By Melissa Heng

BLESSED are the young, for they shall inherit the earth.

Let's be honest. At one point or another, most of us have wished that we could be young again.

A man's life is governed by three stages on his journey from birth to death.

As a child, he is a receiver. As an adult, he is an instructor.

But in between, as a youth, he is a great social leveller - the one who briefly yet crucially keeps the torch burning bright for social justice.

To him falls the duty and the honour of standing up for those among us who have been unfairly castigated for being different, rebellious, or hopelessly and unrealistically dream-struck.

Yet, it is the wildly unrealistic dreams of our youth that power the great inventions of mankind, generation after generation.

It is the open-mindedness and big-hearted nature of our youth that let them show through their actions the need to embrace different social groups without the dubious benefit of judgment - pregnant teens; abused and neglected children; and gay men and women coming to terms with their sexuality.

It is the radical cry of our youth that brought down the Berlin Wall so that the rest of the world could draw the courage to say "no" to authoritarian regimes.

Young hearts are filled with righteous passion that can douse any kind of ill will that festers as a result of age-old bigotry and prejudice.

Because of this, it is the youth of the world who truly abide by the universal declaration that all men (and women) are created free and equal.

Our youth are our redeemers. Their sense of fair play and acceptance is the only thing that can help break the shackles society has placed on itself - shackles that burden our minds even as they cripple our actions.

This is why our children are our future - not because they will put food into our mouths when we are too old to feed ourselves.

Not because they will clean up our mess when we soil ourselves.

But because they will put right all our wrongs and, once again, set us free to dream, to discover, to learn and to take delight in the new and the wondrous.

myp@sph.com.sg

Melissa Heng is a veteran journalist and editor. She lectures in journalism and helms editorial firm My Blue Ink.

For more my paper stories click here.