When we talk about inclusion, we often overlook the position of young people as a group that is also vulnerable to social exclusion in the spheres of work, civil society, family, and elsewhere. Among the many systemic injustices rooted in society, ageism, or discrimination based on age, is one of the barriers to realizing inclusion.
In Indonesia in particular, a family culture heavily imbued with ageism requires young people to obey and show respect to anyone older. Even though they are supposed to work as equal members of a team, for example, older people must still be regarded as more “senior” and given greater control in decision-making processes.
As a result, instead of being meaningful, the participation of young people often becomes mere pretense or is absent altogether. The vulnerability of young people in participation can be traced through several issues of exclusion: stigma, manipulation, and tokenism in participation opportunities, and financial vulnerability.
“Give me ten young people, and I will shake the world.” You have probably heard this quote, right? Unfortunately, the perception lodged in the minds of many people is very different from what Soekarno said in one of his speeches. The stigma often attached to young people labels them as unstable, not established, apathetic, lacking commitment, or lacking sufficient knowledge on certain issues because they still need more knowledge and experience. In effect, young people are branded as human beings who have not fully developed, so they always need direction from older people and cannot be trusted to make decisions on their own.
On the other hand, when young people are given the chance to participate in a program or organization, that participation tends to become meaningless because of the rampant practices of manipulation and tokenism. Manipulation occurs when the identity and aspirations arising from young people’s participation are used by older generations to achieve certain goals. In other words, from the start, young people’s participation has no influence on determining these goals and is only used in the process of reaching them.
Tokenism also often happens when young people are invited to participate in a superficial way. Instead of accommodating the voices and knowledge of young people, participation in tokenism stops at merely providing a symbolic representation. This is a practice often found in inclusion efforts that bring in “diverse” actors representing various minority groups, without any real goal of truly giving those groups a place to participate.
Beyond stigma, manipulation, and tokenism, the vulnerability of young people is compounded by vulnerability in the financial sphere. Financial vulnerability tends to be unavoidable because young people are a group that is not yet productive and economically independent. This condition becomes even harder with the risk of unemployment caused by the uneven provision of socio-economic services to all young people. This affects young people’s access to meaningful participation, where every form of participation often faces economic barriers or a lack of access to learn and work.
This vulnerability has an impact, for example, when you find an opportunity to participate in a nonprofit program about managing a landfill (TPA). Although this is highly relevant to you as a young person who cares about the piles of garbage where you live, you cannot take part because the program clashes with your part-time night job that helps cover your financial needs while you study. In the end, the program finished without bringing the change you had imagined.
By now, you may feel you have experienced some forms of the vulnerability of young people described above. What you can do is understand these issues as real challenges that hinder meaningful participation by young people, and recognize their presence in your surroundings. If we truly want to realize social inclusion for meaningful change for all groups, the various participation issues need to be addressed one by one, including the exclusion of young people.
References:
Pamflet Generasi Team. (2021). Guideline Memahami Inklusi Sosial (Guideline to Understanding Social Inclusion). Jakarta: Perkumpulan Pamflet Generasi.
