We have to be able to integrate the old and the new, right?
The old, always things that we’re coming with, new vibrant ideas, and they’re threatened by these new vibrant ideas that might shape the very existence of what this organization or what the society was built on. But, the only thing it is, is that, to be honest with you, ideas become stale. I-ideology become stale. All we’re trying to do is to create those ideologies and re-energize them.
But then I thought to myself, “Hey, it’s an ideology, it’s not a person that dislikes me
For example, um, we have a lot of young intellectuals in our Muslim community, and it was always older people becoming part of committees, whether it’s, uh, a grant committee, whether it’s investigation committee. Um, the PAC that we have, like I said, we have two schools and board of education. They would always be predominantly older people. Accounting, the finance department, older people. So we actually sat one day and I said, «Did you guys ever think why nobody ever applies?» They’re like, “Why?” and I said, «Because you’ve created such a big gap between the old and the new that, when they wanted to be heard, you weren’t listening. And now when someone else is listening to them, you’re asking them, ‘How come they’re not talking to us?'» And that’s shed — that put a big light bulb into our organization and all organizations in the Muslim community and abroad.
Um, this happens in many uh, organizations where people are very, uh, hesitant about passing on that torch, uh, to the younger generation. And it’s still work in progress for us.Um, you know, like I had aspirations to become the president of my association, uh, a couple of years ago. And, uh, the first thing that someone asked me is like, you can’t become president ‘cause he’s not ily is about. So then I thought for a second, I said, «You know, what, if an organization, uh, dictates my, um, social life compared to my contribution to society, then that, that doesn’t, I don’t deserve to be part of that organization nor do I want to be part of that organization.»
There’s always gonna be more that you have to do
It’s not a group of people that hate us, or you actually will use the word hate, understand this.” It’s something that’s a social norm in society . And, when I say this, particularly speaking in my organization, people got married early. People were developed early. People had a lot more to think about when they were early on how to feed their brother in or how to feed their parents coming from third world countries. So they’re trying to put those, instilling those, uh, um, attitudes into us where we are thinking, hey, a part of this Western culture, we should, like I said, we shouldn’t have to be able to choose between religion and government or, uh, ourselves and religion. We, we should be able to integrate all of them. And this creates an identity and creates a mosaic.
The next generation of leaders need to succeed. Patience, patience is number one. Um, number two, understanding, and number three, the biggest thing, I think, as being a leader is compassion. Uh, compassion for yourself, compassion for your neighbor, compassion for your friend, compassion for the community. Because one person who, when I started in this organization told me when you’re doing community work, you can never do enough. And, uh, this is something that I think of every single day when I feel like dropping everything and leaving, because it’s so exhausting. Uh, I think of that, that, hey, you know, what, if I’m not gonna be doing it, someone else will be doing it. You know, destiny finds somebody to do the work that we need to do in order for this world to continue.