You saw it. So did people younger than you. Gruesome images of Muammar Gaddafi were splashed across the entire globe following his death on October 20. The tyrannical dictator was responsible for the murder of countless thousands of citizens over more than 40 years in power.
In his bare skin and bruises, the bloody, fallen and worn former leader of Libya, lay in a refrigerated storeroom at a shopping centre on show in Misrata, solid and lifeless. Captured alive, beaten, photographed, then murdered by the National Transitional Council in the town of Sirte, Gaddafi had been fleeing rebel armies since late April when he went into hiding.
The rebellion was the result of decades of contempt towards and hellish rule under Gadaffi. In addition, the sweeping movement of Middle Eastern rebellion dubbed the ‘Arab Spring’.
News of Gaddafi’s death reached corners of the Earth in minutes, along with graphic photos and videos of his beating and execution. Whether sympathetic or not, as an observer, you couldn’t hide from the images; the gunshot wounds, the matted hair, and the limp body were appalling.
Most teenagers have in at least the last decade been exposed to thousands of hours of live TV news violence, something their parents and grandparents cannot relate to. In teens’ lifetimes, they have watched Saddam Hussein hanged, Prime Ministers be bombed and genocides wreak havoc on the lives of millions, all within a 24-hour news cycle.
Today’s young people are constantly barraged with violent images that force young people to learn all too early that the violent world around them is in constant disarray. Children soldiers die in questionable wars. Trusted leaders turn on their people with assault rifles and bludgeons. Blood-drenched inequality seems to permeate the very fabric of society. In short, the “Happy Days” of youth and innocence are slaughtered before they even come of age. And, consequently, young people learn about the violent state of the world like never before.
Because they’re exposed to incomparable evil and malicious madness, teens must learn to cope with the truths of society. They must form opinions and wrestle with questions that their parents didn’t even think to contemplate until they were older.
As a generation, teens seem receptive to this reality, albeit sometimes harsh, and have begun working to understand it. At the end of the day, it is admirable that young people yearn to make sense of things in a world that rarely does.