Generational Conflict

The Night Fire: Generational Conflict

Nowadays we face a situation that I dare call a generational conflict. More often, this type of conflict arises when two or more generations perceive their interests as incompatible, or (even worse,) when one generation expresses hostile attitudes or takes actions that are harmful toward the other. 

Today’s social/political trends push us all to declare that we’ve had enough; especially considering that those who “pull the devil by the tail” (constantly struggle) continuously promote false and obscure ideologies. 

The existence is a reality that obliges us to have the awareness and courage necessary to stop hiding behind our projections of a future we imagine to be brighter than the monumental knowledge that has been left to us by our Ancestors. 

Our story is set during the invasions in Kemet, in a city where the royal throne lay under the control of usurpers from the other side of the Mediterranean Sea, there was a King who was able to build his reputation and authority through the distortion of principles, cultural morals and customary values of the town and its people. 

A few years after conquering the throne, this new King and his followers started a campaign to reorganize the city to suit his will. According to one of his dreams, he led a restructuring of the principles and customary values of his “new territory.” He did all this as a way to impose his authority. 

Though the inhabitants of the city were suffering under the weight of his reign, his new system impressed many outside of the city and his reputation attracted those with big ambitions to lend their energies to his dreams. 

It is in this light that he decreed new laws which favoured the profane over the sacred; the tradition of respect and submission according to birthright was surrendered in favor of the defiance of the incoherent inconsistencies of the invaders. 

He banned the cults and worship of Ancestors and their wisdom. Following those acts, on the advice of his new foreign supporters, in order to complete his plan the King called a municipal assembly in the royal court. To this meeting only the young, strong and able-bodied were welcomed. 

As part of the King’s agenda, he ordered all of the sons in the society to murder their fathers. When this unthinkable order was given, some of the young men obeyed the new King and chose to murder their father. After completing the task, they returned to the King and were allowed to join the new society. Others decided that they would not, under any circumstances, murder their fathers. When they returned to the King and announced that they would not murder their fathers, the King ordered them to be killed and then also killed their fathers. A third group chose to return to their villages and hide their families. After hiding them, they returned to the King and announced that they had killed their fathers. The King also allowed this group to join the new society, believing that they had carried out his order. This group hid their secret for some time. They would return to their fathers’ hiding place to bring them food and to speak with them. 

One day the King had a new order for the youth. The King spoke and said, “I want to be known as the most powerful King and I need you to build a palace suitable for me. I would like a palace that is neither in the sky nor on the ground. I would like a palace that is suspended in air. Your fathers had the knowledge to build pyramids, so you will be able to accomplish this. All of you need to create a plan to accomplish this task and come back and tell me the plan.” 

After receiving this order, one of the sons went to find his father at his hiding place and told him about the King’s request. He explained, “Father, this man is crazy; he wants to have a palace suspended in air!”. The father responded and said “don’t worry, you go back to the King and tell him this...”. The young man listened closely to the advice of his father before returning to the King. 

Back in the city, the King received the city’s youth and asked, “What is your plan to build my palace?” The young man responded when the rest of the youth had remained speechless. “We will build your palace, King. As you said, our fathers had the knowledge to build the pyramids. But before our father’s began to build, the King first had to draw the plan for the foundation. So before we begin building, we need you to draw the plan in the air for us to build your palace.” The King looked at the young man and said, “How am I supposed to draw the plan?” At that moment the King said to the man “Did you really kill your father?” The young man responded, “No I did not”. The King then asked, “Who else did not kill their fathers?” Several others of the youth raised their hands. The King ordered for all of them to bring their fathers who were hidden. When they arrived, the King appointed all of the fathers as his advisors in the new community. They were given the responsibility of making all the decisions for the well being of the entire community. 

All along the King knew what he was doing by giving the youth the impossible task of building a suspended palace. It was all part of his plan for the restructuring of the society. Some youth gave up their past and easily welcomed a new order. Those who killed their fathers were seen as submissive people. This is similar to the situation that many of us in modern society find ourselves in. Some of us can be seen as submissive people who obey the rules of a destructive society despite the call of our Ancestors. The youth who refused to kill their fathers were seen as rebellious. They were eliminated in order to prevent any rebellion within the new society. Today, our new society’s prisons are filled with those who rebelled against the direction the new leaders were taking them. The youth who hid their fathers were seen as the ones who were able to make the best decision, because of how their fathers had raised them. How many of today’s humans will hesitate to sacrifice their relatives for their ambition? 

In Meritah, it is commonly understood that the child is the result of his education; that’s the reason why in the traditional societies the elders have always reserved a very high esteem for the basic education of the youth. Ironically, the leaders of today’s supposedly civilized societies have found it essential to flout basic educational values in the name of their illusionistic visions. The sad truth is that the modern socio-educative layer is terribly rotten and has been so since the time that some of us arbitrarily opted to live in societies of laws instead of those of principles. Just like this King, and considering all the cancerous incidents the youth in the modern societies are facing, every leader needs to come to terms with the reality that human imagination and dreams cannot be imposed on the present moment which, itself, is forced to submit to the past that preceded it....