SALESIAN BROTHERS AND THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC CHALLENGES OF THE NEW WORLD
Introduction
Dear Salesian Brothers,
You have a special place in today’s World of Youth Ministry. You are making a great contribution to the betterment of poor youth. My sincere appreciation for what you do. Thank you for inviting me to share few ideas on today’s challenges for you and me. We are here to face the challenges as Don Bosco faced at the time of Industrial Revolution. We stand on the side of youth and together face their challenges. I thank the organizers for choosing a very relevant theme for the Congress.
The relevance of this theme: “The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these too are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ.” (Church in the Modern World). According to GS, “the Church has always had the duty of scrutinizing the signs of the times and of interpreting them in the light of the gospel…We must therefore recognize and understand the world in which we live, its expectations, its longings, and its often dramatic characteristics.”
In the last few years the effects of globalization, liberalization and privatization have been felt by all, especially in the developing countries. These have plunged many countries into a debt trap; have caused cultural degradation through their multimedia; have destroyed indigenous industries and agriculture as a result of which, farmers have committed suicide, wavers have been thrown on the streets as beggars, women have fallen prey to sexual abuses, children have become victims of trafficking, unbridled mechanization, an offshoot of globalization has thrown millions of youth out of employment.
We are youth workers by profession. “ Our apostolic activity is carried out in a variety of ways, which depend in the first place upon the actual needs of those for whom we are working… Sensitive to the signs of the times and with initiative and continual flexibility we evaluate these activities, renew them and create new ones.” (Const.41)
“The Salesian brother brings to every field of education and pastoral activity the specific qualities of his lay status, which make him in a particular way a witness to God’s Kingdom in the world, close as he is to the young and to the realities of working life.” (Const. 45)
We should be intelligent youth workers. We, not only maximize our efforts but we should also get maximum benefits to the youth. This is possible only if we reach out to the youth in their larger issues and in their context.
The context of South Asian Youth:
Sri Lankan Youth
Sri Lanka has figured prominently in the global media in the recent past thanks to violent and turbulent politics in the country over the last two decades, in particular the brutal ethnic conflict that claimed thousands of lives. The country has been an exceptional case in their achievements in many areas of social development such as literacy, general education, life expectancy and low infant mortality. Declining mortality rates resulted in rapid population growth exerting pressure on economic resources. Increasing levels of educational attainment led to an explosion of employment aspirations.
In a country where the population has been largely concentrated in rural areas, the above developments have exerted considerable pressure on the rural unemployed to migrate to urban areas. But, this is not an easy transition for many educated youth as their livelihood aspirations do not match with the kind of employment opportunities available in the newly liberalized economy.
Since white collar employment jobs could not be created in sufficient numbers, it naturally led to high rates of youth unemployment. This was an explosive situation as widespread unemployment resulted in restlessness among youth. The liberal response to this situation has been to relax state control over the economy and open it to local and foreign investors. Expanding private sector did not create sufficient employment opportunities for the educated rural youth. They got only unskilled jobs but the more desirable and lucrative white collar jobs were available in the private sector to the English educated youth hailing from privileged urban families.
Non-English speaking disadvantaged rural youth are aware of their disadvantaged position. They could get only unskilled jobs in the private sector. However, many educated but monolingual youth remain unemployed rather than accept low status, unskilled jobs in the private sector. This has perpetuated a wide gap between employment aspirations and opportunities.
In an increasingly market-led economy, it is mostly casual and unskilled employment that is being created. The economic liberalization has reinforced a pattern of uneven development with a distinct urban bias. The kind of uneven development that has taken place over the last two decades encourages people living in less developed regions to migrate to more developed urban areas.
Socio –Economic Issues and Challenges today
Sri Lankan youth population is segmented on ethno-linguistic, regional and social class lines. These divisions, in turn, influence their life changes, the worldview and social and political and spatial segregation of youth belonging to different ethno-linguistic groups is further reinforced by the persisting language barrier that separates them.
A sizeable segment of the older age group, 25-29 years is also dependent. This is understandable in view of the persisting high rate of overall unemployment among youth, both women and men.
Vast majority of youth feel that they were members of the middle class. Class identity is highly correlated with educational attainment.
Young population is overwhelmingly monolingual. Though English is highly valued and emphasized in Sri Lankan society, fluency of English is confined to a tiny minority.
There is a high degree of ethno-linguistic and spatial segregation of youth in most parts of the Country. This often breeds ethnocentrism, which is not a very positive factor in a multi-ethnic society.
A remarkably high degree of religiosity among youth.
The notion of social justice is very strong among Sri Lankan youth.
The trust that youth have in public institutions is dwindling.
The vast majority of the youth believe that development process benefits disproportionately the well to do and the politically powerful.
Many youths are not hopeful that the country’s situation is getting better. This is no doubt that this is at least partly a reflection of the on-going ethnic conflict in the country.
It is against the above background the Sri Lankan youth should be viewed. For several decades the attention was on youth problems such as alienation, unrest, anti-social behavior, violence, addictions, crime, and suicide. We can not treat them as misguided youth. Their perspectives on social, economic, political and cultural issues deserve serious attention. In fact they often mirror serious ills and anomalies in society.
The frustration and aggression among the youth has to be seen as largely emanating from the oppressive socio-economic conditions particularly of the rural youth. It could be also due to the particular political indoctrination that the youth are succumbed to both in the North and in the South. The youth are also dissatisfied about transparency, corruption and accountability within the context of deteriorating conditions of democracy in the country.
“unless there is an effort to alleviate suffering and arrest the denial of basic amenities and opportunities for rural youth, the cycle of violence is very likely to recur with even greater frenzy and cause an even more real threat to the survival of democracy and the spirit of freedom” (Report of the Presidential Commission on Youth 1990).
Indian Youth
Swami Vivekananda said,”Give me 100 energetic young men and I shall transform India.” Ours is a youthful nation in a very literal sense because nearly 54% of its population is below the age of 25 years.
Despite its impressive growth rate, India faces two extremely important workforce issues – job shortages and unprepared workers. The employment growth in India lags behind population growth, and 14 million additional jobs will be needed by 2012 to keep pace. Agriculture employment in India will drop below 50 percent of total employment by 2010. This is just one indicator of a rapidly changing economy that will create new challenges for youth entering the workforce. There is a need for a more flexible and mobile workforce with new skills and greater adaptability. India’s education and training efforts are, for the most part, failing to adequately prepare young people for entering the workforce and to provide value added to their jobs. Business executives believe that India is not producing workers with the high quality skills needed to meet modern workforce needs.
In a country like India, although the percentage of youth within the total population is comparable to other countries and will average out to about 35 -40 percent, in absolute terms the number at present is near 400 million young people. Providing gainful employment opportunities to such a large number is an enormous challenge for the nation. Currently the growth rate of employment is only 2 percent and 90 percent of the work force operates in the informal sector. Government was the largest formal employer but now it is gradually pulling out of many sectors. Disinvestment is the new trend and it is anticipated that government will remain in the core sectors only. It is clear that any workforce interventions in India must focus on the unorganized sector.
Socio-Economic Issues and Challenges Today
Even while India is on the threshold of global supremacy in fields such as information technology and knowledge production, it continues to be haunted by social disturbance, economic distress, political instability and cultural insecurity.
The glaring socio-economic inequalities can undermine not just its political equality but tear the very fabric of our society. Caste and gender discrimination, religious intolerance, moral policing and mindless violence threaten to accentuate social divisions and exclusions.
Hindutva is a big challenge. It is an ideology wrought on Indian soil in the name of religion. Its agenda is to destroy India’s rich heritage of ‘Unity in Diversity” –different religious faiths, cultural practices, and linguistic varieties, and to impose one culture (Hindutva culture), one nation (Hindu Rashtra) and one religion (Brahminic Hinduism) on all sections of people. It fights to reinforce casteism, an outdated barbaric ideology. Hindutva aims at marginalizing both the linguistic and religious minorities and co-opting dalits and tribals, the original daughters and sons of the soil.
Although agriculture contributes only 21% of India’s GDP, its importance in the country’s economic social, and political fabric goes well beyond this indicator. The rural areas are still home to some 72 percent of the India’s 1.1 billion people, a large number of whom are poor. The agrarian distress has been due to many reasons and has taken many forms. Farmers’ suicides are essentially cases of entitlement crises. Changes in macro policies in agriculture have had a direct impact on the livelihoods of cultivators.
Social Challenges: Gap between the “haves” and “have-nots” will widen unless the “have-not” countries pursue policies that support application of new technologies- such as good governance, universal education, and market reforms.
Technical challenges: The greatest benefits of globalization will accrue to countries and groups that can access and adopt new technologies. High-tech breakthroughs- such as in genetically modified organisms and increased food production- could provide a safety net eliminating the threat of starvation and ameliorating basic quality of life issues for poor countries. The expected next revolution in high technology involving the convergence of nano, bio, information and materials technology could further bolster China and India’s prospects.
Information Revolution: Just as academics have argued that the great communications shift heralded by Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press caused fundamental changes in European society, so others suggest that the current information revolution could also reshape the world. The global information environment could radically alter society. There is a possibility of equipping the citizens of the least developed nations with “new tools” to counter poverty in a world in which paper would “substantially replaced”. Greater availability of more information would leave people better equipped to deal with the wholly new challenges facing them
Low Human Development Index (HDI). The HDI is based on the state’s share of expenditure in human priority areas such as health, water, sanitation, daily calorific intake, literacy and education at primary and secondary levels.
Power crisis brought about by corruption, inefficiency, irrational populism, labour indiscipline and government ineptitude.
A big size of the population is illiterate and consequently wastage of human resource.
Lake of safe drinking water, sustainable sewage system or proper garbage disposal facility.
Polluted air and water, adulteration of food and food poisoning consequently poor health. Rural HIV/AIDS causes premature disability and death among prime age segments of working populations. 5.1 million individuals are infected with HiV/AIDS in India and 41% of them are girls.
There is no planning of cities. The suburbs are not developed in an orderly fashion. Unregulated growths, sprawling slums, poor sanitation and ill-maintained roads.
People’s psyche is being torn apart by religious fundamentalism, linguistic fanaticism, provincialism and cast rivalry, and there are no national leaders of character and integrity who can appeal to the conscience of the nation with courage and conviction.
Democracy is merely an election phenomenon. Leaders have no respect for democratic traditions or institutions which are routinely destroyed or subverted. The abuse and misuse of public facilities by ministers and other officials for personal and political purposes are scandalous. There is criminal-politician link, it is the fusion between the two that dominates country’s political and economic system.
Child labour and bonded labour account for millions of people. Persons are sold in permanent bondage. Young girls-and children as young as six years of age- and women are bought and sold into prostitution. Crime against women is increasing at an alarming rate.
Disaster management is painfully slow, degrading and simply disastrous. Natural disasters are good times for politicians and bureaucrats.
Corruption
Corruption is a major block for the youth to come up in life by their hard work. It destroys their spirit of honesty, justice and patriotism. Corruption is one of the biggest challenges for the youth workers. Let us try to understand this phenomenon which is so rampant in our societies.
Definition of Corruption
Corruption has been defined as the abuse of public office or influence, for private gain. It is not only about the wrong use of money, but also about the wrong use of power. It is not only about taking bribe in government offices but also about various forms of manipulations and blackmailing, political arm twisting, pushing a political interests through underhand ways, unfairness of dominant classes, silencing the voices of the weaker sections, physical elimination of political opponents or commercial competitors, interfering with election processes, using goondas for vacating land, selling drugs. Corruption has also reference to unpaid salaries, underpaid employees. They deny justice to people who have less political clout than themselves.
Corruption in India
The leaders of independent India at the beginning were known for their uprightness. The practice of corruption became part of the life of Indian politicians with the introduction of ‘license-quota-permit-raj’. It opened out unlimited possibilities of corruption. Indira Gandhi introduced a system of donation to the parties that led to unprecedented abuses. Corruption is not only extensive, but all pervasive. The Supreme Court observed, “high level corruption in a society is a disease like cancer which, if not detected in time is sure to malign the polity of the country leading to disastrous consequences.”
While other countries speak of ‘zero tolerance’ of corruption, Indian tolerance of it goes to any length. There is tacit acceptance of the reality of corruption. Exploitation of the weak and tolerance of corrupt leaders go on as though these things are normal.
The Effects of Corruption
Corruption is one way of claiming superiority of asserting themselves above others by ignoring civil laws and public interest. It introduces discrimination into public life and over a period of time perpetuates this discrimination until it becomes institutionalized. Corruption siphons off resources meant for poverty alleviation and traps millions in poverty.