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What is heritage? According to Wikipedia, Heritage refers to something which is inherited from one's ancestors. It has several different senses, including:

• Natural heritage, a nation's fauna and flora, natural resources, and landscape
• Tradition, customs and practices inherited from ancestors
• Virtual Heritage, an ICT work dealing with cultural heritage
• Inheritance of physical goods after the death of an individual
• Biological inheritance of physical characteristics
• Birthright, something inherited due to the place, time, or circumstances of someone's birth
• Industrial Heritage, the monuments from the industrial culture
• Kinship, the relationship between entities that share a genealogical origin

Today am only interested in tradition heritage.

What we have inherited from our ancestors. These are things that make us who we are. It is what makes us different from others.

But why is it that the youth don’t like to be involved with their ancestors past?

Why is it that we feel ashamed to acknowledge where we come from?

Is it because our past ancestors were “0utdated” as often portrayed by foreigners?

Is it because we think modernization is the way forward?

Is it because modernization is more superior to our heritage?

Or is it because of media presentation of our heritage to be “peculiar”?

These are questions that you and I have to find answers to.

As once said by Buddha, “Everything is based on mind, is led by mind, and is fashioned by mind. If you speak and act with a polluted mind, suffering will follow you, as the wheels of the oxcart follow the footsteps of the ox. Everything is based on mind, is led by mind, and is fashioned by mind. If you speak and act with a pure mind, happiness will follow you, as a shadow clings to a form.”

It is our mental templates about things or issues that determine our perception or our take on a particular issue.
No wonder the media use a lot of propaganda.

I may say we are brainwashed. For we don’t think for ourselves but rather what has been fed constantly by others especially the media.

We tend to be more inclined to what others think rather than what is best for us.

Our culture, our heritage and our societies have been polluted, excavated and dumped to the hollows of yester years.

But who do we blame? I say none but us.

We are our own destroyers, we stand on a hill and look at the sky and wish that we could reach yet we do nothing to reach there.

Is our culture and heritage that much outdated as it’s portrayed by others?

What I believe is that there is no superior culture or heritage.

They are right depending on what they believe or where they come from. When you think you are right then no one or nothing will make you see things differently.

You will rather die believing as such than to believe otherwise.

As such is true to our beliefs and values.

So why change our culture and follow what others have “shipped” to us!?

Africans will forever be Africans whether they are in Europe or America.

There is that value that we will always carry with us whenever we go. We can’t change who we are no matter what transformation we undergo.

We shall forever be “us”.

So why is it that many of us youths try to be different from what we should be?

I tell you all, be REAL and be who you are!! “Of heritage and ideals, our code and standards - the things we live by and teach our children - are preserved or diminished by how freely we exchange ideas and feelings.”

Is modernization that superior to our ancestral heritage?

I don’t think so, not even for once have I ever thought that.

What makes one person or group or culture superior to others?

Nothing!

I take it’s our perception that makes us think so or otherwise. The moment we take others’ cultures and/or heritage we unconsciously make them better than us.

We should believe in ourselves and what we believe in music is seen as one of the ways in which people interact and socialize.

But why is it that many youths listen and/or appreciate western music yet our local music industry lingers away to its death bed?

This is because we think and act in a manner to suggest that western music is superior. It is no wonder that even our local musicians tend to change their music style to suit the so called “better music” thus pleasing their fans.

Why is it that a youth or a youngster who listens to old, classical local music is seen as backward and outdated?

I bet your answer is the same or better than mine. We should change our attitudes and our perceptions if we are to conserve our heritage, for it is going down the drain to a lost world.

And this change has to happen quickly and fast before we are doomed if we aren’t doomed already.

I shouldn’t bore you with a lot of stories and connotations. I say tomorrow is another day God Willing. But keep this in mind,

“A civilization is a heritage of beliefs, customs, and knowledge slowly accumulated in the course of centuries, elements difficult at times to justify by logic, but justifying themselves as paths when they lead somewhere, since they open up for man his inner distance.”

See you another day when God gives me the time, energy and wisdom to write again.

Feel free to comment, criticize or even accept my opinions.

I would be grateful to hear from you all.

By

 Fuad Yusuf Mohamed.

Ever since we were born we used to be ourselves albeit in a manner we could not understand and uphold. Gradual changes have taken place ever since but we shall remain who we are forever. Of all these changes, one standout and yet effective change, has been age. Age is the most obvious change that has gone by, whether noticed or unnoticed is all in our minds.

Since conception, we have grown gradually to where we are now. Infancy followed like a sheep following the herdsman; the stage of fondling and cuddling; the stage of love showers from all corners of life and from various people, people who u might never come to see in the future. What a wonderful period of life, from birth to those first few hours, days and weeks of being an infant. The infant will be able to see as his eyes will be open. His experiences in the womb will have already begun to shape his behavior and development.

This is the stage where we could not muster what was going around in our world. Some say that this is the most memorable stage of our lives, yet we know nothing about it. We can’t remember everything or for that matter anything. We were just there, holding and hoping that we shall once be somewhere.  Times do change that’s obvious. As much as we would want things to be the same, we can’t afford to remain constant all our lives.

As a child we learnt to speak few words, walk a little bit, and run here and there. All these, in the name of development. Our minds start to grow gradually as such is our personality. We tend to gather around traits from the few interactions that take place. Traits that will one day define who we are and what we do in our lives. Form the play grounds to the school days; we pick small yet vital traits that will define our lives. I can’t stress how important this stage of life is to all humanity. Remember the days when we used to cry for ice creams whenever we see one, running around pulling our mama’s skirt crying and begging for the lollipops. Surely they were days we wouldn’t mind coming back.

Then there comes the stage where most of us are in now; the adolescent and young adults; the most critical stage in our lives. This is the stage where most of us get lost and sometimes never recover. Drugs and such things are the order of the day for some of us. Peer pressure will make us do things that when alone we will never think of. We tend to catch few attitudes and perceptions from a far. This is the stage where we are like the proverbial magnets; where we grasp most if not all that comes our way.

In this world, the youths constitute more than 40% of the population, yet we are neglected in the day today running of our countries. The world is faced with big challenges that need our thoughts and inputs. But where do we stand in the eyes of the world? We are nowhere to be seen when we are needed most. Some will say that we have been abandoned by our leaders, but who are the leaders? The leaders are you and me. It all starts from somewhere. No disease comes without any cause. Where are the causes of our problems? Where are the solutions of our problems?

Employment is scarce to the point where we are turned to beggars and criminals. But is that the road we want to take? What disease has affected us? We just don’t seem to move forward in the right direction! I say we suffer from personal inadequacies. We tend to think life as so simple, till we forget that every road has bumps. We don’t want to strive hard enough for success. We all want things and success on a silver platter. Yet the reality is that we have to work hard for the world has changed a lot.

We are held hostage by our own thoughts and desires. We all want to be successful and “rich”, drive flashy cars, wearing the so called latest designer wear and sporting fancy footwear as If that’s the mark of success. I am not saying it’s bad to have such pleasures in life, but is it the lifestyle we all want? Is it worth the hassle and tussle? What about our culture and heritage? Whom do we leave them for?

Who will conserve and export our culture if we all embrace modernization and its effect? Why are we no longer proud of our culture and heritage? I used to believe our own cultures are far better than others’. We have abandoned our ways of life for the western culture. What happened to the days when we used to sit around a fire listening to stories from our grandfathers and grandmothers?

No wonder we don’t want to think far and wide enough. Are we simply “not that good enough” as many would have us believe? Or maybe we have just but let ourselves down. I believe the youths have great potential, but the question is “are we ready to take the mantle of leading; And leading by example for that matter?”  I believe we have such leaders amongst us, but everywhere you go they are viewed in a very suspicious manner, most notably by none other than the youths themselves.

They say, too much of something is poisonous, so let me not bore you with too, much stories. There is always another day, God Willing. I welcome comments, criticism and ideas.
                                                                                                            By:
                                                                                                            Fuad Yusuf Mohamed.
                                                                                                            fuadshirazy@yahoo.com                

Who are the youth, you may ask. According to Wikipedia, the youth are/is the period between childhood and adulthood, described as the period of physical and psychological development from the onset of puberty to maturity and early adulthood. Definitions of the specific age range that constitutes youth vary. An individual's actual maturity may not correspond to their chronological age, as immature individuals exist at all ages.

The present world youth are faced with many challenges. We as the youth sometimes don’t give ourselves the opportunities to deliver whenever we have the chances to claim our rightful place in the society. The society in the present world consists more youths than ever before. We constitute the largest population size in any country in the world, yet we are the abandoned lot. We are the “unheeded lot”. We don’t seem to be in the minds, plans or development strategies of our leaders most of whom are the old fogeys who can’t seem to think more than what they have experienced.

A Kenyan perspective will automatically give you a clear picture of what am talking about. Look at our leaders most of whom are past their fruitful years. Starting from the president down to the ministers and all the way to parastatal chiefs.  We don’t have a say in the day to day running of the country yet we are the majority. I don’t know whom to blame, the youths or the leaders or the society. The society we live in is formed such that the youths have no say whatsoever in what the elders say or do. Since childhood we have been taught not to question our elders. Am not saying this is a bad habit neither am I saying it’s a good one either!

The youths, what do I say about them? They are the most effective population yet they are no where to be seen in the national scale. Our attitudes, our perceptions differ and trust me they differ big time. Psychologically we are dwarfed by the society we live in. we just don’t seem to care where or how we live. We just live, as if we are in the jungle farm “survival for the fittest.” Some say the government does not give the youths the opportunities to do something in the country but I beg to differ big time.
We constitute the largest percentage population wise yet we can’t do something about that!?? I say we don’t want to do anything about it. Because I can’t understand why of all the masses we have we can’t change anything yet we hold our futures in our own hands. We simply don’t want to follow the opportunities. We must acknowledge the fact that in this world its survival for the fittest. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. We can change, we have to change, and there is no question about that! I say we just don’t give ourselves the chances to claim our rightful glory in the national development.
Look at us; we are used by our politicians, day in day out. A good example that we will forever be remembered for is the “post Election Violence” of the disputed 2007 general Election. Leaders incited us to violence yet they were nowhere near the violence. Youths running around terrorizing others for nothing. Vandalizing shops and looting here and there. Rampage everywhere, killings everywhere. And in the end what did we get?! NOTHING!! Bitter sweet nothing! What about our leaders’ children? They were comfortably schooled in other countries. Basking in the glory of others’ efforts.

Grim pictures depicted by the media of the youths dint serve us right neither did it help us in claiming what is rightfully ours. Now look, we are the abandoned forces, used to do the dirty works of others. Rather than being recruited to jobs and employment opportunities we are rather recruited to mobs and gangs. Why waste our energies on issues that won’t bring any good to us!?! I say we are our own destroyers of our futures. The future for us youths look bleak if the happenings of the country is anything to go by. Old “jungus” hold lofty positions in the government and civil service, yet the productive lot lingers around doing nothing of particular good.

Let me not bore you with lots of stories that most of you know about. Tomorrow is another day. If God wishes, al be back to write something else. For now may God Bless you all. Thank you for your time and for reading my post.
By:
Fuad Yusuf Mohamed.
Mombasa.