One will wonder why I have chosen this headline for this feature. Wait if you are asking then let me take you to Ayi Kwei Amarh the author of the novel "The beautyful ones are not yet born". As a teenager each time my old folks gave me a piece of advice about the opposite sex what they said was have patience the beautiful ones are not yet born. It was untill I got to the Senior High School that I realised it was one of the literature books that my past seniors had read. Even that I thought that the novel was about beautiful girls who had not yet been born.Untill I had the opportunity to read the novel and come to that literary realisation that the author was only talking about self discipline of a public servant who refused to take bribes amidst insults from his mothger -in-law and friends.

Last Monday it was reported in the daily graphic that a group of students of the University of Ghana and the Universty of Cape Coast respectively had a clash with their felow students over a trivial matter. My problem is how can students of such higher learning demean themselves to savages. After all the learning of how to manage conflicts and to use dialogue they stoop so low by destroying government property.

According to the daily graphic account, those involved attacked the Mensah Sarbah Hall where their friend was kidnapped with javelins, matchetes, clubs and other harmful objects. How on earth could intellectuals forget the famous saying of Winston Churchill one time Prime Minister of Great Britain and I quote "It is better to jawjaw than to war war".How could they believe in voilence when they could have resort to very intelligible way of handling the issue.

The action taken by both sides from when the students of the University of Cape Coast (Casely Hayford Hall) and students from the University of Ghana (Commonwealth Hall) and ( Mensah Sarbah Hall) to be specific was nothing to write home about.

These same students who

destroyed school property today will one day say that the past generation had failled us and that we should trust in the youth to move this country of ours forward. They might even become our presidents or ministers or speakers of parliament what or how will they manage the nation? These same students will say that Ghana does not deserve to be served and will go any length to call for the accountability of politicians and these same students will one day say that government has made available the resources for effective learning.

If students who should be handed the mantle of leadership in the next generation are behaving like this how should the older generation trust that we will live up to expectation.

This again brings me to Ayi Kwei Amarh's novel which says that the beautyful ones are not yet born. And I also ask if these beautyful ones are not yet born when will they be born? Right from the word go we have been our own devils. We tend to believe in negative radicalism which does not take us any where but rather brings us back. A lot of senior high schools today have properties broken by students some years back just because one dinning hall food was not prepared well and others have stolen items from school libraries, science laboritories during one demonstration or the other.

There was one national song I learnt back in primary schoool but never knew the words until I got to the junior high school and it goes like this

"Arise Ghana Youth for your country

the nation demands your devotion

let us all unite to uphold her

and make her great and strong

we are all involved

we are all involved

in building in our motherland".

How do we build our mother land when we have no conciouse youth who can settle their differences through dialogue? When will that group of beautyful ones be born to change the destiny of our beloved mother land? Can we build a mother land through voilence. Let us prove to the world that we can change our destiny . ALEXDA BLEGE GIJ ACCRA.