It Would be Better if the World Ended in 2012
"Living was a hawk in the sky. Living was an earthen jar of water in the dust of the threshing with
the grain flailed out and the chaff blowing. Living was a horse between your legs and a carbine
under one leg and a hill and a valley and a stream with trees along it and the far side of the valley
and the hills beyond."
Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls
In Stalin’s time, the age a person could be tried and sentenced to death in the USSR was 12. Innocence faded quickly; children quickly learned that nowhere was safe and that there was probably a bug in the telephone, the radio and almost everything else which emitted sound. Every word was recorded and everything that went on paper could be potentially dangerous. Even things like a lack of sleep could be interpreted as, “The subject clearly has trouble sleeping. His dreams are disturbed for some reason or another. Perhaps he is plotting against the state.” People guarded their thoughts, their emotions and their feelings.
Thousands, millions of people were sent to gulags, or forced labour camps, and hardly any of them survived. Stalin, the dear father of the Soviet Union, organised purges of Jewish people despite publicly condemning antisemitism. Thousands were relocated and displaced. Stalin was a no respecter of age, gender or colour. Anyone he considered could possibly oppose him was dispatched with immediately.
Stalin committed atrocities similar to the ones Hitler was reviled for, but for some reason they are far less known. Perhaps history really is written by the victors. What, you may ask, does this have to do with the youth of today? My answer to you is: everything. Stalin’s way of doing things changed the Soviet Union for many generations, and continues to impact Russia (considered the USSR’s spiritual successor) even until today. Why did the system in the USSR work? Why didn’t someone just say enough is enough and lead the people to the streets? A few reasons.
First of all, most of them did not know what courage was. The fire within them had long been suppressed. Let me use a primal example to illustrate this concept. A dog is a wild creature. The Creator endowed it with instincts to run free, find its own food and survive. Imagine such a dog. Let’s call him... Alpha. One day, Alpha is running around in the forest, looking for a deer for his afternoon meal. Suddenly, Alpha feels a sharp pain in his side. He collapses to the ground and then falls asleep. Alpha has been captured by a human being. Alpha never escapes. His human “captors” have found him a mating partner, and he never has to worry about finding food. However, he has never gotten over the disappointment he once felt over losing his freedom. He now resides in a cage and he only runs free when his owner feels like it. Gone is the wind; gone is the taste of life.
Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls
In Stalin’s time, the age a person could be tried and sentenced to death in the USSR was 12. Innocence faded quickly; children quickly learned that nowhere was safe and that there was probably a bug in the telephone, the radio and almost everything else which emitted sound. Every word was recorded and everything that went on paper could be potentially dangerous. Even things like a lack of sleep could be interpreted as, “The subject clearly has trouble sleeping. His dreams are disturbed for some reason or another. Perhaps he is plotting against the state.” People guarded their thoughts, their emotions and their feelings.
Thousands, millions of people were sent to gulags, or forced labour camps, and hardly any of them survived. Stalin, the dear father of the Soviet Union, organised purges of Jewish people despite publicly condemning antisemitism. Thousands were relocated and displaced. Stalin was a no respecter of age, gender or colour. Anyone he considered could possibly oppose him was dispatched with immediately.
Stalin committed atrocities similar to the ones Hitler was reviled for, but for some reason they are far less known. Perhaps history really is written by the victors. What, you may ask, does this have to do with the youth of today? My answer to you is: everything. Stalin’s way of doing things changed the Soviet Union for many generations, and continues to impact Russia (considered the USSR’s spiritual successor) even until today. Why did the system in the USSR work? Why didn’t someone just say enough is enough and lead the people to the streets? A few reasons.
First of all, most of them did not know what courage was. The fire within them had long been suppressed. Let me use a primal example to illustrate this concept. A dog is a wild creature. The Creator endowed it with instincts to run free, find its own food and survive. Imagine such a dog. Let’s call him... Alpha. One day, Alpha is running around in the forest, looking for a deer for his afternoon meal. Suddenly, Alpha feels a sharp pain in his side. He collapses to the ground and then falls asleep. Alpha has been captured by a human being. Alpha never escapes. His human “captors” have found him a mating partner, and he never has to worry about finding food. However, he has never gotten over the disappointment he once felt over losing his freedom. He now resides in a cage and he only runs free when his owner feels like it. Gone is the wind; gone is the taste of life.
However, Alpha’s puppies’ puppies (i.e. grand-puppies) consider the humans not to be captors, but their best friends. From when they opened their eyes to when they die, they will live like this. Caged. Shackled. But also fed, warm and comfortable. Because they do not know the meaning of freedom, they will never yearn for it. Alpha is probably too ashamed of his failure to remain wild to tell anyone. So, what does the hypothetical behaviour of dogs have to do with human beings? At heart, human beings are also animals. When suppressed, they either lash out or retreat further into the corner. This is the reason for depressions, suicides, and high crime rates. The Soviets never even realised that there was a different way of living. The media was so closed most did not even know what the Statue of Liberty was. Propaganda was spread and people were gullible. A few disappearances here and there were enough to scare everyone. Few were brave enough to test for themselves the “a single twig breaks, but a bundle of twigs is strong” maxim.
The next reason people were in line and behaved properly most of the time was because they were well disciplined. They were well trained. Once again, we don’t call dogs who can follow instructions well educated. We call them well trained. And it is discipline which made the people so pliable and obedient. Fear and discipline are almost one and the same.
Plato's brother, Glaucon, once told a story about a fisherman named Gyges who found a magic ring in a cavern. When he put on the ring, he immediately turned invisible. Glaucon's question here was simple - was it possible for a man to be so pure that he would behave in a "moral" manner even when he went about unobserved by his fellow man? The story goes on to say that Gyges went on to murder the king, seduce the queen and commit similar atrocious acts. Once the fear of being discovered was removed, Gyges lost all pretence of morality.
How is the story of a made-up fisherman valid in this situation? Obviously, you'll be thinking - okay, he behaved like that, that doesn't necessarily mean I will. But think about it. How many times have we told our parents we'd do something and didn't? How many times have you kept the change when someone asked you to buy something for them? All these small things will eventually lead to bigger things. Stealing office stationery, taking that piece of bread your colleague bought - these are examples of weakness in human character. Also, huge shout out here to all you illegal drivers. However small these acts may be, they represent the POSSIBILITY that every person will choose to do wrong if they think they will not be caught.
The crux of my argument here is that human beings are basically evil. Without control, order in society and most importantly discipline, their wilder antics rise to the surface. When human beings misbehave they delude themselves into feeling free and powerful. Back to Hemingway: "...a carbine under one leg..." This is one example of this pitiful self-delusion. A soldier in the heat of battle, bullets whizzing past him, perhaps even grazing his neck, often feels most alive in the moment he is closest to death. While killing is outlawed in modern society, it becomes acceptable when the government says it is. Morality only exists because of vague social conventions. When killing becomes socially acceptable because "your country needs you" or "it is your duty", people have no qualms about shooting someone. A country's superiority is measured by who can kill more men. A quote often attributed to Stalin, but which was probably actually spoken by Kurt Tucholsky is, "The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions a statistic."
Now, a 12 year old Soviet boy, having been indoctrinated in Soviet theory from a very young age would undoubtedly be very very afraid of misbehaving. Even the slightest mistake or step could lead to his freedom being taken away. Contrast this with a 12 year old Russian boy today. He probably has far less to worry about. This lack of worry is a great problem. Children become too free.
Because most of the urban youth today have never really suffered, they are truly and utterly spoilt rotten. I was talking to one of my friends on the phone the other day, and she asked me, "Do you think I should skip accounts class for a manicure? The only time slot available is during my
accounts class. This is the hardest decision of my life!!!!" Whether said in jest or not, this
demonstrates the disparity between real world problems and the problems the youth face today.
Incidentally, my friend did indeed make the smart choice and attend her accounts class. One of the most despicable things I have ever seen is how children treat their parents. They
consider their parents to be their equals. Their parents have fed them from when they were born.
Their mothers carry them for nine months and go through some of the most horrific pains endurable
to bring them into the world. Before you could even stand up they cleaned up your shit. Literally.
Without you, your parents would probably be millionaires and could have retired ages ago. In return
for all this unselfish love and care for which absolutely nothing is expected in return, we often
repay our parents with disappointment and grief.
These days, children dare to argue with, be rude to, and even threaten their parents. All religions advocate that one of the most important values is to always respect their parents. The Bible says, “If a man curses his father or mother, his lamp will be snuffed out in pitch darkness.” “Honor your father and your mother,” is also one of the Ten Commandments, which is a key tenet of both the Christian and Jewish faiths. The Quran says: “We enjoined the human being to honor his parents. His mother bore him arduously, gave birth to him arduously, and took intimate care of him for thirty months." The key here is not: respect your parents when they are right, the key is: respect your parents, full stop. Imagine how you would feel if someday your own child spoke to you in the same manner you speak to your parents sometimes. Nothing gives the child a right to consider himself his father or his mother's equal.
What gives the adolescents and the so-called members of "Generation Y" the right to be ruder and more presumptuous than everyone else? I cannot count the number of times I've heard a child speak in an ill-mannered way to his parents. As always, it is not fair to blame them alone; there are many different parties at fault here.
First of all I blame the parents themselves. They have failed to instil the proper discipline required in their children. Earlier I wrote about the discipline the children of the Soviet Union had in Stalin’s time; we need a reversal to that sort of discipline. A popular joke a few years ago involved a father speaking to his friend. “When I was young and I misbehaved my father sent me to my room. Now my son has a TV, laptop, refrigerator, game console, mobile phone, tablet and air conditioning in his
These days, children dare to argue with, be rude to, and even threaten their parents. All religions advocate that one of the most important values is to always respect their parents. The Bible says, “If a man curses his father or mother, his lamp will be snuffed out in pitch darkness.” “Honor your father and your mother,” is also one of the Ten Commandments, which is a key tenet of both the Christian and Jewish faiths. The Quran says: “We enjoined the human being to honor his parents. His mother bore him arduously, gave birth to him arduously, and took intimate care of him for thirty months." The key here is not: respect your parents when they are right, the key is: respect your parents, full stop. Imagine how you would feel if someday your own child spoke to you in the same manner you speak to your parents sometimes. Nothing gives the child a right to consider himself his father or his mother's equal.
What gives the adolescents and the so-called members of "Generation Y" the right to be ruder and more presumptuous than everyone else? I cannot count the number of times I've heard a child speak in an ill-mannered way to his parents. As always, it is not fair to blame them alone; there are many different parties at fault here.
First of all I blame the parents themselves. They have failed to instil the proper discipline required in their children. Earlier I wrote about the discipline the children of the Soviet Union had in Stalin’s time; we need a reversal to that sort of discipline. A popular joke a few years ago involved a father speaking to his friend. “When I was young and I misbehaved my father sent me to my room. Now my son has a TV, laptop, refrigerator, game console, mobile phone, tablet and air conditioning in his
room, so when he misbehaves I have to send him to my room.” This is the kind of mentality which
cannot be good for a youth. In my interaction with my peers in everyday life, I find a lot of them to
be arrogant, not by our standards, but by the standards of the underprivileged and the less fortunate.
How you treat your equals and superiors doesn’t show what sort of a person you are, how you treat
your subordinates does. Parents, in my opinion, have been too lenient with their children. Too many
freedoms are accorded and not enough boundaries are instituted. No effective foils and counter
measures are put in place and as such youths become demanding and expect things as of right.
The style of parenting known as ‘tiger parenting’ made famous recently by Amy Chua’s book Battle Hymn of The Tiger Mother is one I would advocate for all parents, where good performances in school are expected, not something special. Today, studies take a back seat to fun, enjoyment and the like. One month before important examinations, you suddenly see your child using a book you didn’t even know existed because it had been playing hide and seek in the shelf for the preceding few months.
Because they have everything from childhood, youth today consider things like cars, computers and entertainment as rights, not privileges. We expect our parents to give us an allowance. We expect our parents to buy us the latest iPhone, or the latest little gadget which we will end up using to play games and finally discard at the back of our shelves, forgotten, when the newest version comes out. Blindness is a serious problem among the youth these days. Girls cannot find a single outfit to wear in a full wardrobe; boys cannot find anything to eat in a fully stocked refrigerator.
There should be a hierarchal chain of command in place. Parents always belong on top of children. It’s time for some enforcement! Yes, you love your kids but this is not the way to do things. If trying to be “open-minded” or “cool” is your inspiration for being lenient with your children, then we’re well on our way to a generation of foolish, impulsive people. How long more before we sink into the decadence of Western society, where the federal governments are funded my tax dollars from drug deals, pornography and sin. Even Malaysia is now dependent on tax revenue from cigarettes.
Next comes the mass media and the governments. In Europe, 22 countries have outlawed the use of corporal punishment in schools and the home. This is one of the key contributing factors to a decline in respect. Sometimes the only way for a parent to get a message across to their child is to give them a good hard tight slap to bring them to their senses. Groups like UNICEF are constantly pushing for the abolishment of corporal punishment worldwide, and this gives kids the impression that they have enough power to rebel and go against their parents.
The style of parenting known as ‘tiger parenting’ made famous recently by Amy Chua’s book Battle Hymn of The Tiger Mother is one I would advocate for all parents, where good performances in school are expected, not something special. Today, studies take a back seat to fun, enjoyment and the like. One month before important examinations, you suddenly see your child using a book you didn’t even know existed because it had been playing hide and seek in the shelf for the preceding few months.
Because they have everything from childhood, youth today consider things like cars, computers and entertainment as rights, not privileges. We expect our parents to give us an allowance. We expect our parents to buy us the latest iPhone, or the latest little gadget which we will end up using to play games and finally discard at the back of our shelves, forgotten, when the newest version comes out. Blindness is a serious problem among the youth these days. Girls cannot find a single outfit to wear in a full wardrobe; boys cannot find anything to eat in a fully stocked refrigerator.
There should be a hierarchal chain of command in place. Parents always belong on top of children. It’s time for some enforcement! Yes, you love your kids but this is not the way to do things. If trying to be “open-minded” or “cool” is your inspiration for being lenient with your children, then we’re well on our way to a generation of foolish, impulsive people. How long more before we sink into the decadence of Western society, where the federal governments are funded my tax dollars from drug deals, pornography and sin. Even Malaysia is now dependent on tax revenue from cigarettes.
Next comes the mass media and the governments. In Europe, 22 countries have outlawed the use of corporal punishment in schools and the home. This is one of the key contributing factors to a decline in respect. Sometimes the only way for a parent to get a message across to their child is to give them a good hard tight slap to bring them to their senses. Groups like UNICEF are constantly pushing for the abolishment of corporal punishment worldwide, and this gives kids the impression that they have enough power to rebel and go against their parents.
If you were a father or mother and your son did something bad like talked back to you or disobeyed
you expressly, wouldn’t you like to reserve the right to punish them physically? Who is the
government to tell you how to raise your child? If I feel my child needs to be spanked, then I’ll jolly
well spank him until his arse looks like a strawberry field.
Human beings are greedy. The more we have, the more we want. Our parents allow us to drive, we want a Lamborghini. Our parents allow us a social drink at family functions, we want to get drunk at various clubs around the city. Nothing is ever enough. Once again, things like this bring a false sense of pride. The other day, I was having dinner with a few friends. One of them pulled out his wallet and proudly displayed a fake student ID card with a fake date of birth, among other things. He was proud that he owned one. Not ashamed of his reprehensible and contemptible behaviour, but proud. I’m sure a few of you have one, and I’m not expressly condemning these things, only what they are used for. There is actually a lucrative industry for selling fake ID. CNN reported that in 2006 the total market size in the US for fake identification was about 15 million dollars. A lot of underage college and university students try and obtain one. This is another offence which could have been heavily punished in Stalin’s time - masquerading as another person.
There are a lot of grey areas- people often ask me what a good marker is to decide whether to do something or not. I use a simple criteria - would you want your family to know what you’re doing? If not, you’d better think twice about doing it. Think of the backlash and the opprobrium you would receive if your actions became known to your parents.
Another popular past time of teenagers these days is “shisha-ing”. For those of you who don’t know what this is, it’s basically smoking fruit-flavoured tobacco through a hookah pipe. The BBC reported in 2009 that one shisha smoking session produced up to FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY times as much Carbon Monoxide as a single cigarette. Furthermore, about 8-12% of a shisha smoker’s blood does not function properly, compared to 5-7% of a heavy smoker and 1% of a non- smoker. Also, sharing a pipe poses the danger of spreading tuberculosis, herpes and other diseases if the pipe is not sterilised properly. Even though I may be a non-smoker, because of the actions of other people, I am at a higher risk of getting lung cancer. Isn’t that selfish of smokers of any kind?
Human beings are greedy. The more we have, the more we want. Our parents allow us to drive, we want a Lamborghini. Our parents allow us a social drink at family functions, we want to get drunk at various clubs around the city. Nothing is ever enough. Once again, things like this bring a false sense of pride. The other day, I was having dinner with a few friends. One of them pulled out his wallet and proudly displayed a fake student ID card with a fake date of birth, among other things. He was proud that he owned one. Not ashamed of his reprehensible and contemptible behaviour, but proud. I’m sure a few of you have one, and I’m not expressly condemning these things, only what they are used for. There is actually a lucrative industry for selling fake ID. CNN reported that in 2006 the total market size in the US for fake identification was about 15 million dollars. A lot of underage college and university students try and obtain one. This is another offence which could have been heavily punished in Stalin’s time - masquerading as another person.
There are a lot of grey areas- people often ask me what a good marker is to decide whether to do something or not. I use a simple criteria - would you want your family to know what you’re doing? If not, you’d better think twice about doing it. Think of the backlash and the opprobrium you would receive if your actions became known to your parents.
Another popular past time of teenagers these days is “shisha-ing”. For those of you who don’t know what this is, it’s basically smoking fruit-flavoured tobacco through a hookah pipe. The BBC reported in 2009 that one shisha smoking session produced up to FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY times as much Carbon Monoxide as a single cigarette. Furthermore, about 8-12% of a shisha smoker’s blood does not function properly, compared to 5-7% of a heavy smoker and 1% of a non- smoker. Also, sharing a pipe poses the danger of spreading tuberculosis, herpes and other diseases if the pipe is not sterilised properly. Even though I may be a non-smoker, because of the actions of other people, I am at a higher risk of getting lung cancer. Isn’t that selfish of smokers of any kind?
But well, I suppose someone who isn’t worried about his own health is hardly going to be concerned about mine. But wouldn’t you be upset if I came to your house and started urinating on the floor? So again, why on earth do teenagers insist on partaking in activities which harm their health and the health of others? An inherent lack of discipline is the answer. They lie to their parents about what they do, and of course their parents have absolutely no reason to suspect that they are lying. Of course we can blame law enforcement for not appropriately checking the ages of the consumers and even for altogether not banning these things. Essentially, however, teenagers need to discipline themselves and concentrate on more fruitful activities such as studying. In fifty years, when you’re stricken with lung cancer and your liver is unhealthy, you can look back and regret. But it’ll be too late, won’t it?
But this is why we need a system like Stalin’s. One with truly enforced discipline. A person who has to worry about whether there’s going to be rice on the table will not have time to worry about what to do when the new iPad arrives in Malaysia. Someone who can’t sleep because the secret police might knock on his door and arrest his whole family the next day is barely going to have time to pay someone to produce him a fake ID. Stalin provided something which is missing from almost every form of modern society - discipline. Something we so badly need to rein the members of Generation Y.
So who am I? Who the hell is this smart-ass who thinks he can tell me how to live? How to behave, how to raise my children? I’m nobody. I’m just another teenager. But I dare to speak out. And if no one speaks out, and things like this continue on this downward slump, then the popular satire cartoon South Park will become reality. I recommend Episode Four of Season Five. And yes, parents, I know YOUR children aren’t like this, only maybe that man down the street’s son or your colleague’s daughter.
My friends, I would just like to close saying that I know I have offended some people in the writing of this article. If I have, I would like to say that I absolutely refuse to apologise to you because you are only offended because you know that what I say is true. You should apologise to your body, your parents and your future spouse and children for the way you have behaved. Of course, if you are not offended then there’s nothing to worry about.
BY NICHOLAS MING-AN BALAGURU
