Transcriber: Iman Saeed Reviewer: Capa Girl
The talk that I'm going to give today is a little different.
It is not about an invention, it's not about music or a theory.
Instead, I'm going to tell you a story,
paint you a picture.
It's the story of a generation, my generation.
It's the story of our romance with the past
with the losses of our age
and a hope for the future.
There is a memory of an old Sudan
a torn and faded picture
of the country as it was --
as it was told to us.
This is imprinted in our memories
as if it were our own.
A world of wide open boulevards
and tree-lined streets,
of white robes and clean roads.
Young men, straight and proud,
and women wrapped in gold and finery.
Old men on bicycles,
cycling slowly through the town.
The early morning siren,
and those trains that ran on time.
Cinema Coliseum, Saint James
and Jazz nights by the Nile.
Khartoum University in its glory days;
when exams were marked in London,
and students had their laundry done.
Greek stores full of foreign goods,
and cars when England used to make them.
Weddings that lasted for forty days and forty nights,
and funerals that lasted just as long.
Clear skies, bright nights,
darkness pierced by the brightest stars.
Lush green gardens,
and seasons that broke the heat.
Young men and young women, full of passion and idealism.
An old world, tired and in retreat.
And a new world, resurgent and full of hope.
These are the stories that our fathers told us
fragments, sketches from the past.
Told to us in the early mornings,
as the sun crept slowly into the sky.
On those orange days; afternoons when the sun and the heat
rise up in a blazing haze, swallowing the Earth
and all that is on it.
And we would listen, wrapped!
As they told us of the golden age,
the age of Che and Nyerere and Nkrumah.
Of revolution, and a new world born.
Of the brave men and the brave women
who fought for independence,
and the generation that followed;
their generation.
The generation that left,
that went abroad to Paris, to London,
to Moscow, to Budapest, and then came back,
refusing the foreign passports and the foreign jobs.
Masters of the west, children of the east.
Product of the Khalwa,
and the grandest schools in Europe.
Fired by visions of grandeur, and a sense of destiny.
And in the evenings, they would gather
in one another's homes,
and speak of politics and worldly matters,
and we would sit amongst them,
and listen in awe and envy.
Awe at all that they had achieved,
envy of the world that was once theirs.
Wishing that we could have lived in a time
that seemed to be more simple,
more passionate, more dignified.
When the country was clean and ordered,
and Sudan was on the rise.
When education was for free,
the universities were world class,
secondary schools were stocked with books,
and standards were non-negotiable.
Now, if told elsewhere
this story could be dismissed
as the naive reverence of the young towards the old.
And it is true, that is part of it,
but it is more than that.
For ours is a culture that reveres the past,
yesterday is always better than today,
the old is always better than the new.
And so it is, a tale of a romance with another age,
a romance fired by visions of those who were once there.
Who never cease to remind us of the glory days,
by virtue of who they are
because they have achieved great things,
but also, because of the respect that we show them as our elders.
And how could we not feel differently,
when our world was so different!
Our world, the world that we grew up in
was crumbling.
It was a world of broken roads,
and shattered sidewalks.
A world of tired buildings,
and peeling paint and cracked walls.
A world where we queued for fuel and food.
It was the silence of downtown Khartoum.
It was the shuttered shops, and the falling standards,
and the universities in disrepair.
The gardens now turned to dust.
We learnt our science out of books,
sketching our experiments on pieces of paper.
We rode on buses that tilted sideways
because of the sheer number of their passengers.
Those of us with the energy,
hanging loosely on the outside of the bus,
one arm around the bar that cut across the window,
a foot on the ridge just above the tyre.
Cinema Coliseum became a place you went to for a fight!
Saint James we had only heard of.
Our weddings were shorter and sometimes shared.
Our funerals too.
This time, those of us that left
took the foreign jobs and the foreign passports.
We traveled to Europe, the United States,
Asia, Africa.
We went to the grand universities, and the not-so-grand ones.
We took jobs where we could.
Some of us were lucky, some of us were not.
Some of us returned, many of us did not.
(Applause)
Ours was an age without heroes, it seemed.
We had no Che, no Nyerere, no Nkrumah.
Revolution was something that happened to us,
not by us.
Our dreams were simpler, a job, a marriage,
a house, if we really dare dream.
In place of fire and idealism, pragmatism.
And so it was, we had a sense of having fallen short,
that we were not all that we could be.
And the country that had been bequeathed to us,
was not all that it should be,
and somehow, this was our fault.
But here's the thing, It wasn't, it isn't.
It is true that we have not lived the lives of the previous generation.
It is true that the country is not what they dreamt it to be.
But so be it.
For it is not for one generation to copy another,
but rather to stand upon its shoulders.
We have seen Sudan through some of its most difficult times,
and we have seen other changes too.
The tall buildings that now mark the skyline,
the jagged edges of the southern most limits
of the new country.
We live in a different world,
a world where countries like China and Brazil are challenging the world's order.
Where a black man is the president of the United States,
and the Internet has the power to connect us all.
And so, we must look to the past with honesty,
and do the same with the present.
The golden age was not so golden, we know this.
And our age was not so dark, we know this too.
We must learn to live in the world as it is, not as we wish it to be.
But most of all, most of all
we must recognize that our generation
is a generation to be proud of too!
You only need look around at the people with you here today to realize this.
And there are so many more, in Sudan, North America, Europe, The Gulf and Asia.
Young men and young women who should make us all stand tall,
Who have achieved great things,
despite the challenges, and without the privileges
of the gilded age, the golden age.
The civil society activist who spends her evenings
teaching young people to read and write.
The young man who as a student still works as a taxi driver,
to supplement his family income.
The young woman who set up a community college.
The brother who sacrificed his own education,
so that his younger brother could study abroad.
The businessman who risked everything and came back to this country,
to set up a business, despite the challenges.
Doctors, lawyers, artists, academics, politicians, soldiers, I could go on.
We must of course respect the past,
but we cannot, we must not live in its shadows.
Yesterday need not always be better than tomorrow.
Rather than lament what we have lost,
it's time that we take stock of what we have.
And though Sudan may not be the country that our parents dreamt it to be,
it is still a great country, a country of great promise.
For this Sudan, the Sudan, the new country
that joined the ranks of nations in July of last year,
is rich in people and heritage, in land and resources.
Of the 39 million people that made up Sudan as it was,
30 million remain with us today in this Sudan.
Amongst their numbers are Arabs and Africans,
Christians, Muslims, Animists,
Black, White and Brown.
It is a diversity bound by marriage and memory,
by faith and language,
powered by roads and mobile phones,
by trade and urbanization.
Cities in which for the first time all of Sudan can be seen.
A land where great civilizations flourished, and died and grew again,
carrying with them tales of tragedy and wisdom.
It is in Sudan that the Middle East meets the African continent,
that the White Nile meets the Blue,
and the Red Sea cuts its wave.
The influence of its neighbours spilling over its borders,
in the form of language, culture and tribe.
It is a country rich in resources,
vast lands flat and fertile,
anxious for seed, and the tiller's hand.
Gold, uranium, hydropower, access to the sea,
and the wealth that lies beyond.
But most of all, most of all
It's people, able and eager,
desperate to build a better life.
For Sudan is a country where education is revered,
where knowledge is pursued,
where young people clamor to learn,
despite all of the challenges that they face,
where people are willing to sacrifice for something greater than themselves.
And in this new country, lies the possibility of redemption,
an original sin requited.
The separation of the south; a payment
on the road towards mutual dignity mutual prosperity, mutual respect.
This is my Sudan. It's your Sudan,
Our Sudan.
(Applause)
We must respect the past, without being bound by it.
Accept the present, without succumbing to it.
And build a future upon both.
It is time for us to dream a new dream, the dream of our generation.
The future is not a matter of what will be, but what could be.
It is a choice, and it is for us to make.
Thank you!
(Applause)