goals. For this the church must be most innovative and imaginative, with practical programmes able to convey the essence of the church, which is to promote life in its fullness, to get the youth to identify their aspirations in and with it. A shoulder to lean on for the wounded This entails the church's involvement as an active player in the international community to redirect the process of globalisation and thus combat its negative effects domestically. Organisations such as Jubilee 2000 for Third World debt relief have shown beyond doubt that this kind of involvement can make a difference, not least in awakening global awareness to structures of injustice. Demonstrations in Seattle, Prague, Porto Alegre against the manipulations of WTO and Bretton Woods Corporations (the IMF and the World Bank) have seen a participation of youth from all over the world. These are the themes that attract the attention of the best of our youth. . Sexual promiscuity and lawlessness among the youth may perhaps also be partly a consequence of globalisation's ideology of instant gratification. In this situation, for the church to insist only on “chastity” and “order” in its teaching, and sacramental sanctions for transgression in the pastoral practice, has proved to be largely fruitless. Anyone working with young or in a parish situation is daily confronted with this fact. Rather than seeking merely to protect and preserve tradition, the church must now find ways to respond to new and emerging forms of spirituality and integrate them within itself. If many youth “do not attend Mass every Sunday,” Felzmann points out, they still “find God…in their own hearts, among their friends, in giving themselves to others and in nature.” The focus of the church's pastoral care for the youth is to lead them towards holiness in wholeness. The church needs to genuinely accompany them in their good aspirations, gently suggesting whenever necessary alternative paths towards attaining them through example. And it must offer a kind shoulder for them to lean on whenever they find themselves wounded by an increasingly manipulative world in their search for good. Laurenti Magesa, a priest from the Diocese of Musoma (Tanzania), is one of Africa's best-known Catholic theologians. He has taught theology in Africa and America and he is currently involved in pastoral work in his home country African Scribe is guest on PeaceLink web site