Do you remember that joke about a man who for decades had been praying to God to help him win the lottery until God finally answered, “How about you at least buy a lottery ticket?”. Something similar is happening now with the majority of the Ukrainian youth who complain about their country and, according to a number of surveys, think about emigration but do nothing to create better living conditions and prospects in their Motherland.
By saying “they do nothing” I do not mean volunteering, taking part in social movements or political activity such as creating new parties, effective trade unions or strikes – it is too much to dream about.
Young people do nothing at all. They do not even come out to vote.
So who do you think the authorities will take care of: the retired people who vote regularly or the future of the young generation which, as they say nowadays, has tuned out of politics?
There is no doubt that the authorities will boost pensions at least somewhat, make promises about subsidies and discounts for medicine in social pharmacies for the retired. The candidates will give out packs of buckwheat and canned sardines to elderly people because they know that, even despite their illnesses and back pain, they will by all means come to the polling stations. While the students who are too lazy to get from their regional centers to the polls located in the dormitories, are more likely to spend time in virtual reality of their gadgets or picnicking outside.
Infected with the virus of “my voice will not change anything” (or its mutations “they are all the same”, “elections will happen without me”, “**** them all!”), first, the students don’t care about the elections and then they end up complaining that the authorities do not raise their university endowments, the government does not invest into the renovation of their dorms and that the state assistance in finding the first job remains a fiction.
The elections are not only about designing the future, but also about an evaluation of the past, because our voice praises or negates what was done by the previous government, while our tick in the ballot forms the next one.
To wait for the grass to grow under one’s feet and not to vote is to disclaim one’s influence on the authorities, one’s control over them.
We are going to remain the country of pensioners until our youth start going to the polls.
We are going to remain the country of the past.
Andrii Lyubka
