Dear Mr Trump, and Mr Johnson, Ms Clinton, Mr Cameron and even Enda Kenny, this is the next generation calling and we have quite a few things to say. As a young adult living in 2016 this world we are entering is quite a daunting place.
We have computers to do everything for us, machines replacing our future jobs, everything can be delivered and nothing comes for free. Sure we have a lot going for us; better chances to earn degrees, passports that can bring us across the world, our places of learning are forever evolving and our minds are forever adapting. We have our youth and hopefully our health, great teachers and people to look up to. But there's something we don't seem to have these days: a say.
You call us the future, the ones you are building a new world for, the hope for this great land and the ones to rely on. Yet for some reason, even in 2016, the governments are continually deafened when it comes to the voice of the youth. Sure we can vote, we can write open letters or cause a media storm. But do we really count? We're too young you say, we don't understand the real world, we don't know what's good for us. Well Mr President/ Mr or Mrs Future President/ Mr Taoiseach and anyone who would dare to waste a minute to listen, maybe we are young and maybe our elders do know better but what you don't understand is what we are facing.
It's a world where even a college degree isn't a good enough, where the cost of a Master’s degree is inevitable, where we must consider immigration to a different continent before our own capital. It's a place where you are warned off visiting spots you've always dreamed of; Paris is a danger zone and London is a potential hazard.
Where someone with a backpack is watched carefully and those with headscarves are scorned. Where you can't even go to a cinema or a nightclub without the fear of hearing the fatal explosions of shots ringing through your ears. Where marathons are bombed and tubes aren't that much safer. Where your sexuality can get you killed, or your gender causes political stirs, where someone in a suit decides which bathroom you can use. Where innocent people get killed trying to cross channels to a better life, where walls are built and you can't even cross the Irish border without a passport.
We grew up counting pennies so our parents didn't have to stress anymore about losing everything to the fading economy. We lived in fear of our future “doomed” lives where a job was a miracle and a loan was a dream. We stressed ourselves to the point of exhaustion trying to get meaningless points and we cried when we got what we deserved in August… Or when we didn't. We got jobs at 16 and learned our place in this fading façade that revolves around Wall Street and polls. We earned our right to be here, and with that a right to be heard.
We ask very little in fact; No Sir we would not like for the UK to completely dismiss our country in a monumental decision to leave the EU. No Sir we would not like innocent people our age to be gunned down in America where life-taking weapons are mind bogglingly legal. No sir we would not like the future world leader to be a racist billionaire. Ah yes Dáil Éireann please up our college fees once more so our parents go bankrupt, that would be great.
What the world leaders of today don't seem to understand about us is that we really are a simple people to deal with. We actually don't notice when someone is a different colour to us. We don’t care about their religious ways. We don't see a difference when a person has a different sexual orientation and, really, who cares what bathroom everyone uses?
We don't like walls and strong borders and having our international students treated differently. Yet every time we stand up, we are not knocked down, but we are just minimized until our voices are just one more vote in the ballot box.
But the thing is Sir, we are the future. There will come a time when you will all be gone and we will be in charge. We will have a lighter world, not weighed down by discrimination and economic stand stills. That is our hope, that is where our voice will lead us.
Except there is one problem with this fairytale.
Somehow, no matter which generation comes next, we end up being just like you.
You teach us not just to dislike change, but to fear it. We learn that the old ways are what is best, that the world revolves around money and everyone has their place. So we know you will all continue to disregard us, to think about your own loyalties and your own pockets.
Who cares about the next generations? You'll all be gone by then anyway. The only hope we've got is that some of this generation will not follow the suits. That there will be a select few who will stand up for what we all originally valued, and will remind the world that this is not what history wanted us to become. The thing about change is that people may fear it but that won't stop it from coming
So we do hope your campaign goes well Mr Trump, and that David Cameron enjoys his retirement, and that US congress continues their uphill battle to allow guns.
But please World leaders, no need to forget us, because you'll all be going away before we do.
Now Sir, would you like to listen? Because there's no hanging up on us.
