Contributors’ Opinion
We
are often blinded by what we believe we are entitled to and find ourselves
wanting others to conform to that which we believe. In this story, we find
young people who have been parachuted into a building and neighbours who are disturbed
by the behaviour of these students which compels them to police and impose
their way of living on these students, creating a situation of ‘Them and Us’.
We discover that one side believes the tension is rooted on race whereas the
other believes its chaotic youth behaviour- I believe it’s neither. It all
boils down to one simple and cliché word: RESPECT. We are looking at a
situation where the differences between the young and the elderly disrupt the
harmony that should be hovering in a small Cal-de-sac. In adopting greater
respect for one another, an understanding of needs can also be established, but
that also does not contend the notion of forced assimilation on either young or
Old-I do not condone ageism. For example- the students are young and vibrant beings
that want to have fun and go crazy once in a while and then the older community
really wants to have peace and quiet at all times. At some point, on a different
level, respect works to a certain point.
Why
don’t both teams start by doing the simple things man takes for granted like
greeting each other on the street and asking ‘Hey, I had a rough day, how was
yours?’, lowering noise levels during the late evening hours in understanding
that the next person has to either cross-night because its test/exam night or
because they need to wake up and go to work early the next day?, creating a
neighbourhood watch or whistle-blowing forum to alert each other on criminal
activity, being considerate of the fact that the buildings are not structured
the same way, and that a little racket from the washing machines or the engine noise
from the safest drop-off zone that sounds for less than five minutes once almost
every day, won’t do much damage to your 8 hours of sleep. How about meeting
together once in a while to have a review on the relations and not just to
complain or bite each other’s’ heads off but to also acknowledge good behaviour
on both sides? Would it really hurt to speak to each other, understand the
problems, work together to solve them and appreciate the age diversity in the
community before involving the school, municipality and police authorities? Or without
wanting neither age group to relocate because of the discomfort caused by the
invasion? After all, “To be one, to be united is a great thing. But to respect
the right to be different is even greater”- N. Funeka
Comments
Post a Comment