A Letter From The Android Generation
Dear Father
You think, I don’t like and do not involve in politics? Yes, this is because you have abused power and call it politics, so I prefer and engage in politics on social media and reliable channels.
You say I do not listen to or watch the news, political talk shows or read the newspapers like you do so I am not as current as you are but I get my news undiluted, raw as it is, on social media like Twitter and blogs.
You say I do not go to church and I am not committed to religion like you but I prefer to single-handedly study, know, understand, be and do the word unlike you so your beliefs don’t get to me but his, for I want to be the church not go to church and I want to be the miracle not just wait for a miracle.
You say I don’t care about my country’s growth and development because all I do is castigate, help negate, fail to relate, devaluate it in my eye and that of others. But if I remember vividly, for more than twenty years, you are still playing America's DV lottery and hated Trump for trying to modify the price, If you really love this country as you claim then why play the lottery?
Father
So what if I hashtag everything, use shorthand, ignore punctuation, can’t you just understand that tradition only connects me to the past but creativity and innovation link me to the future and I have migrated from not looking at where I have been looking at where I can be?
Rather than knowing a lot about a little, I have decided it's better to know a little about a lot for in that I can fit in any sphere and feel comfortable and free
That is why I create businesses online, do marketing, get customers, sell ideas/goods and make profit without having to leave my home or is it hard for you to understand that staying at home I am working and doing more with ….. for less and achieving more and that does not mean I am lazy?
And yes I have apps to pay electric bills, water bills, buy clothes/shoes and electronics, I even have apps to help us find life partners and I know to you that sounds absolutely crazy.
That's why you keep complaining about the world today. Children of nowadays, criticizing my generation, calling us android, advising us to go the farm forgetting you raised us.
You either accept us or reject us but there is no way you are going to make us understand, with the manner in which you address us.
For you keep telling us to look up from our screens and little machines just for us to look up and see you looking down on us, it seems.
According to you, we are the lost generation, so you can'T stop blaming us for finding something to do whether it is posting pictures on snap chat and Instagram that always shows our buttocks or us drinking alcohol and smoking always hurting your feelings right?
Guess what!!!
The world is no longer yours, we took away a piece and created our own part so it's ours.
Now we question everything with a “why” before we do, which to you is so annoying, for we spend hours in front of machines, little Ipads/Iphones just to find something that will please us
And we don’t care about which tribe he/she comes from, his/her religion but we believe in Ubuntu, respect for humanity, and whenever things don’t make sense we question the rules because we believe the rules are meant to be broken and we would rather watch other TV shows like Big up shows, Bad Angel, Rumble , Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead for they are far more interesting than that government propaganda you call the news.
Can you blame us for wanting to learn something that we can apply in real life in schools, things like how to give intelligence to our emotions and that all laws can be bent which does not necessarily mean being unethical as believed by fools.
I mean I grew up learning from you that faced a challenge, I either fight or flight. But we, the android generation are learning and coming together with different ideas and synergizing them to form greater and better ideas and not compromising for we know the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
We are taking over and here are our demands;
Not that you leave for us exorbitant houses, cash or wealth as heritage but that you listen.
For it’s a new day, and even though we grew up in different generations, we are facing the same challenges disguised in different situations.
So instead of you saying, “I was once young like you so I know exactly what you need to do”, you need to think about it.Is that the kind of reason a younger version of yourself would respond to?
Just allow yourself to see at the far end and view that we are not that different
What if I replace Laptops with books, Wikipedia/encyclopedia with hardcopy Oxford Advanced Learner's dictionaries, emails with letters, androids with ledgers, Google with Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere, Mzee Jumo Kenyatta, Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah, Nelson Rolihlahla Madiba Mandela, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Patrice Emry Lumumba, Martin Luther King Jr. and all the wise men you ever know growing up,
Maybe If I replace Paul Biya with Amadou Adhijo or John Ngu Foncha, Daphney with Grace Decca, Salatiel with Kotto Bass, then maybe you may understand our way of thinking.
For in today's generation there is positive and negative, for every plus, there is a minus or maybe if you focus more on our multiple successes, we wouldn’t be as divided
Is my generation worse?Yes, let's be honest
But he without sin should cast the first stone so please gives us an opportunity to grow for it takes time for a caterpillar to metamorphose into a butterfly, not overnight.
This is the android generation and these are our only demand;
Listen and learn to trust us before you judge us.
Before criticizing us, remember you raised us.
Adapted from Spoken Word by Sillibreaks Ted talk on AN ODE to the Millennial Generation
Mottanni, 2019