‘Can the so-called snowflakes or Generation Z mount their 21st century version of the Children’s Crusade?’
DILEMMA. Is Elon Musk correct: that population collapse due to low birth rates is a much bigger risk to civilization than global warming? Is it true that the kids of today do not want to have their own children because they are too worried about climate change?
Choices. Iron Lad or The Gloom (formerly Sister Grimm)? Hulking or Princess Justice (formerly Lucy in the Sky)? America Chavez or Gun Arm (formerly Talkback)? Young Avengers or Runaways?
Judging by the clarion call of FDR 80 years ago, it should be the Young Avengers: “But now the world knows that the Nazis, the Fascists and the militarists of Japan have nothing to offer to youth — except death. On the other hand, the cause of the United Nations is the cause of youth itself. It is the hope of the new generation — and the generations that are to come — hope for a new life that can be lived in freedom, and justice, and decency. This fact is becoming clearer every day to the young people of Europe, where the Nazis are trying to create youth organizations built on the Nazi pattern. It is not a pattern devised by youth for youth. It is a pattern devised by Hitler and imposed upon youth by a form of mental forcible feeding — a diet of false facts, distortions, and prohibitions-all backed up by the guns of the Gestapo.” [White House news release, September 3, 1942]
Bracketing. The Churchill Club (Danish Churchill-klubben) versus the NSU (National Socialist Youth) of the DNSAP (Danish Nazis). The Unified Socialist Youth (Juventudes Socialistas Unificadas) vs. the young combatants of the Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalista, especially The Blue Division. The Kommunisticheskiy Soyuz Molodyozhi (All-Union Leninist Young Communist League) vs. the Hitler Youth (Hitlerjugend). The Giovani Comuniste e Comunisti vs. the Opera Nazionale Balilla/Gioventí¹ Italiana del Littorio (youth section of the Italian National Fascist Party)
FDR: “The delegates to this International Student Assembly represent the 29 United Nations. They also represent, in spirit at least, the younger generation of many other nations who, though they are not now actively at war on our side, are with us heart and soul in aspiration for a secure and peaceful world.” [https://www.ibiblio.org/pha/policy/1942/420903a.html]
Match-up. The ZhÅngguó Gí²ngchÇŽnzhÇ”yí¬ (Communist Youth League of China versus the Dai-Nippon Seinen-tÅ (Great Japan Youth Party). The Hunters-ROTC Guerrillas versus the Imperial Rule Assistance Young Men’s Corps (Yokusan Sonendan).
The United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt broadcast to the International Student Assembly, September 3, 1942: “We of the United Nations have the technical means, the physical resources, and, most of all, the adventurous courage and the vision and the will that are needed to build and sustain the kind of world order which alone can justify the tremendous sacrifices now being made by our youth. But we must keep at it — we must never relax, never falter, never fear — and we must keep at it together. We must maintain the offensive against evil in all its forms. We must work and we must fight to ensure that our children shall have and shall enjoy in peace their inalienable rights to freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, freedom from fear. Only on those bold terms can this total war result in total victory.”
Choices. The young partisans of the Armee Juive (Jewish Army) versus the SS Youth Division. The teenaged GIs versus the Tekketsu Kinnotai. Helmuth Hí¼bener versus Horst Ludwig Georg Erich Wessel. Anne Frank versus the Sub-Debs.
The youth of World War II had to choose: Good versus Evil, Right or Wrong. Fernande Keufgens (aka Fernande Davis, a Belgian fighter with the Army of Liberation), Battalion ZoÅ›ka, Diet Eman (a young Christian woman who joined the Resistance in the Netherlands), Irene Gut Opdyke, and Mury (The Walls). Like the Podgórski sisters (Stefania and Helena), these young people waded into the breach on the side of the United Nations.
Learn the lyrics: “Warszawskie dzieci, pójdziemy w bój — za każdy kamieÅ„ twój, stolico damy krew” (“We’re the children of Warsaw, going into battle — for every stone of yours, we will give our blood”).
As for the Filipinos: the PMA’ers Mike Ver, Terry Adevoso, and Tabo Ingles convened a secret society in their hometown of San Juan on January 15, 1942. In another part of Greater Manila, a column of basketball players and riflemen (Vicente O. Novales, Tereso “Sisoy” Pia, Vicente “Vic” Estacio, Remy Gozon, Honorio “Naning” K. Guerrero, Antonio “Tony” Gutierrez, Rosauro “Zorro” Paz, Rosauro “Zorro” Pestano) of the Jose Rizal College had also decided to hurt the invader with sabotage. Thus, when Tony Gutierrez brought together his PMA-er townmates, his JRC-RPT buddies and more cadets from Mapua, University of Santo Tomas and other Philippine institutions of higher learning, the Hunters-ROTC guerrilla group was born.
Today. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles v. Genetically Modified Punk Rock Pandas? Miyagi dojo v. Cobra Kai? The International Labour Organization discovered: “the high rates of youth unemployment, inactivity and insecure work could have long-lasting ‘scarring’ effects on young people’s career paths and future earnings at the same time as undermining countries’ economic growth.” [Global Employment Trends for Youth 2022]
Can the so-called snowflakes or Generation Z mount their 21st century version of the Children’s Crusade?
