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| Man placed in the past, looking at his future. |
Yesterday I came upon an article in which a chairman
of a big company pleaded for a voting ban for seniors. The reasons would be a laughing stock if they were
not meant seriously. Here’s the part he mentioned:
Quote “Because these
older people indeed no longer have the future. And rightly therefore no longer
think about it. An aging man has reached his or her ideals or knows that he
will never achieve it anymore. He thinks of what he has and can lose, not about
what he still can achieve.” End of quote.
Then he claims that older people only
think about their own needs and therefore will choose the people who will only
take care of their needs. As if they would not mind the interests of the
younger generation at all. Their own offspring no less! He has the guts to
blame the Brexit (Great Britain leaving the European Union) on the elderly who
voted for it. True, many older people voted for it but… that is not the whole
story. Where was the younger generation? In articles, right after the referendum, I read a lot of amazing stories. Younger people who did not vote because “Of
course we are not going to leave the Union”. Or people who did not want Britain
to leave the Union but voted YES for fun. Because they thought it would never
happen anyway. Stupidity rules here but the elderly get the blame. That is what
I call an easy way to walk away from your own responsibilities, from your own
stupidity.
On FaceBook I
posted the whole article and of course a discussion started. Some comments that
were posted were absolutely blunt. The posters (of course the younger ones)
even used conflicting arguments and could not see how dumb that looked. For
example: “We are living in a much better world now than some decades ago”.
Right! And what generation was responsible for that? Not theirs of course
because they were messing themselves in their diapers at that time. The moment
I mentioned that it was called ‘showing no respect for the younger people’.
Again this is an easy answer that makes no sense at all. Actually, it is not
even an answer but an accusation instead, not a
counterargument.
Now let us see what the ‘older’ generation (in the article the age for the
ban starts at 55!) has done so far. Let us start with WW II. People born in
1940 will all be 77 by the end of this year 2017. They were still small kids
when the first commercial television was introduced. And not only the programs shown
were in black and white; so was life. Almost all people behaved exactly the
same, too afraid to show some singularity. The Dutch writer Gerard Reve
described the dull life of the period perfectly well in his book ‘The Evenings’.
The atmosphere he writes about gives one goosebump. It was the youngest
generation of those days that liked to end the terrible dull life. One only
needs to read about the ’60s to learn what huge changes there were made in
society. People ended the ‘grey mice’ existence once and for all. We got more
freedom to express ourselves no matter if it was different from the rest. More
color was (also literally) brought to the world. Young people started
protesting their rights. Gay and lesbian men and women went out on the streets
telling the world “We too are here and we demand our rights to be who we are”.
Women started fighting for their rights and successfully. But also we started
to care for developing countries. To care for the people who were less fortunate.
No, I am not saying that everybody was in for it but at least there was this
movement that became stronger and did not take it any longer to be pushed back
again. People had big ideas and were showing it to the world. Big changes were
really made in the ’60s and ’70s and nobody can argue with that.
In the Netherlands where we were used to 40 hours of work in a week, it was
decided best to make that 36 hours. This way younger people, who had finished
their school, could have better chances of finding a job. The age for retirement
was 65 for men and 60 for women but we were then given the possibility to stop
earlier. This also to help the younger generation. It all worked fine for a few
decades until it was decided to turn back the clock. And soon it was announced
that women too should work until 65. Recently the retirement age went up. First
to 66 and at this moment 67. The bad thing is that there are plans to go as high
as 70. It is already very clear that employers never wanted this and what we
see now is that people are forced to work longer while at the same time the
youngest generation has more difficulties in finding a job. The latest –would you
believe this??- is that more and more people are coming up with the idea to
lower the age of retirement to 65 and to give people the chance to stop earlier
if they want. To help the younger generation! So, what once worked fine was
destroyed and now it is brought up again as if it is e whole new idea. Mind
you, this all comes from the generation that was born in the ’70s. The same
generation of the chairman that wants to ban older people from voting. That’s
a nice way to say “Thank you for all you have done for us. Forgiving us a
better start then you probably had”.
This chairman now wants to make people second-rate civilians starting at the
age of 55. Because: “They do not have a future anymore”. What am I missing here
I wonder?
The reason why this upsets me is that I have been a second-rate civilian
all of my life already. Being gay I was not allowed to marry the one I loved.
This only changed in 2000 when the Netherlands was the first country to ‘allow’
same sex marriage. We then got the civil rights we should have had always
anyway. But the –right winged- politicians raised their hands right in our face
saying “Stop! We will deny you your civil right!” And now again some lunatic
comes with the craziest idea to take away people’s civil right to vote. Telling
us we are too old, and not caring about the younger generation. This man really
needs to re-study our history. This man is a terrible shame for mankind. Maybe he should listen to Bette Midler's "Hello in to there" and then wake up.
Love the ones you’re with and be loved in
return.
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