English: Headquarters of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, corner fragment. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Tibet: An elderly Tibetan women holding a prayer wheel on the Lhasa’s pilgrimage circuit of Barkhor. The Barkhor, a quadrangle of streets that surrounds the Jokhang Temple, is both the spiritual heart of the holy city and the main commercial district for Tibetans. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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This is an excellent, MUST READ article by Blagovesta Nikolova, published in Social Europe Journal.

via How Our Grandparents Became Our Enemies.

Here is the bio description of Ms. Nikolova:

Blagovesta Nikolova is a Research Assistant in the Institute for the Study of Societies and Knowledge at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. She has recently defended her doctoral dissertation on the transformation of foresight in contemporary knowledge societies.

Personally, I can strongly empathize with the viewpount of Ms. Nikolova. Certainly, in the UK we can see evidence of the Government challenging the political position of older people, in effect putting the old and young on a collision path; the objective, of course, is greater power for the government.

In traditional societies, of course, it is different to what is happening in many Western countries, in particular Anglo-Saxon countries. Matters are seriously aggravated by policies of excessive austerity.

Let me relate a short personal story. Last year, my wife and I visited Beijing, China, and were talking to our guide, a university graduate, about his family. His family came from the provinces and were traditionally farmers. Under various reforms, when his parents were no longer able to work, they had no source of income. So our Chinese guide was forced to support his own family, plus his parents and grandparents.

Let me turn this thread to an open question:

How can society learn more from the elderly and stop the deliberate political commodization of the elderly?

Any thoughts?

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