Sadiq Al-Mahdi's view on the Youth and Sudan

On Saturday November 12, 2011 hundreds of Sudanese in the Washington, DC metropolitan area had the opportunity to hear Sadiq Al-Mahdi speak about Sudan, its political state today, and remind those who are throughout the Diaspora, that Sudan is in danger. About 10 people had the opportunity to ask questions, and luckily I was one of them. I noticed I was one of the youngest amongst the crowd. I figured that I'm not as historically knowledgable about the politics of Sudan as 90% of the attendees were, but I believed I should generate a question addressing my generation and especially the youth amongst the western countries. I was the last one to ask a question and my question was the last to be answered. I introduced myself as Ahreej Elzubeir Osman Eltayeb, and I'd say many people of the audience recognized my name because of my father, or maybe because of my avid activities throughout the community. Facing 300+ people, I asked my question very casually, and explained to them (all in english) that


I am no scholar in the historical politics of Sudan, and nor do I expect myself to be a politician in the future, however I recognize my role as a Sudanese-American, and I'm Sudanese before I am an American, and I can not disregard the issues afflicting Sudan at this point. My question is how can we, as the younger generation, outside of Sudan, help uplift our country? What can we do to implement change?

And his response (translated) is:

Sadiq Al-Mahdi:

I can see that you have the passion of a Sudanese although you are from the west, the youth must have the philosophical and historical understanding of what is Sudan. We must “reclaim” our youth to be truly conscious and aware of Sudan. As you may already know, there has been a very bad reputation of Sudan recently, and many now don’t want to even bother listening about Sudan; Genocides, wars, famines, etc and for that reason, many of the younger generations become discouraged to even get involved in the issues of Sudan or to learn more about their own country and would say “We don’t even want Sudan.” Yes, Sudan truly has a bad reputation nowadays, but we as the older generations, need to convince them that The Sudan is good. And how to convince them, is a very important point.  I now have a book title (transliteration) “Ayuha Aljeel” This book targets the youth that are born outside of Sudan. Although I see that she (Ahreej) has a true passion of being Sudanese, however I’ve encountered many people outside of Sudan from Oxford, England, to Swayd, Egypt and the youth who reside in these cities have the same genes of their parents but do not speak the same language, they would say “we are different people living in the same home, our philosophical understandings are completely different.”  And for that we must build this house of cultivated knowledge for our youth to build a true and sincere interest towards The Sudan.

Another point, there is no doubt that the younger generations outside of Sudan have a key role, we should have the youth and also women become involved only to a certain and particular extent within the political parties, not to have their own societies or political organizations but have a few youths and women to be partially involved in politics. However, there are roles for the youth outside these political parties, and they become extremely active, like you’ve seen recently how they establish rallies in this Arab region, rallies promoting for democracy, and they find that passion to make change and start movements, and I personally believe that’s really good. Because I am of one whom believes, if a mother or father try to force upon their children a certain life or view upon life, they will rebel against them, so they must be a way of independence for these younger generations, so that in the future they will have true roles, and if you don’t do that, then your children will become a reflection of you but in a different generation and different predicament, which becomes dangerous. And for that you must give them a sense of freedom and to realize they are members of this Sudanese Society. In concluding, I appreciate Ahreej’s passionate spirit of her Sudanese heritage and her addressing this point.