I think my thoughts on her question are very much that these questions are not being asked by people until a much later age than when I was young. I asked those sorts of questions when I was a pre-teen. This is not because young people nowadays care less than we did, but I think young people have not been exposed to politics and issues such as nuclear weapons in our media in the way we were.
I think there are some young people who do get exposed to issues through parents who are politicised, but I am realising these young people, even though I meet then through political organisations I am part of or deal with are few and far between. I am beginning to realise the "norm" may be young people who are completely politically unaware.
This depresses me.
Education- when I was at school in the 70's and early 80's, teachers spoke about nukes. We ducked and covered, or at least, Blue Peter showed us how. I had a hippy teacher who had the words of Imagine on his wall. I can imagine the reaction of some if I had a similarly political lyric on my classroom wall.

The other two teachers are going to teach about food without touching this topic.
I wonder what most young people understand about troops being sent to Mali? I know lots of people my age are cynical and alarm bells ring. Quite rightly so. Mali is a resource rich country that supplies diamonds and rare earths across the globe. And the reds are taking over.
So negative press is not allowed.
The absence of real political debate does not help these young people understand the decisions that are being made without any opposition. Back in the 70's the debate was how slow or fast we were moving to equality. And the nuke debate was almost a daily occurance- and nukes in this country were not serviced at a profit... That aspect came with the Tories and Neo-Labour Blairites. We saw documentaries, leaked or debated over or banned, but banned publically so we knew, at least there was an issue.
We read picture books by Raymond Briggs on the issue... We watched dramatisations of nuke war...
We were informed.
The present dismissal of politics by young people is in my opinion encouraged by the present hegemony. They do not profit from an informed and politically educated populace. Teach a child that, "politics are boring," or talking about the reality of poverty is "political," and being political is worse than being an evangelical Christian in your work canteen, and the politicised upper classes have their slaves and consumers. To paraphrase a famous Priest, 'if I give a starving child food, they call me a Saint. If I ask why the child is starving, they call me a communist.'
The Murdoch's, Blair's, Thatcher's and Cameron's of this world have demonised equality and educated a massive population arou d the world that their massive consumption is as natural as the starvation of those "third world children." Questioning weapons of mass destruction stationed 30 miles outside Glasgow is not something worth doing. Or it is "too political."
The young woman wants to know more, and I hope her now being part of a politicised Theatre Group will give her a taste of the counter argument to a depoliticised and consuming world.
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