Dr. Saqer AlKhalifa

The Clash of Generations

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saqeralkhalifa
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Many friends and others interested to know more about the future approach me regularly to know what I think would happen in the future. I did indulge myself so much in the past 14 years in the science of politics  but that doesn’t really make anyone able to predict the future without the proper tools. However, using the qualitative tools I believe are essential, I’d like to offer you the chance to make a bet amongst your friends. So, if you have what it takes for betting, then bet on this.
Any type of conflict gives analysts in this field the ability to see whether or not their predictions are accurate. Some predict the probability of conflict between nations, and others between blocks of nations. What I will do today is predict a conflict, not necessarily a war in the sense, inside states, between classes, or more accurately between generations.
What we have seen recently in the US elections is something that is described by the older generation as shocking, but not so by the younger ones. The most important question is, why? I have seen countless of shows referring to the Republicans as a party that is completely and utterly shocked by election results, while attempting to analyze how they have failed to win the US presidency. I personally don’t think that there was anything wrong in the election campaign, but it is due to that fact that we are living in a major economic and political shift today that can forever change the politics of elections in all countries around the world. What is it? It is the asymmetry of the media war, the conventional versus social media.
Conventional media is a direct or indirect propaganda tool used by the rich, whether they are in politics or not. For many years, in democracies, they were able to cause significant influence on the electorate (citizens who vote) to decide the outcome of elections. Instead of rigging elections, they simply and outspokenly favor those they want to win. Conventional media in the capitalist world are owned by capitalists themselves. Hence, a person running for elections have to favor capitalism, which we all have seen comes to favor benefits to the rich in an argument that they need to expand their businesses to create more jobs for everyone else. What then turns up to be the case is that the rich are favored, while jobs they create are elsewhere in the non-capitalist world, China et al. But let’s keep this game for another time.
What recently have come to threaten conventional media is something we all call ‘social media.’ Social media, in all it’s colors, came to do two things that conventional media never offered before. First, it energized the biggest segment of society who long before felt like making others listen to them was an uphill battle. Second, it linked the electorate to each other virtually and most importantly linked them instantly to whoever is a participant of the social world, be it a minister, or even a president! To define both in a more simpler manner, conventional media is a telling tool, while social media is a telling and be told tool.
The shift we are noticing here is a movement away from the capitalist world that used to favor the upper class and moving more towards a system that favors the majority of participants and members of the social virtual world, AKA ‘social media’. The more we approach the future, the more we get connected, the more we will notice that democracies will begin electing officials who are best engaged in the social world, a world full of policies that favor one united social class, AKA socialism.
Moreover, I should say that many in the developed world strongly believe that middle and lower classes are not fit enough to govern. I can also say that the upper classes in all societies are going to loose their grip on governance and they may never retrieve a good grip again. The only solution forward with the arrival of a more connected and social world is to ensure that all levels of society receive adequate high quality education. This would always guarantee that any future shifts we live through produces positive outcomes.
We are now living in a unique world, where three generations are alive and breathing. One lived through nothing but conventional media, another who are growing up to only social media, and a fortunate one in between who’ve seen it all. Unless we find a way that connects all three generations together to serve the nation, the new growing young who are eligible to vote will take over and choose our destinies faster than we may think. To govern is to be wise, and is there wise-ness in social media?

Comments

One response to “The Clash of Generations”

  1. Rafia Bin Ali Avatar
    Rafia Bin Ali

    I would expand the tools of how someone can expect the future and anticipate things that will happen. To be such kind of person, he must have a lot of skills : to be an open-minded person, a good observer, a good analyst and he must have a minimum knowledge of the sense of psychoanalyze, to have a very strong personality, to learn from his mistakes, and finally he must believe that no one knows everything. This is without forgetting that we need to be very objective, reasonable.

    I would like also to add that democracy is never absolute. Philosophically, during elections every elector will vote for one candidate: let’s say there is three candidates, the first one will have 30%, the second one same and the third will have 40%, so the third one is having the majority of votes and he will be the “winner” can, so 60% of the electors will be unhappy and will have a feeling of frustration. What I can qualify as democracy is that the “losers” poll will correct their mistakes and work harder to improve their rank in the coming elections. Democracy does never mean that the majority will have the right to rule. Democracy is to accept the other.

    I have read a survey done in different countries, the subject of this survey is to see the mentality of the students in different countries and are they learning ? Students will sit for their exam, and after one week the same students will sit for the same exam, most of them they will less than 50% in the second exam because they are studying just to sit for the exam and not to learn, in some other countries, they are having better marks. I have seen students, in the last day of the academic year, through all their copybooks ? I am shocked because I used to keep my copybooks to have a look at them if needed.

    At the end, whenever we are born, whenever we have studied, whatever our speciality is, whatever our level is … Everything is our mentalities.

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