I’m sixteen and so therefore assumed I knew what most sixteen year olds were like but when at my local Peace Festival (a sort of hippy commune school fete hybrid) recently I was appalled at the amount of kids that actually seemed to care about the world and think they could make a difference.
I mean, when we weren’t being harassed by tree-hugging veggies in fluorescent t-shirts urging us to attend their meeting on sticking it to the man we were being forced to look at poor widdle animals being torn open by vivisectionists and then asked to give “whatever we could” (and if that’s not exploitation I don’t know what is).
Now, I was under the impression that a healthy dose of ringtones, videogames and action movies had left the teenagers of today disaffected, disinterested and disenchanted. In my opinion, if we can learn anything from the past it’s that you can’t overthrow the government by giving out leaflets and taking lots of drugs, they tried that in the sixties and it didn’t work. And recently, when Tony Blair wanted to go to war with Iraq he went to war with Iraq, and no number of demonstrations or stupid fanzines got him to change his mind.
I always thought I was one of an apathetic, jaded and cynical generation and on the whole I think this is true, it just appears there are a few naïve and idealistic individuals letting the side down.