The Radical Mantate

“ I have been blind from birth, but I chose not to be apathetic because even the lack of sight is not an excuse for not engaging in developmental processes ”- the words of Mohamed Ishan Jalil, a disabled activist from Sri Lanka greatly shape the narrative I now carry of the disabled in my community. Ishan does not only speak into change processes in his country, but empowers young people to stand above known limitations and claim spaces of development. He models the kind of resistance that makes positive transformation inevitable. Ishan Jalil in glasses, outside the Vienna Townhall, Austria. While sympathy remains the most commonly emphasized foundation for treating the disabled, Ishan carries into people’s lives an air that earns him respect and admiration. My first encounter with this amazing Sri Lankan was over dinner on the first night of the Generation Democracy Global Summit in Vienna, Austria. He was simply jovial and curious, surprisingly able recognize most of us f...

By far one of the most free-spirited souls of the Generation Democracy Vienna Summit, Suhaib Harb Ahmed Al-Shrosh Al-Maseedin, born in Jordan but currently residing in Romania, leads a radically opinionated life. For him, one is not obliged to live up to or conform to the standards and expectations of other people, but rather, to live each day and pursue each moment with a sense of confidence over the choices and standards one chooses to live by. While the tendency to conform and have our potential and actions validated by other people seems to be too common a trend across youths of all demographics, I learnt from Suhaib that change or being different is something the world will always struggle to accept, and that our choice to let other people’s standards be our limitation will always cost us an opportunity to tread on new grounds. It starts back home; in our little spaces with friends and family; and it stretches to the strangers we meet and the colleagues who grow to fill a maj...