FREETOWN CHRONICLES: YOUTH VS. STATE

........i run into a couple of friends at a resto-bar in town. One of my favourite private spots in the always colourful 'downtown'  city of Freetown. It is raining outside and i am talking about relationships with a friend of mine who has recently engaged his girlfriend of 2 years. His happiness and easiness makes me uneasy, i smirk at his smile, he remains gentle with me and makes another order of roast beef. Amidst our chatter we start talking to a group of people sitting beside our table. Our discussion moves from bumming a smoke to one of politics, youth mobilizatation, development and the mentalities of a younger generation of Sierra-Leoneans. We laugh some more and begin to enjoy each other's  company.
I don't get it my new friend tells me, where are we, mentally, as a younger generation of Sierra-Leoneans? Those of us who are returning to a country that needs us as much as we need it, to native Sierra-Leoneans who are often overworked and all too often underpaid, we don't do anything about our situation. I don't know how to answer these questions i respond, we don't mobilise and demand that some fundamental changes be made about how we participate in civil society, the constant relegating of younger Sierra-Leoneans to the periphery of society is, well unsmart on the side of the state. Someone else says, what else is there to expect? we are a society still suffering from trauma and we don't even know it. At least the Rwandans accepted that as a nation they needed to heal, they faced their trauma and wounds head on, we don't. We talk about the war in passing, in fact to be honest, i don't think most people even know WHY we had 10 years of war. It is all one big real blurr. But then again, my roast beef offering friend quietly ushers, how do you trust a generation of young graduates who can barely synthesise a coherent sentence, a failed education system creates a failed working class. He has a point.

I think about  the President's Agenda for Change and Agenda for Prosperity. There exists an AGENDA alright, however an agenda/vision will remain merely that A VISION-Some VISION if a leader does not successfully sell it to its people. We are all wearing a myriad of lenses with varying visions and understanding. That my friend equates to epic failure when a nation of people don't smell, live, see, breathe and personalize the overall vision aka game plan to a better nation, a better Sierra-Leone. This however is a daunting task for this country's leader, how do i get my people to see or perhaps collaboratively create a vision to better our nation?

We start arguing, or rather arguing about the same thing. For the group of us at the resto bar that afternoon, we are all returnees. We had come back to i suppose, better our country by bettering ourselves. We were also acutely aware that because we hail from certain backgrounds, armed with an education, had some connections due to familial ties or perhaps connections we have forged ourselves, we could at the very least slip into the system and take it from there. We were also acutely aware that our idealist notions of change would be cast to the side if we were to survive in an already un-accountable system, and for a while we would need to be answering and doing the work for a ''uncle'', 'sir', áunty, ''ma', that had no plan of transitioning out of their position anytime soon. Many of the institutions in place, particularly those of the public sector are archaic, behind the times and instituted in those positions are older folks who simple refuse to retire, claiming stake to a position that isn't truly theirs. New modes of accounting, track keeping, communicating aren't introduced into these systems, in fact a whole sector of middle-management jobs are missing and unoccupied within the public sector industries. What this means is: there is an under-utilization and under-training of an educated youth ( and you are then free to argue, how educated are these youth?), which in turn justifies the  hoarding of positions.  In affect we as a nation will remain STATIC if we do not begin to value our youth, our young women, our young men- it is this younger generation : filled with new ideas, creativity, and energy that will propel this country forward, or so i personally believe.

I then think about mentalities. Many in my generation are also attracted to fast money, fast success or would rather cut and paste here and there than dedicate themselves to real tangible self improvement. To be fair we must also remember that there is a lack of trust in the 'system', although the irony is that there is also an over-empathsis on the ''system'' to make everything WORK! Catch-22 is the order of the day.

We have a couple more drinks, exchange contact information and weigh the complexities. As a young woman, my options are perhaps easier, i can sleep my way to where i need to go, or utilize my familial connections. As a young man the question is: how far will you go to earn the loyalty and trust of an already established senior officer or entrepreneur. MOBILISE, lets mobilise, lets talk, lets begin to make the system accountable i scream in my head. Idealism is getting the best of me, i decide not to voice my opinion.

....perhaps it is my western neo-liberal influences talking here, but then again i wouldn't give that experience too much credit either. As a younger generation of Sierra-Leoneans who work within a system that isn't putting in the resources to invest in us, to participating in international organisational programs geared towards giving us some kind of sometimes de-contexualized empowerment, to simply learning the rules of the game in order to break out into some version of success, the real question becomes:

 is our state failing us or are we failing our state?

There are more questions than there are answers, there is a plethora of movement and good happening in pockets of our local and diasporian communities. Yet their exist too many loose ends and not enough connections which leaves me (us) reeling in dissatisfaction.

fambul dem this is how we do...