Pinoy Youth

Amazingly, there’s Wi-Fi access here at the Carwash service I chose along Quirino Avenue near San Jose del Monte Bulacan. The van needs cleaning! Ugh. Quite a number of bugs courageously beat against my windshield last night as we traversed the SCTEX from Victoria, Tarlac.

Technically, it was morning already when we passed through SCTEX. Together with Earlie and Aaron (national leaders of the Methodist Youth), I went to Victoria to deliver a talk on youth leadership. I talked to about 30-40 youth on what it means to be a leader. To make my talk interesting, I didn’t simply present principles of leadership. Instead, I drew upon the story of John Wesley’s life from his childhood, his life as founder and member of the Holy Club at Oxford University to his career as an itinerant preacher and founder of a movement. Alongside John Wesley, I also presented the life of Nelson Mandela and how he became instrumental in ending apartheid in South Africa.

My talk was done at about 9:15 in the evening. But I shared coffee time with the national leaders who are also my friends. We ended up leaving Tarlac at 12 midnight. Whew. I was sleepy while driving. Thankfully, Aaron and Earlie kept me company. I arrived home (at Tala, Caloocan City) by 3:30 AM. Exhausted and wanting to simply get some rest.

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The people of Iran are going through their own version of people power. With the disputed presidential elections in Iran, young people and women support the opposition amid arrests of journalists and other social activists. According to NY Times, this is the most sustained challenge to the Iranian government since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

There were, however, growing signs of divisions within the alliance united behind Mr. Ahmadinejad. Members of Parliament upset with the brutality of the government crackdown summoned the interior, justice and intelligence ministers to a hearing.

“I don’t think anyone really knows what comes next,” said an Iranian political analyst, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution by the government. “Most likely, we are going to enter a period of relative uncertainly, with ebbs and flows, until the Islamic Republic of Iran is altered or finds a new avenue for legitimacy.”

Interestingly, about 70% of Iran’s population are under the age of 30.

I have been reading the commentary about the news at NY Times, reading the take of some Iranian, American and Islamic scholars about the Iranian situation. According to Hamid Dabashi,

If you were to follow youth culture in Iran at the turn of the century — from the rise of a fascinating underground music (particularly rap) to a globally celebrated cinema, an astonishing panorama of contemporary art, video installations, photography, etc. — you would have noted the oscillation of this generation between apathy and anger, frustration and hope, disillusion and euphoria. In their minds and souls, as in their blogs and chat rooms, they were wired to the globalized world, and yet in their growing bodies and narrowing social restrictions trapped inside an Islamic version of Calvinist Geneva. Read the full story at NY Times.

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Father’s Day came and went. I spent the day at church where the congregation honored the fathers among our midst. Since my own dad was at the pulpit, I didn’t get to greet him and honor him there. In the afternoon, we just went to Jay-J’s Inasal at SM Fairview and had a good dinner!

Speaking of Father’s Day, when I checked my Facebook account earlier today, I came across this shared link from my friend Roy dealing with Men who Mother. In previous years, such a concept would be unthinkable! Any person doing “womanly” chores would be called “Andres de Saya” and would lose the respect of his male peers. But with the OFW phenomenon raging wildly in the Philippines and as “female mothers” go abroad to work, fathers are left with their kids. They have to be mothers as well as fathers.

Here’s an excerpt of Michael Tan’s article in the Inquirer.

In the Philippines, men talk about being breadwinners although in practice, women are taking up more and more of this burden. Men are also associated with discipline although again in practice, Filipino men can be quite nurturing, at least in terms of “entertaining” children.

I drew up a list of “mothering” duties here that men tend to avoid and there’s a clear pattern: they tend to be activities that are often called “menial,” not the most exciting, yet requiring so much time and patience.

The roles are often embedded in a rather complicated cultural matrix, complete with contradictions. For example, we’re always warning our women not to carry anything heavy because their uterus will fall (mahuhulog ang matris). That’s actually a medical myth, but many people will swear it’s true. Yet, notice how our women will avoid carrying a box weighing maybe 5 kilos, but will not think twice about carrying her child, who may be 15 kilos, sometimes even more.
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These roles are changing, mainly because more women are now in the labor force, many deployed away from home or overseas. But even here, the norms change slowly. A woman who leaves to work abroad will often entrust her children to a woman relative.

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About two weeks ago, I received a package from OMF Literature containing the most recent (new) book in my possession-Do Hard Things by twin teenagers Alex and Brett Harris. My first reaction was: “okay, here’s another pep talk for teens.” But as I went past the Introduction by Chuck Norris, the words of these twin teens (I like the sound of that) won me over.

They dissected the idea of youth and adolescence, traced the emergence and history of these terms and criticized its impact on this generation of teenagers. I liked the way they looked at the stories of great leaders and how they accomplished notable things even when they were still in their teens. Too bad, the standards have dropped so low these days that not much is expected from teens except that they do the dishes and make their beds. More than that, the teens who, with minimal effort, rise up against these mediocre expectations are considered “Androids” and extraordinary because of the overall low expectations from teens.

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