Matt Rourke/AP/Press Association Images. All rights reserved.It was a
sad moment to see Bernie Sanders
delegates break down in tears at his last speech as a
presidential candidate on the Democratic National Convention floor. As a
participant in Egypt’s January 25 uprising, this emotionally-charged moment was
very familiar to me. It represented, despite Bernie Sanders’s enthusiastic and
optimistic words, the moment of defeat.

The defeat
of change against status quo, defiance against submitting, integrity against
fraud, excitement against apathy, individuals against corporations and hope
against despair. Like Bernie Sanders supporters — or to be precise delegates,
as I consider myself a supporter — I, personally, have lived
this bitterness and dejection, and still live with it. Unlike them, however, my
dreams were not shattered in the ballot box, but run over by military tanks.

Globally,
it seems that younger generations were, overwhelmingly, on the losing side of
the battles for more democratic, progressive and inclusive policies and
societies. They lost it in the 2011 Arab uprisings, the 2014 Scottish
independence referendum, and the 2016 Brexit, before coming up short, a month
later, in the democratic presidential primaries in the US.

Although
these were simply local competitions, there is a pool of anecdotal evidence
that a considerable number of young people across the world who, thanks to the
internet, followed these political events were predominantly on the side of
their fellow young contenders. The loser side.

It is not inconceivable,
therefore, that the Tahrir Square uprising in Egypt helped inspire the
emergence of the Occupy Wall St. movement in the US. Or that the Political
Revolution’s failure in the US democratic primaries would send new waves of
sorrow and melancholy to many in Egypt.

For younger generations electoral politics has increasingly been
associated with disappointment and retrogression.

It is,
thus, perfectly understandable if Bernie Sanders’s supporters started to doubt
formal politics and the way things work. Alienation, anger, helplessness,
disengagement and the desire to punish society might be rampant, among some
of them, at these moments. It is true that, for younger generations, in a time
of polarisation and divisiveness, electoral politics has increasingly been
associated with disappointment and retrogression.

After all,
this ‘moment’ of defeat will not last forever. Even as it was, it has not come
without considerable achievements or initiatives. Bernie Sanders lost the 2016
elections, but he has undeniably succeeded in transforming the Democratic Party — forever. The Party’s national committee has
approved significant reforms put
forth and advocated by Bernie’s campaign.

In the UK,
after the Leave triumph, many have flocked to join the Labour party and trade unions to
support its leader Jeremy Corbyn. The referendum result and the uncertainty it
brought has triggered meetings and talks to discuss the possibility to form an anti-Brexit
alliance in the next general elections.

In Egypt,
under what probably could be the most repressive and brutal dictatorship in the
republic’s history, the young generation still voice dissent online and eventually
take to streets to defy the military junta. After almost five years of bloody
crackdown on activists, NGOs, professional unions and political groups, we
still see unfamiliar kinds of dissent blossom.

Fuelled by the scandal of leaked standardised high school exams — and the consequent
cancellation of some — groups of secondary education
students have protested against the education ministry all over the country.
More importantly, growing segments of Egyptians, ordinary non-politicised
citizens, have been publicly uncomfortable, to say the least, with the
military’s role in politics and public life as a whole. This is, simply,
unprecedented.

To
conclude, in his comment on the world’s state of affairs the Polish sociologist
Zygmunt Bauman, recently stated that he is “short-term
pessimist and long-term optimist.” AND SO AM I.

Bernie Sanders’s
tale could be an ideal embodiment of what young generations’ politics and
activism, should be about — unabated, continuous struggle
to make real the values of equality, justice and democracy, with moments of
victory and defeat as stops on the road, not the final destination.

Today’s
tears of failure and sorrow should not obscure tomorrow’s tears of love and
contentment, like those that Bernie Sanders struggled to hold back while his
brother, Larry Sanders,
was voting for him.