A New Era For A New Generation
"The age has changed. It's not the continuation of what we know. Our history was written with red ink, a history of war, violence, hatred. Maybe there was a justification for it because we made our living from land and our quarrels from religions. We have since learned that we can make a better living from science and technology. We have learned the value of tolerance. Democracy is not a meeting of people who are alike, nor is it a gathering of like ideas. It is a meeting of people who are different, of ideas that differ. And we learn that we can live together in a pluralistic world and advance our age by education, research, and communication in a world without frontiers, without barriers, without prejudices and without distances. It is really an age for young people. We talk so much about globalisation of the economy but the most important phenomena is the globalisation of young people. They are more globally oriented, more professionally inclined. They hardly understand the confrontations, wars and skirmishes we went through. Maybe they don't have a declaration. But they do have a message. I think that the jeans and the t-shirts are a demand for equality, for openness, so you wouldn't judge a person by his dress - whether he is black or white, rich or poor, man or woman. And they dance and sing in the streets and the squares so they don't have to buy expensive tickets to opera houses and music halls. They have computers and internet - and once you have the internet in your room, your room is no longer a room, it's a globe. And basically they don't understand why we want to mark, artificially, borders among nations. Or why we insist unnecessarily on going to war and fighting each other. We can agree while disagreeing. We can advance without fighting each other. Today, a boy or a girl of 12, 13 or 14 is what we used to call a 'grown-up person.' They are better informed than we were at 17 and 18. They are stronger, better educated. Yet they don't have a role in life. They wander around looking for a role, for a challenge. I think the young generation has a right to its own agenda. I, personally, would like to see young people getting organised globally...trying to put their own feelings and their own vision forward in an organised manner. We have to give them the right to have a future of their own. Because what's happening is a new age. A new concept. And a new generation. Hopefully much better."
Shimon Peres
Shimon Peres, a former foreign affairs minister of Israel and the co-author of the Oslo Peace Agreement, made these remarks at the launch the International Year for a Culture of Peace.