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e-Generation. Photo: Vancho Djambaski

 

No generation had brought and won’t bring the perfect system, but of course, it always brings better one than the previous. That cycle must not stop. It is time to confront and to leave room for the e-Generation

 

Author: Zoran Bojarovski

 

The disintegrated illusions about the war in Vietnam, the Watergate affair, Nixon’s resignation, the then most powerful person in the world…, were the events that determined the framework of the huge turning point in the history of the United States of America where, during the 1970s, its citizens were witnesses of the birth of the new epoch for the new American generation: the Generation X. The generation born by the free love of the Baby Boom generation. As a consequence or a lesson from the inefficiency of the hippy parents, the generation X learned three important things:

1. The government is definitely lying or is hiding the truth
2. The media are a powerful weapon of lie or truth
3. The mask with Nixon’s face is a cool Halloween mask

This doesn’t have to be a case of precise cause-consequence connection, but from desire to systematize the things and to put them into a certain comprehensible context, we decided to make a comparison with the new generation of citizens in the Republic of Macedonia, which has been defined by several important and determining processes in our newer history: the e-Generation.

 

GENERATION THAT GREW UP ON THE INTERNET

Born at the end of the 1980s in the former united country of many peoples and nationalities – Yugoslavia, the members of the e-Generation are sons and daughters of the Yugoslavian hippy generation that had been remembering the good old hippy days, but it is also a generation that witnessed the breakup of the once ideal country.

The war in Yugoslavia was our Vietnam.

The e-Generation grew up on the internet, it connected to the new media and shared on the social media. It is the generation that is articulating the rebellion in Macedonia as a reaction to the system that failed completely. It is the generation that realized that it was born and that in could die in the transition tunnel. They refuse to accept that. They decided not to stay out of the events, but to take their fate in their own hands and to regain the power of deciding which is authentically theirs.

No generation had brought and won’t bring the perfect system, but of course, it always brings better one  than the previous. That cycle must not stop. On the way to freedom…

Our Watergate is the “Wiretapped conversations” affair or “The bombs of Zaev”.

 

THE e-GENERATION IS WRITING ITS OWN MANIFESTO

And whilst the souls suffocated and lost in their own corruption bought their VIP place on the other side of heaven, the free citizens from the e-generation are writing the civil manifesto.

Those are people from throughout the country who have regained their rights to decide on their faith on their own. With their love and responsibility they take care of their own environment, parks and trees, shopping malls and schools as places where they were growing up and falling in love…

The e-Generation knows that our lives are connected with the future ones, and what they are doing now will affect the future generations. They felt that on their own skin thanks to the self-smugness, corruption and greed of the elites of the transitioning Macedonian generation. That’s why they took responsibility, but also for their friends and members of the future generations. It is completely clear that the detailed results from their initiative cannot be always completely foreseen, but one thing is certain – they took responsibility to make Macedonia a better place to live in, and not a country that is better to leave alltogether.

The e-Generation in the Republic of Macedonia refuses to differentiate on ethnic basis, refuses to be only a consumer, client and passive information receiver. This generation makes sure that everybody will know that it possesses the institutions, processes, algorithms and systems that shape their life, which were stolen, occupied, exploited by the current political elite. The connected e-generation wants personally to know how and why decisions are made, and wants to exercise its right to control those who temporarily, in one incumbency, manage the citizens’ resources. The e-Generation wants to be more directly involved in the creation of laws and procedures, in the work of institutions that are formed to protect and serve the citizens, and not to be a tool for enriching and corrupting the elites.

The circumstances have changed and precisely those circumstances allow all that mentioned above to the e-generation. This generation, unlike the corrupted elites which still believe that the society should be ruled with 19^th century tools, is only one click away from the world of information and knowledge. The e-Generation knows how to access that knowledge, knows how to find its place in that world of information, knows how to read, process and visualize data, and – as a crown of all that: knows how to make conclusions and actions and knows that it can and must do exactly that, because of the future that belongs to all future generations.

 

21^st CENTURY CHALLENGES ARE NOT SOLVED WITH 19^th CENTURY TOOLS

On the one hand, we have the e-generation that knows that can and must take action, and on the other hand we have the image of the current government set up, which with a mental structure from the 19^th century has shown itself incapable of solving the challenges from the 21^st century. The conditions for a decent life and the citizens’ security, above all. It is so because at first, mostly, it didn’t recognize, and then, in the zest of robberies and greed, it darkened its mind and lost the contact with the new, e-generation.

Things that the darkened and corrupted mind cannot perceive:

• The citizens of the e-generation lost the confidence in the old-fashioned elites and announced that they want to be responsible for their lives, for the places they live in and work at and the places they cherish;
• The political power cannot be a propriety, but all citizens have access to it and benefit from it;
• The e-Generation knows how to obtain the required tools, knowledge and support;
• Sympathy, dialog and confidence are most significant values for the new generation;
• The citizens of the e-generation adapt the technology according to their needs;
• They help other people in a smart way;
• The ask questions, and afterwards, they ask even more, prior delivering answers;
• They actively participate in the recognizing of phenomena in order to make best decisions;
• They work with honest passion, mold the presumptions, test quickly and know when to restart;
• They do not back down in front of big challenges;
• They wholeheartedly share knowledge, skills and information because they know that that’s where the new and true values come from.
• They know when to ask for permission and when to ask for forgiveness.

The new e-generation wants to see a government, regardless of the political background, which will take responsibility to dive in an open dialogue for radical revision of the system.

In order to offer answers to the challenges of the new century, the e-generation demands redefinition of the terms “government” and “governance”. WE are our government, is the message of this generation. There is nobody there without us. The human beings, the people, the citizens comprise society, not the members of the political parties.

The e-Generation knows how it’s done. With the new technologies it’s easier than ever. If people know how to make smart phones, smart TVs, smart cars, smart cities, they why they wouldn’t know how to make smart societies.

The e-generation knows this, not the ones from the tribally organized political parties.

 

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This column was created within the framework of the USAID Media Strengthening in Macedonia Project - Media Fact-Checking Service Component,, mplemented by Metamorphosis. The column is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The contents are the responsibility of its author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Metamorphosis, USAID or the United States Government. For more information on the work of USAID in Macedonia please visit its website (http://macedonia.usaid.gov) and Facebook page (www.facebook.com/USAIDMacedonia).

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