Our Sudan I am going to tell you a story Paint you a picture Ask you to think differently about who you are About who we are The story I am going to tell is the story of a generation My generation It is a tale of our romance with the past The losses of our age And 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 A warm and beautiful place imprinted in our memories as if it were our own A world of wide open boulevards and tree-lined streets Of clean roads and white robes

Young men straight and proud and women wrapped in gold and finery Old men on bicycles gliding slowly through the town The early morning siren and those trains that ran on time Cinema coliseum and St James and jazz nights by the Nile

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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 40 days and 40 nights And funerals that lasted just as long Clear skies and cool nights and darkness pierced by the brightest stars

Lush green gardens and seasons that broke the heat Young men and 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 Told to us in sketches, fragments

Told to us In the early mornings, as the sun crept slowly into the sky On those orange days Afternoons, when the dust and heat rose up in a blazing haze Swallowing the earth and all that was on it And we would listen, rapt

As they told us of the golden age That age of charismatics Of Che and Nkrumah and Nyrere Of revolution and a new world born Of the brave men and the brave women who fought for independence Of the generation that followed

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Their generation, the generation that left To Paris, London, Moscow, Belgrade and Budapest And then returned Refusing the foreign passports and the foreign jobs Returned to build their country Masters of the West, children of the East Products of the khalwa and the grandest schools in Europe Fired by visions of grandeur and destiny

And in the evenings When the earth began to cool and the crickets make their song They would gather at one another’s homes And talk of politics and worldly matters And we would sit amongst them, looking on with awe and envy Awe at all that they had done Envy of the world that was once theirs

Wishing that we could have lived in what seemed like a simpler More passionate, more dignified age When the country was clean and ordered and Sudan was on the rise When education was free and the universities were world class When secondary schools were stocked with books and standards Were non-negotiable

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If told elsewhere this story could be dismissed as little more than the reverence of the young towards the old And that is part of it, for sure But it was more than that For ours is a culture that venerates the past Yesterday is always better than today The old better than the new And so it is a tale of our romance with another age A romance fired by the stories of those who were once there Who never cease to remind us of the glory that once was By virtue of their achievements and the respect that we show them For how could we not feel this way 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 Of tired buildings and cracked walls and peeling paint And the sand that gathered on the sides of the roads It was the silence of downtown Khartoum And the shuttered shops And the falling standards It was the universities in disrepair Public gardens turned to dust The long queues for bread and fuel We learnt our science out of books, sketching experiments on pieces of paper

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Rode on buses that tilted sideways by the sheer number of their passengers Those of us with the energy, hanging loosely on the outside One arm around the bar that cuts across the bus window Foot on the ridge just above the tyre Cinema coliseum became a place you went to for a fight St James we had only heard of Our weddings were shorter and sometimes shared Our funerals too This time, those of us that left took foreign passports and the foreign jobs We travelled to Europe, North America, the Middle East and Asia We went to the grand universities and the not so grand ones Took jobs were we could Some of us were lucky Others were not Some of us returned Many did not Ours was an age without heroes it seemed We had no Ches, no Nyreres no Nassers Revolution was something that happened to us not by us Our dreams were simpler A job, perhaps a marriage, our own house if we dared hope In place of fire and idealism, pragmatism And so it was that we felt a sense of having fallen short That we were not what we should have been

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And had inherited a country that was not what it could be That somehow it was our fault

But here is 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 Sudan is not what they dreamt it to be But so be it It is not for one generation to copy another But to stand upon its shoulders We have seen Sudan through some its most difficult times And seen other changes too From the high rise buildings that now shape the capital To the jagged borders that now mark the southern limits of the country

We live in a different world With different challenges and different opportunities We live in a world Where countries like China and Brazil are challenging the old order Where a black man is the president of the United States And the internet has the power to connect us all

We must look at the past with honesty And do the same with the present

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The golden age was not so golden We know this And ours was not so dark We know this too We must learn to face the world as it is and not as we wish it to be

Most of all we must recognize that our generation is one to be proud of too You only need to take a look at the people around you to realize this And there are so many more In Sudan And the Gulf Europe Africa America and the Middle East Young men and women who should make us all stand tall Many of whom have achieved great things despite terrible hardships Without the privileges of the gilded age

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The civil society activist who dedicates her spare evenings to teaching young people how to read and write

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The student who is working as a taxi driver to make sure that he still contributes to his family home

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The woman who set up a community college

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The young man who sacrificed his own education so that his brother could study abroad

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The businessman who came back to set up a business here in Sudan

Journalists Academics, artists Doctors, lawyers, soldiers, politicians I could go on

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We must of course respect our past But we cannot live in its shadows Yesterday need not always be better than tomorrow Rather than lament what has been lost, it is time to take stock of what we have And though Sudan may not be the country that our parents dreamed it to be It remains a place of great promise For this Sudan, the new country that quietly joined the ranks of nations in July of last year Is rich in people and heritage and land and resources Of the 39 million that made up the old Sudan at least 30 million remain with us today

Amongst their numbers are Arabs Africans Christians Muslims Animists Black, white and brown It is a diversity bound by marriage and memory Faith and language Powered by roads and mobile phones By trade and urbanization Cities in which for the first time in history, all of Sudan can be seen A land where ancient civilizations flourished and died and grew again Carrying with them tales of greatness and tragedy and the wisdom that they bring It is in Sudan where the Middle East meets the African continent That the White Nile meets the Blue

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And the Red Sea cuts its swathe

The influence of its neighbours spilling over its borders in the Form of Culture Language And tribe A country still rich in resources Vast lands, flat and fertile, anxious for seed and the tiller’s hand Oil Gold Uranium And hydropower Access to the sea and the wealth that lies beyond But most of all its people Able and eager, desperate for a chance to build a better life For Sudan is a place where education is revered and knowledge pursued, Where young men and women clamour to learn, despite the challenges 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 and shared prosperity This is my Sudan, your Sudan, our Sudan

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We must respect the past without being bound by it Accept the present without succumbing to it And dream of a future built upon both It is time 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 ours to make

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