The issue of political identity among young people should be examined further. Caribbean countries can build better responses to issues of political participation, crime and violence, job creation, brain drain, culture & heritage preservation etc. when we understand how young people see themselves in relation to the wider society.
As a people we should question whether since independence, efforts have meaningfully integrated young people into the development of the country and whether apathy and disengagement from the political system is a direct result of their exclusion (inadvertent or otherwise) from development processes.
Recently a colleague shared that you’d more likely see a young person share or create a meme of a political event than participate in critical discussion and debate on development issues. When we do it’s often subdued and short-lived. This can be considered a form of resistance against an unfit system.
So the concern is not that young people do not share critical opinion on development issues but that there’s a belief that solutions should be left to a certain group or class while also holding the view that the country’s political leadership is disconnected from reality and is inherently corrupt.
The point, to use the analogy of a parent employed in a late hotel shift and their unsupervised child who is likely to disregard certain authorities, norms, and values, is that we should expect the same for young people who have not been sufficiently engaged by a political system or a political leadership which was perhaps occupied by other “more critical” development objectives post-independence.
These are questions we should look to dissect as it is a growing concern that many youth see themselves separate and not deeply invested in our system of governance.
Solutions would require restructuring of the political system to dismantle class and ageist restrictions to political participation.