Believe in Bhutan’s youth

February 10, 2012

As someone who’s been working with youth for the past 7 months, I can’t sufficiently express the great level of disappointment I have with Bhutan’s media portrayal of ‘the youth problem’. Not only has the media uniformly adopted the narrative of youth as ‘out of control’, ‘violent’, and ‘lost’ – and done so for years, now – but they have chosen, perhaps deliberately, to ignore any positive developments. Yes, there have been stabbings; yes, there is drug abuse; high unemployment; and yes, there are gangs. These are real problems, but they are problems that stem from a section of society that has been systematically underserved, and importantly, not seen for their untapped capacities.

For those of you worrying about the guardians of Bhutan’s future, I can say unabashedly that there is reason to be hopeful. At the Bhutan Centre for Media and Democracy, we work with hundreds of high school and college-aged youth in our workshops who come from all sections of society: boys, girls, in school, out of school, rural, urban. In these workshops, where we help youth recognize their roles as active citizens, we’ve come across many inspiring individuals. These youth are movers and shakers, individuals motivated by compassion, creativity, and a vision of a better society that they believe that they can help build – and build right now.

Consider Thoepaga, a teacher-to-be at the Samtse College of Education. Just looking at Thoepaga, a lanky, bespectacled 21-year-old, you’d never guess his true passion – “b-boying”, a popular style of street dance that involves fancy footwork, headspins, and death-defying moves that require an incredible amount of upper body strength. While Thoepaga will become a teacher in the classroom for some years, his ultimate dream is to become a teacher in a dance studio where he can train the next generation of youth in the art of b-boying. “Right now, society here doesn’t recognize b-boying for its artistic merits,” Thoepaga said. “They think it breeds violence and gangs, which is far from the truth – it keeps them away from all that stuff! Someday, I hope to create a space where we can show them that it is a legitimate art form.”

Consider Karma, a math and physics student at Sherubtse. Karma’s academic focus may be in the sciences, but he does not restrict himself to the lab; after class, he is a relentless advocate for social change. As a leader in the student social services unit, he regularly goes on anti-drug campaigns across Kanglung, and helps provide relief work for families affected by the recent earthquakes. Recently, he helped found Sherubtse’s first media club, Sherubtse Media Society (SMS), which publishes news for the local community. Now, he’s trying to spread awareness about the power of media in society. Only, there’s one problem: he doesn’t have funds for the campaign – yet. Where most people would give up and resign themselves to inaction, Karma is fearlessly popping into the office of every business, organization, and CSO to propose his idea and solicit funds. He knows that if a cause is worthy, and he persists, anything is possible.

Consider Sangay Rinchen, 28, the founder of Happy Green Cooperatives. After receiving his degree in agriculture from RUB, Sangay had achieved the dream of most students: a stable job in civil service under the Ministry of Agriculture. But status was not enough for Sangay; the issue of youth unemployment troubled him so much, he left his post in the Ministry to found Happy Valley Youth group to employ and inspire people through theater shows. “In order to create employment for youth,” Sangay always jokes, “I have become unemployed.” Despite mockery and discouragement from his friends, Sangay persevered with realizing his vision. After being introduced to the idea of farming cooperatives during a trip to Malaysia, he had another idea – to start organic farm cooperatives in Bhutan. “Today, no young people want to become farmers,” he says. “By promoting the idea of an ‘educated farmer’ – a farmer who uses best practices – I want to help restore the dignity of farming in Bhutan while creating employment opportunities for youth.” The cooperative functions like a social enterprise: it promotes and supplies eco bags in the market; operates an organic restaurant; has an organic sales outlet at the vegetable market; and also produces media advocating for green ideas and solutions. “We young people need to have this dream to do something for the country, regardless of our background,” he proudly says. “Strength doesn’t come from money, it comes from ideas. All I have is my guts that I’m doing the right thing.”

Far from being exceptions, we come across youth like Thoepaga, Karma, and Sangay all the time. I can only imagine how many more youth like them are out there that we haven’t yet discovered. Unfortunately, we rarely hear about the Thoepagas, the Karmas, and the Sangays.

So, then, why don’t we hear about them? Sure, journalism is a feedback mechanism to help society self-correct. We need accurate and reliable information about problems in order to solve them. When journalists choose only to harp on the negatives, however, what we’re left with is an unending gush of messages that “we’re going to hell”. And what results is “news fatigue” from readers; after all, why should anyone care about the news when it’s just another report about a drug bust, a rape, or a stabbing?

As humans, we need hope to survive. We need a reason to believe that in this life, it is possible to improve the conditions around us. Isn’t that the whole point of GNH – to hope that, through wise leadership and responsible citizenry, a different type of society can be created? I challenge the media to be more perceptive and daring in the stories they pick. Don’t just follow the trail the police lead for you; look for the light given off by the youth themselves. Believe in them; believe that they can be part of the solution, and not just part of the problem.

By Manny Fassihi

6 Responses to “Believe in Bhutan’s youth”

Sangay Rinchen says:

February 15, 2012 at 1:59 pm

wow, nice article and very dynamic contents. love the structre andf the stylke..unique n most international way. keep it and keep writting some more man. cheersss

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Nim Dem says:

February 16, 2012 at 12:07 pm

yes we absolutely believe in our youths coz they are our future good leaders and good citizens. we respect their good behaviours and manners showcased in the above article. but is only for those who acted voiletly in recentlike news who stabbed Taxi Drivers by youths for whom we worry to believe in them.

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Dema says:

February 16, 2012 at 12:37 pm

LATEST NEWS!!! Three youth-suspects caught!
They confessed to having stabbed and robbed two taxi drivers and driving away their cars
Thimphu police have arrested the three youth alleged to have stabbed and robbed a taxi driver before driving his car away on the night of February 13 at Zilukha.
The three youth, between 18 and 20 years, were arrested at Olakha, Thimphu on the night of February 14.
The three youth, who took a Wagon R taxi to come to Thimphu from Phuentsholing attacked the driver after reaching Zilukha on the night of February 13, robbed him off Nu 3,000 and his mobile phone before driving his car away.
“The youth had then driven the taxi towards Punakha,” Thimphu police’s additional superintendent said.
The three young men, on their way to Punakha, stopped an Alto taxi on the way, stabbed the lone driver on his left arm, robbed him off Nu 6,000 and switched cars.
“They returned to Thimphu but left the Wagon R at Toeb Menchuna,” the police officer said.
Both taxi drivers, who sustained minor injuries managed to escape.
Preliminary investigation revealed that the three youth from Wangduephodrang, who were school dropouts, changed the number plate of the Alto taxi from an automobile workshop at Olakha and tried to change its colour, adding a stripe using adhesive tapes.
Police said the youth, who confessed to the crime, had criminal intention as they recovered weapons like Samurai swords, Khukuri and “Rambo” draggers.
“We also recovered 92 tablets of N10.”
Although there were four boys in the taxi when police caught the youth, the fourth one was not involved in attacking the taxi drivers and robbing them.
“But he becomes an accomplice, as he didn’t inform the police,” a police officer said.

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Jonathan Taee says:

March 2, 2012 at 2:10 pm

Dear Manny,

A fantastic article; it was well written, a pointed critique and used context-rich examples as a counter weight. Thank you for inspiring a different look at the portrayal of youth in the media, which I agree is becoming worrisomely one sided.

I would like add a small reflection of my own that comes to mind when reading your article. There is a danger in the request you make to the media to write more about positive youth movements. The danger is that there might be an anti-productive split between ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ youth stories. While inspirational stories like the ones you shared are a must for all the reasons you outline, we do not want to fall into a media tallying game, where we start counting the inspirational youth narratives against the negative ones. This type of dichotic approach will only serve to inflate rhetoric on both sides, so much so that the complexity of each narrative might be lost in the glittering details of success, or in the murky particulars of failure.

To offer a middle road: there is scope to explore the concept, reality and media portrayal of ‘youth’ as social actors that are constantly ‘in process’, ‘in evolution’, and within differing lenses of view/understanding. Youth are complex and interconnected social actors in Bhutan’s society, most of which need not be judged by a societies ethic of good or bad. It may be useful for the media to refrain from judgement, and explore these different evolutions of Bhutan’s youth, and to further explore some of the different perspectives that are used to understand, explain and ultimately judge them. What I am asking for here is a critical self-reflective examination of viewpoint, particularly from the media, who must examine the ways in which they investigate, analyse and ultimately portray ‘youth’ in their publishing mediums.

If the media is capable of such introspection to their own imagining of youth, we all might find that we begin to think of these inspirational young people in a more complex, real and freeing way, a way that would hopefully escape the over simplistic and ultimately entrapping concepts of ‘good’ and ‘bad’.

Great article, great trajectories of thought, and great engagement with a very important and growing topic.

Thanks,
Jonathan

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Manny Fassihi says:

March 2, 2012 at 3:58 pm

Jonney,

Thanks for your insightful and trenchant response. You’re absolutely spot on in your analysis – the article does seem to entrench the ‘good vs. bad’ narrative posited by the media. I suppose what I intended to communicate was not necessarily to ‘balance the tally’ but more expansive coverage of youth that analyze them through different perspectives and with richer detail (as you seem to suggest).

Implicitly, I also intended for journalists to consider their stories in the context of the larger public interest. Will repeated stories of ‘stabbings’ do any good other than promote fear? Not likely. If we truly believe that one of the mandates of every journalist is to serve the larger public interest, then they must consider the impact their stories will have on society – especially with the rise in youth violence. Perhaps this goes against the anthropologist’s methodological slant of ‘thick description’, but I think it’s an issue that journalists should ponder over. Yes, this may obscure “the glittering details of success”, as you say, but youth need inspiration now more than ever.

Ultimately, though, I agree with you – the media need to be more introspective in the way that they construct the so-called ‘youth problem’.

-Manny

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letho says:

March 2, 2012 at 7:54 pm

really true, nice article!!!

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