Bob Geldof, it's not millennials who have blood on our hands - it's the Western interventionists

"Shame on you. Let's get real," said Bob Geldof while addressing my generation this week. The thing is, Bob, we already have

(Getty)

Bob Geldof has a problem with young people tweeting. Speaking at the One Young World conference, pop’s John the Baptist (to Bono’s Jesus), warned millennials that by tweeting about our breakfasts, Instagramming our lunches and Vining our dinners, the current generation have allowed extremists groups to rise unfettered.

"You are the serious generation. Forget the tweeting that's about bullshit. Tweet about serious things. Go back to your countries, get real with your governments, and get the people of your age group to understand precisely what happens. Stop with violence, it doesn't work. Come back to your country and take action. [...] Now we've got the thinking planet here, already a failure to your name, your killers, killing other people, innocent, of your age group. Shame on you. Wipe out that shame. You've got time. It's get real time."

Ok then Bob, let’s get real. In the past few weeks young people have been shaken to their very core by these senseless attacks. Young people have been deliberately targeted by Isis in an attempt to further drive a wedge between those Muslims and non-Muslims. Young people also have a pretty good understanding of where Isis came from and what it wants; namely to turn us into the type of outraged reactionary interventionist that helped it rise to power. And young people are the ones who have disproportionately been killed in Paris.

We are the serious generation. More so than ever are young people understanding the startling inequalities we’ve inherited from the previous generation and more so than ever are we doing things to put them right. And I will not allow another wealthy older white man tell me that I’m not doing enough to save the world, just because I own a phone that can also take photos.

Misguided Western interventionism helped lay roots for these atrocities - for instance, by following Bush into Iraq - so I will not have another misguided Western interventionist chide me on how I plan to respond to it.

What makes Geldof’s speech so infuriating is that he acknowledges previous failure before dumping it all on generation selfie. “We [the older generation] can't do much anymore but the reason we speak to you is because we are desperate to retract our failures. Stop with the belief, stop with emotion. The flags are cute - but nothing else. “

In saying you can’t do much anymore, Bob, you bely the true enemy in moments of crisis, regardless of age: apathy. If you are too apathetic to rail against the injustices anymore, if criticising George Osborne at magazine awards and the (admittedly impressive) statements you’ve made on the refugee crisis have got to you and you feel a bit worn down by it all, then that’s fine. Just don’t project that apathy onto us.

As you said yourself, “Us old men, we too listened to old men speak to us, that we were the glowing future. It’s a cliche - you are the present.”

We are, Bob, so please allow us to try and grab a handle on this situation without your sniping. Believe me – we’re doing OK on our own, smartphones in hand.