It is Youth who Build the Future Sometimes with their Lives

By: Nadia Zein 

Politics Editor 

Dear Parents and Grandparents, I’m here to talk to you about how much you’ve been letting us down for the past few years.

But before I begin, there’s one thing I want to establish: not conforming to the way you think or to your ideas, doesn’t mean that we’re ungrateful.

We’re very grateful and appreciative for everything you have done for us and everything that you will continue to do for us.

But we were born with different minds, we weren’t meant to all think the same, and therefore, acceptance should be mutual.

You claim that we are inexperienced, reckless and too young to understand how the world works.

Or that we don’t yet understand sacrifice.

You refuse to hand us the torch to allow us to make our own mistakes and make decisions for our own future.

You place your concerns and actions under the guise of protection.

But this all shows how little you understand us.

You talk about our inexperience, but I would like to discuss the past eight years with you.

We have witnessed in the span of three years, two massacres that involved young football supporters being killed. First in the 2012 Port Said Massacre when Ahly fans were viciously beaten and killed by armed mobs.

In 2015, hundreds of stampeding Zamalek fans escaping police tear gas were trapped at the gates of Burg Al Arab Stadium. At least 20 were killed in the chaos.

We reject the stereotyping that we are reckless, and impulsive.

Instead, we are courageous and dedicated.

If a war were to break out tomorrow, it’s the youth that will be serving in the military on the frontlines of every battlefield. It’s our young men who die on our borders almost every day fighting smugglers and terrorists.

In equal token, it was young men and women who rose up to dictatorship in January 2011, decided that enough was enough, and painted a new future for the country, hundreds of them sacrificing their own lives to do it.

We’ve been looked down upon for the way we think and act, we’ve mocked and quieted down for our opinions, we are the subjects of humiliation for older generations and even governmental forces. We’ve been dragged down streets, girls being pulled by their hair, beaten up during and after the revolution by security forces.

We are the martyrs of yesterday, today and tomorrow. We are the ones who are always willing to sacrifice our futures for the good of every citizen, young and old, to give the nation a pathway to a brighter, more secure future.

And after braving bullets and teargas, we often return to the classroom or the industry where we intend to make a change.

And yet we are never given a chance to choose our path.

So dear Parents and Grandparents, you have may have stood in our way and denied our triumphs. But the future belongs to youth. On their sweaty tired backs the future of this country is being built.

We have earned the right to take back our futures and – through trial and error – write the history of a time to come.