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Youth in a Changing World
by
Lt.-Colonel K. Westergaard
International Youth Secretary
*Editor's note - This article has undergone
some editing in length and vocabulary.
The first glimpse is of some introductory remarks from the
prize-winning effort in the General's Second Essay Competition
(1951) on 'The Army's Approach to Youth.'
'Consider the background of modern youth and remember that our
young folk live in a world in which the values of life are
topsy-turvy. Money is often the criterion; morals do not
always count. They live in a world in which the sensational is
worshipped, where youth will swoon over the singing of a Frank
Sinatra or Donald Peers and never turn a hair at some of the
sins, which would have filled out fore-fathers with disgust.
More money was recently paid to a professional boxer for a
pugilistic affair than a well-paid miner could earn in many
years of hard work.'
'This world is entertainment mad; gambling is in the very
blood stream of life and a regular feature of home life is the
completion of the pool coupon. The craze for personal pleasure
is the supreme purpose of many lives. Youth lives in a world
... where more money is spent in this country in a single year
on cinema-going than we have ever spent on missions to the
so-called heathen.'
'One cannot think of the background of life to-day without
remembering the countless victims of disrupted home-life. It
is a world where the rising tide of divorces makes somber
reading, where suspicion, grab and fear are the ruling motives
and where the inventive genius of man is largely devoted to
the creation of methods of destruction ... Fathers and
brothers have been taught criminal tactics in war …while talk
of war to come is in every one's mouth... There is no sense of
security because there is no sense of God.'
'This is the background to modern -youth. Youth did not create
this situation. It found it.'
The second glimpse is contained in an extract from the leading
article of 'The News Chronicle' for Saturday, 11th August
(during the Communist Festival of Youth in Berlin) - and I
include it because it reminds us of the sinister evil of
communism, which threatens our -young people everywhere.
'Tomorrow is the climax of the Communist Festival of Youth. A
giant procession through the streets of East Berlin will bring
to an end a week of discussion groups, drama , sport and above
all propaganda - propaganda by day and night.'
'Not even its organisers would claim that it has been an
unqualified success, but still we cannot blink at the fact
that something like half a million -young people have gathered
in Berlin for this rally. Most of them have come from behind
the Iron Curtain, but not a few came from the Western
Democracies.'
'What was it that took the young people of the West to Berlin?
Curiosity, perhaps sincere belief in the Communist ethic, in
some cases, but was it not far more likely the natural
reaction of youth in a dull world to do something exciting?
They have been given a wild hare to chase and they are off in
hot pursuit.'
'Youth is the time of enthusiasm. Yet who in this country,
other than the Communists, is offering our young people
anything to enthuse about?
'We do not suggest that the other political parties should ape
the communists with monster rallies, but the old men of
Westminster would do well to wake up to the fact that the
young people of the nation, those whom Disraeli called "the
trustees of posterity" are being wooed, and wooed hard, by the
communists, while they remain aloof in their mock-Gothic
fastness.'
'The occupants of arm-chairs at clubs - be they Pall Mall or
Working Men's - are fond of saying that the spirit of youth is
not what it was. Let them give the young men and women of this
country some new thoughts, some new ideals to be enthusiastic
about and they may well be astonished at the result.'
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