Taming Rebellion

Recently, I visited a resort located near to a Mennonite community and on Sunday afternoon four Mennonite youths came by to hang out and have a beer and a cigarette. Apparently, this is a regular occurrence.  They did not behave badly but they were certainly disobeying the rules of their community.  Young people are naturally rebellious; it is a part of growing up and becoming independent. Naturally, older people find this difficult to deal with and often try to find ways to prevent this rebellious phase. However, such an attitude is of no more use than trying to prevent the ebb and flow of the tide. Far more effective and less frustrating are efforts to channel rebellion and experimentation into activities that will harm neither the young person nor society.

This is easier said than done and adults should beware of simplistic answers. For example, those who advocate a greater role for religion, even going so far as to recommend forced attendance at church should consider that, aside from running afoul of our Constitution, such a measure will not solve the problem. Almost certainly all four Mennonite youth mentioned earlier attended church in the morning but this did not prevent them from rebelling in the afternoon.  Though church membership and a deep spiritual belief may be a positive influence for some young people it does not provide an inoculation to prevent them from going astray. Forced attendance may indeed harden a young person’s attitudes against the Church institutions.  Churches must find their own ways to make their programmes attractive to young people.  There is a role for churches and many other organizations such as youth and sporting groups but this should not be confused with the broader political solutions that are required.
      
For both young men and young women the transition to adulthood involves attempts to gain individual status.  In our society status is accorded through many activities that society approves of, such as academic achievement or prowess at sports but also from activities that society frowns upon such as those related to gangs.  Some young people are able to buy status through the economic status of their parents but this avenue is not open to the majority.  Children from disadvantaged backgrounds are less likely to perform well academically although exceptional children will do so.  By definition only a few children will prove exceptional at sports.  For many young men the avenues for gaining status are severely restricted but one avenue open to all is to become the baddest boy on the block. 

Even those who are not physically designed for such a role can magically achieve it through possession of a gun and ammunition, especially if they cultivate a reputation for ruthlessness. If a young man is perceived to be violent even the adults in the neighbourhood will fear him and the power he gains gives him the status he craves with his peers.  Such a young man has every incentive to behave violently and very little motivation to turn his life around and thus lose the status he has worked to achieve.  Since he does not believe that he has a future of any worth he lives entirely in the present. His aim is to instill fear in others to preserve his status and enjoy the rewards of status by having as many sexual conquests as possible. He does not fear disease since he does not expect to live and he views the fact of fathering children as a sign of potency. The young women who seek out his company do so to bask in the glow of his status but have relatively little power in the relationship to demand safer sex or support for any children that may be born.

      
Constant adult attention and surveillance is the only way to prevent this pattern.  People in a neighbourhood know who have the weapons.  The power bestowed by possession of weapons relies on public knowledge of their whereabouts.  Unfortunately, adults are wary of reporting weapons in the hands of young men both because they have legitimate fears for their own safety and for the safety of the same young men.  There has to be a mechanism for adults to report who has weapons without fear of revenge or retribution.  Adults also need to know that the young men they report will not face injury or death as a result of their report.  More importantly, we need to be able to trace and hold accountable the older drug lords who are responsible for the indiscriminate distribution of weapons and ammunition.
      
At the same time we need to look carefully at best practice from around the world to make education more accessible and attractive to young men – without taking away the gains made in the education of our young women.  We cannot change the nature of maturation but we can seek to direct it in socially acceptable ways.