Our Greatest Defeat: The Loss of Vision

Our Greatest Defeat: The Loss of Vision

Absence of ‘times’ appropriate ideas’ for our younger generation means we will remain a human fuel for the struggle. 

One of the most challenging if not frightening questions I propose to myself is about the values in our society and especially among the younger generation. What do these youngsters carry as ideas once they graduate from school? What set of values do they really hold?

Obviously the process of absorbing ideas about life, or ideas of ‘our times’, no longer takes place in school; for the influx of ideas is flying all around.  The fact that in most public and private schools there is no plan other than rote learning alienates the most brilliant minds along with the simpler brains.  Who controls, or a better word, who weighs the values that our kids have or should have if the word ‘should’ is even applicable in such times as ours? The sad truth is that no one knows.

Many have argued that what constitutes ‘good education’ needs a set of common societal values or a common vision for a common future to be steered in a certain path.  So the issue of good education is mainly political, and in order to agree on what constitutes good education, we need this sharing over broad values to be injected into the genes of ideas for future generation.  These ideas will become the antibodies, or could be a helpful defense line for them, but a shared vision is first needed; or else the path will be split into two or more visions.  For example, in terms of the struggle that is consuming all of us, there are two contradictory visions; one basically stands for refreshing the already long dead peace process, and the second is for resistance both popular and armed, while many are lost in between with no alternative vision.

In Palestine or in any spot of land where Palestinians live there is no single idea or value that seems to unite us as a way out of the conflict. What has gathered us in the past, or the group of ideas that once represented us are no longer valid not necessarily because they are wrong in and by themselves but because there was a great deal of hypocrisy in representing them and in applying them. Ideas like resistance, democracy, religion, freedom, pluralism, self-determination, independence and rule of law.  All of these values have turned into empty words because of their over use in rhetoric without real debate of what they mean for the new generations and in their new reality.

Adding to this ‘emptiness of ideas’ even further is the loss of belief in the moto “Islam is the solution”. It turns out it is not. Many of the leaders who adhered to  Islamism ideology had no solution to any of our problems. Even worse the ideology seems to offer more problems by taking us backwards in a reverse direction which totally proved counter intuitive and is illogical. The ideology counters the natural progression of time and human nature and it has added a second level of hypocrisy not just in the political rhetoric but in our daily lives. 

To take the matter even further, I dare to ask whether this void is intentional. Should mosques for example, or any other body be free to fill the void of ideas? Was there a plan in this country, or for this region, other than wars and refugees?

The main lack is a ‘times- appropriate set of ideas’. No set of ‘times-appropriate values’ for our younger generation means we will continue to fuel the struggle. The loss of values translates itself in the conflict and in every factor of our lives and this is our greatest defeat.

The main sense prevailing these days is loss. We all have a sense of uncertainty towards the future. What ties us to the past is a single thread that is moving like a pendulum against a cliff. Our eyes are glued to the weary rope hoping it will not cut. We cannot go back up nor is there anything left that we can cling to on our way down. We are waiting to see what will happen. And that is a situation we have put ourselves into.

The most difficult phase is not even falling- although we are on the brink of it- and not even hitting the ground although it is painful but it is afterwards: the void that will come, the loss of ideology. There needs to be a new vision.