We were like children

Like many of us, I woke up this morning with a head full of strange images and thoughts. The television broadcasts the events of Friday evening on a loop, the press and the radio are still in shock. Social networks are filled with a mix of calls for help, calm, unity, war and hatred.

Thinking about all this I wondered what kind of world we will leave to our children. We wish them the best and yet we have been producing the worst for over 50 years. The worrying climate situation, geopolitical instability and the economic crisis are preparing a new world, which at first sight is less promising.

I admit, I often hid behind the fact that I wasn’t directly responsible.
It’s true after all. I only buy what people are willing to sell me, I only vote for those who are willing to show up and who seem the least bad to me, and I best understand the information the media gives me.

Yet, every action of mine, every action of ours, contributes to what we are experiencing today and to what our children will experience after us. Are we responsible? Is it only our leaders who need to be held accountable? We can imagine a responsible child ? Because that’s actually how I imagine us: children.

A little flashback.

I’ll point it out right away. I am neither a historian nor an economist. It might just be a bunch of errors, inconsistencies, or misinterpretations, but try to take into account the substance of my point.

After two traumatic world wars, the world entered what we commonly call «consumer society» and with it a comfort that our society had never known. First of all, electricity, heating, household appliances (which was certainly one of the spearheads of this rebirth). Then came the telephone, television, automobiles and mass distribution.

The idyllic period of the thirty glorious years has left its mark on our society. Now we have become slaves to growth. Initially it was just a matter of satisfying the needs of the population, then overproduction occurred. We had to consume more and more, at all costs, more than our income allowed us. When there was no more money, we took loans and continued to consume.

Everything was therefore ready to build what would destroy our world. On one side there was our consumer society and on the other the photos of little Africans, with swollen and hungry bellies, which pierced our soul. We have drawn and plundered everything the earth could offer us, without worrying about the consequences. And we continued to build what we call our civilization stone by stone.

We were like children

We were like children who were given toys, spoiled with gifts and a thousand things, one more shiny than the other, and who did not see the little friend next to us whose hands remained desperately empty. But growth had become a heady idea in our Western society.

This growth will lead millions of families to sink deeper into poverty. Organizations will end up having life-or-death power over entire countries that do not fit the mold of this exponential growth. And we never asked ourselves how far this growth could go. We were like children whose every whim was indulged, we could have comfort and a certain freedom.

Some voices have been raised against this excessive consumption, sorrowful souls for some, clear consciences for others. We prioritized having over being, but we were like children. To fuel this growth, our states needed partners, whoever they were. And alliances were built with some heads of state, some countries, whose ideas were contrary to ours. We accepted religious fundamentalisms if they were economically liberal. Business and oil came before our values ​​and these choices will create monsters years later, which scare us today and which spread death in their wake.

But dreams don’t last, they’re just dreams. Unemployment began to increase and economic crises began to emerge. If we take the newspapers from the 70s to today, we realize that the themes remain substantially the same: unemployment, uncertainties, fear of war, oil crisis, waste of the planet’s resources, terrorism, politicians who do not keep their promises and who nevertheless get re-elected,…

And we were afraid. We have become like children who have everything and are afraid of losing everything. The children were scared and these fears were maintained. The fear of unemployment, the fear of the immigrant who comes to steal our work and bread, the fear of the other, being indefinable and transposable but very present in our unconscious. He could in turn be a criminal, Chinese, Russian, Italian or Spanish and then Muslim, Moroccan or Algerian. We were like children, we didn’t know that hate, fear, love have neither color nor religion. Little did we know that our differences are nothing compared to what truly unites us.

Towards the age of reason?

The picture drawn seems very dark. It is. It’s a fact. The attacks on Friday 13 November affected us all. They have shaken our reality. My generation did not experience war. Not head-on, anyway. We heard about it, we all saw unbearable images, but it wasn’t in our house, it wasn’t palpable. My heart bleeds for all their lives taken away, for their families, for all those «I love yous» that they will never say again. I will not forget these victims, nor the previous ones.

Yet, despite all this, I want to hope. I want to imagine a little hope in an otherwise very bleak situation. If we were like children, without understanding the functioning of the world around us, without understanding alliances and political and media games, without wanting to give importance to ecological issues, I think that today we can reach the age of reason and assume our responsibilities.

Why today?

Because we have gained experience. We demand more authenticity and transparency in our policies. Beyond the left/right divisions which no longer mean much today, we ask for a real meeting of forces, skills and intelligence. We also know the consequences of exacerbated nationalist ideas: we fight firmly against these ideas, we fight against the media that plays on our fears, that creates confusion. How can we still delude ourselves about this or that political program when the verbal confrontation of politicians consists only in identifying the speck in the opponent’s eye and rather in exchanging ideas?

Because we know we can’t continue like this. Let’s change our consumption patterns or they will kill us. We have an ultimatum hanging over our heads. I like eating meat every day, I like new technologies, I like my comfort but I also know that all this is damaging our planet. What if we favored responsible consumption models, and what if we penalized companies that do not engage in these areas? We have more strength than we think: we have our vote and our consumption. By using them correctly, we may be able to change our world. We can be the generation that changes everything or the generation where everything ends.

Because today we are closer than we have ever been. The world has never been so small. I speak regularly with Americans, Canadians, Russians, Chinese and Africans. The Internet has reduced distances, borders and divisions that undermine populations. Daesh understands this well because it uses it as a market from which to draw the next candidates for death. If we had the intelligence to talk to other people, to other cultures, to truly exchange, we would realize that we are not so different.Friends from Spain, Brazil, Morocco, America and many other countries told me of their sadness over the events in Paris. On other topics I realize that our vision of the world is very similar. There are policies that separate us, there are some cultural differences, but people are the same whether they live in Beijing, Seoul, Sarajevo, Moscow, Marseille, Miami, Brussels, Tehran,…

I have great hopes for our young people and the next generations. Not because they are better than us, just as we were no better than our fathers, but because they will have no choice, because they have the means to become better informed and because I want to believe in change.

If you examine social media today, the posts will not always reflect my speech. It is true that they serve both misinformation and fear. Let’s reverse it, with intelligence and pedagogy.

When we were children, we were not aware that we were a race, a tribe. It’s time to figure it out.

Certainly my comments may seem idealistic, perhaps tinged with naivety. Except that, if each of us doesn’t try to change things on our own, we don’t wait for those in power to take care of it. If the momentum doesn’t come from us, they won’t pay attention. If we no longer applaud their beautiful speeches, if the meeting rooms are empty, if the coffers of their parties become equally empty, there is a way to make our voice heard.

Collect as much as you can, talk to your neighbors, get to know those who seem different to you and fight obscurantism with determination. I find it a shame to fly flags at half-mast in these days of mourning. I say this with great respect for the victims and their families. It seems to me that we should make them fly in the wind, turn them more than ever against our adversaries and unite all French people under the tricolor flag, whatever their religion or colour.

Because there are battles that are not won with fists or weapons, but with intelligence, the pen and culturebecause our choices today shape the world of tomorrow, because urgency does not afford us the luxury of hesitation, we fight for a better world to offer our children.