New Year, Old World

Many years ago, I was talking to a student from Bosnia who had fled the war at home. She was attending the college where I was president, Berkshire Community College in western Massachusetts. What she emphasized about her new life was the silence – the absence of the bombs that fell regularly at home.

I thought of her when I heard President Zelensky at his press conference with President Biden and again when he addressed Congress. He told us that while we gather in warm homes for the holidays, the children of Ukraine ae huddled in the cold and dark of underground shelters.  Of course, many Americans were also in the cold and dark this year as storms raged across the country. Yet when the snow and ice melted, their power was restored. Russia has intentionally and systematically destroyed Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

In the United States we worry, rightly, about the social and learning losses American children suffered during the long COVID lockdown.. I cannot fathom the scars left on the psyches of Ukraine’s children for whom the danger and isolation are ongoing.

My generation of baby boomers is about to hand over the reins to a new generation. (Or at least we should be; some of us are reluctant to cede authority.) We are handing them a world torn by war, disease, climate change, growing inequality and diminishing human rights.  It is certainly not the world I envisioned in the 60’s when I committed myself to social justice.

In the new year about to start, all I can do is recommit and use the time I have left to support the young people who will have to fix both the problems we inherited, but failed to solve, and the ones we ourselves created. It is their turn. For all our sakes, I wish them well.