Millennial leadership discued on Al Jazeera

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Millennial leadership discussed on Al Jazeera --

Fri, 11 Oct 2013 15:29

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On Friday 11 October at 19h30 on Al Jazeera (DStv Channel 406), South 2 North fill-in host Haru Mutasa discusses millennial leadership with Pakistani author and political commentator Fatima Bhutto and The One Young World Summit ambassadors: Ilwad Elman from Somalia and Pradiip Alvarez from Venezuela.

Mutasa opens the show, filmed at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg, by saying: It is that time of year when thousands of young leaders from all over the world gather at The One Young World summit. These young leaders, also called Millennials, will govern the 21st century. So how will they navigate the challenges of our world? And does their connected new world change the way leaders must lead?

Bhutto has a unique vantage point in understanding how power works, having grown up in a political family with her grandfather, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and aunt, Benazir Bhutto being previous prime ministers of Pakistan.

With the assassination of Benazir and Bhutto s father Murtaza, she knows the cost of speaking out against the abuse of power. Says Bhutto: The lesson we have is very clear in Pakistan: if you are an inconvenient voice, your voice will be removed. But on the other hand, silence is not really an option; it can t be an option, especially for young people.

In Somalia, 70% of the population is below the age of 30. The country has been 22 years in conflict. That means the majority of the population has only ever known war, says Elman, who returned to Somalia after living in Canada to visit her mother and stayed, feeling compelled to make a difference.

At the time when al-Shabab controlled most of the country, Elman s father was assassinated for working with former child soldiers. Elman hopes that the al-Shabab attack on Kenya s Westgate Mall will raise awareness of the terror Somalia has endured for years.

Similarly, Alvarez s father was murdered three years ago in Venezuela where only one of every 25 of murders is punished.

Alvarez says of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro: The president likes to blame our problems on external factors, without really focusing on what s going on in the country. Opposition leader Henrique Capriles Radonski has over 3.6m Twitter followers and Alvares continues: In Venezuela, social media is huge, Twitter especially. Freedom of expression in the press and television is so oppressed but it hasn t gotten to Twitter level.

Elman agrees that social media has given Somalians a platform to challenge their leaders and to initiate important dialogues; while Bhutto believes the real power for change is in voting, adding: If you want to change a system, that s really the only way you can do that peacefully.

Repeat screenings of the episode take place on Saturday 12 October at 14h30, Sunday 13 October at 04h30 and Monday 14 October at 08h30.

For more information, visit http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/south2north/, where all episodes are available to watch online.

You can also tweet your questions, comments and opinions to @AJSouth2North or find South2North on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/South-2-North/255419671252120.

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