 Felly mae'n drwsfyrddion yn fwy mwy, Val. Rydw i ni'n bobbylch, mae'n fflusio'r drwsfyrddion sy'n gweithio'r gwybod rydych chi'n gyfhrasol gyda'r gweithio. Rhaid i gyd yn y gwbledig, i'w ddiwylliant, y ffrindiau, yw'r gweithio'r sefortigaeth a'r gweithio'r gweithio. ond mae'n ddedig o'r ffordd ddiwyledd ar gael'r pryd sydd ymgyrch, pan rydyn ni'n gweithio'n gweithio a'r effordd ar gael'r ffordd, yn cyrraffol gyda gael digon o mynd i chi'n cymhwy fyddion gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio, ac yn cymrydio'r ffordd ac yn cael eu llwythau ar gael. Fydden ni'n gweithio'n cyrraffol a'r ffordd sydd ymgyrch, ac yn cael eu gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio, Basically you're passing into the world of work where you will find that the Sawas stamp is a very, very useful stamp to have on your life's passport. It's really helped me very much, given me a framework in my career. Anyou the chorus of course are the focus of our attention, and it gives me great pleasure to welcome you as a fellow Sawasian, because as Vوف said I have the privilege of carrying out post graduate studies here. many, many years ago, I'm sure looking at me you might find that hard to believe that I said many, many years ago, but it's true, although in many ways it seems just like yesterday, and to those of you who are family members, well, I know the pride that you must be feeling because I've also attended a similar ceremony for the eldest of my four children and I now have the pleasure of congratulating this year's graduates at SOAS, so I suppose to use a few words for that. This is a football metaphor. This must qualify as a hat-trick, right? Now, as you embark on this new exciting journey, I thought I'd just share some reflections with you of somebody who began this similar journey a while ago. The ideology, exuberance and energy of youth is a very powerful combination, graduands, and it can set the world on fire. But like fire, if it becomes rampant, wanton and simply just anarchic, it can have a destructive element. But properly harnessed is a very, very positive force. So when you are young, you should want to mould the world to your ideas, values and ideals, and as you get older and you find that you're forced to conform, then you find that you are increasingly moulding yourself to the world rather than the other way round. But I would say to you, don't ever lose that youthful desire to challenge the status quo and that is the theme of what I want to say to you today because that positive use of the disruption of youth is very important and I'm not saying to you that you should remain rigid with views that are static throughout your life. I mean a person's opinions and views do evolve and self-examination is important, but retain your essence and what makes you all special. So challenge the status quo in a meaningful way, not just for the sake of disruption, that's an admirable quality and it often marks out those who bring about change for good in our world. So I've had the privilege in my career of meeting some of these disruptors who began this journey when they were young, like for example Dr Nawala Saadawi, the Egyptian pioneering feminist. She's a medical doctor, she's also a writer, an activist, a campaigner. At the age of nearly 90 she's just published her memoirs, Daughter of ISIS Walking Through Fire, and that is what Nawala has done. I saw her not so long ago here in London a couple of months ago. We were talking about her long career walking through fire, not afraid to speak truth to power, campaigning for women's rights and status and so on, imprisoned for being too outspoken and she is still doing that at nearly the age of 90. That's somebody who is truly inspiring. I also think of the late great Wangari Mathai, the Kenyan environmental activist whom I also had the privilege of seeing. She was derided, wasn't she for her efforts to plant trees and to try to get people to be aware of the environment awarded in 2011, the Nobel Peace Prize. One of the many things that she has said that has always stuck in my mind and is a bit of a mantra for me, which is you cannot enslave a mind that knows itself, that values itself, that understands itself and she's right. That's what you must do, value your mind, what you have learned here, maintain that at all costs, keep on learning because it's a process that should stay with you throughout your life and retain your integrity. First, you've also got to work out what your ideals are even if you have not found those yet and that is where I think two principle qualities are very, very important and they are passion and compassion because with compassion you can identify what is right to do in the world, what injustices need to be exposed and with passion you get the energy, the enthusiasm to really do something to what is right, to be moved into action and to right wrongs and I think a life that is devoid of passion is one which is rather depleted. So I want to tell you about a member of my own family who had passion, compassion, ideals, vision in great abundance, my great grandfather, Sheikh Babikar Badri. Now he was born at the turn of the last century and he was the pioneer of female education in the Sudan where I was born. Before he started educating girls there were no schools or education for girls at all and you know he set up in his own, the courtyard of his own home, schools for girls and the community were vilifying his efforts and the British authorities who were in power at the time, the colonial authorities said, don't persevere with this, look you're getting stones thrown at you, you're being ostracised by your community and he said no absolutely not, I don't see why I should educate my boys and not my girls. He had a lot of children because in fact he was so pro women he married four of them. Hence he had a lot of children and so you know I grew up with great aunts, grandmothers who if they were alive today would be well over 100 and could read or write. And the family in 1960 established a university for women in the capital cartoon which to this day has young women not only from Sudan but other parts of Africa and they're educated in all sorts of disciplines and they go back to their communities, their villages, their cities or whatever and their nations and they contribute to their societies. And so you know it's really something which is very very important, his legacy remains and as we talk about legacy I think it would be remiss for me not to mention the legacy of course of Nelson Mandela who earlier this month would have turned 100 years of age and he is somebody who also very much like my great grandfather swam against the tide. It's easy for us to think isn't it of Nelson Mandela as this elderly statesman but of course he wasn't always like that. Of course he was old by the time he was released from prison in 1990 but he maintained the idealism and the passion that he formed in his youth and that never left him because along with Walter Sisulu and Oliver Tambo they formed the youth league of the ANC in 1943-1944. And it was the ANC's youth league that responded to the state's tightening grip and you know they called for a program of action based on nonviolent confrontation and it's from that point on when he formed the youth league of the ANC that Mandela became immersed in the politics of South Africa. So useful to remember that that journey he embarked on that you know made in president in 1994 he started off as a young person. Well look we can't all become of course iconic giants like Nelson Mandela but in our own way in your own way you can make a difference and in my own small way that's been my guiding principle in my career as a journalist. As Val mentioned most recently I've written, presented and produced a series of Africa's history starting from the origins of humankind to the 12th, 13th century I'm now working on the second series and you may say well we've seen histories of Africa before what's different about this one. Well this one is very very different because it casts the African expert centre stage. I also talk to ordinary Africans and they tell us you know what makes their, you know how their identity is fashioned by their history. So you know when I was a student at Oxford the historian Hugh Trevor Roper was coming to the end of his career there and this was the kind of climate that we are talking about which sadly to some extent still exists today. So one thing that Hugh Trevor Roper said about African history perhaps in the future he said there will be some African history to teach but at present there is none or very little. There is only the history of Europeans in Africa. He talked about the unrewarding gyrations of barbarous tribes in picturesque but irrelevant corners of the globe. Now that's somebody speaking in my lifetime and you know that is why I believe we need to reconstruct the African continent from an African perspective we need to put the African intelligentsia centre stage. It's not about closing the door to Western or European traditions. It's about adding and acknowledging that Western knowledge systems do not constitute the only form of thinking. And that's what's great about SOAS. One of the things that makes SOAS unique is that the academics here are very aware about this movement of decolonising curriculums and you know regardless of where the SOAS academics come from as I discovered myself they have a very enlightened approach to the study of Africa, Asia and the Middle East and sadly though it will take time for this perspective and approach to filter through to the wider community, politics, the media, society and culture. It's ironic that Africa's history has either been denigrated, written by outsiders or they've been told they don't have any because of course Africa has got the longest history in the world because it's where you all originated. If you're not from Africa then you're an African export. It's the greatest exporter of all time. And so it's you know this throwing light on African history but also giving ownership of Africa's history to the people of the continent themselves is very important. I was discussing this over tea recently with the former deputy president of South Africa Haklemi Motlanti and he said you know owning something is very very important and he said there's an African proverb which is when the lions have historians then the hunters will cease to be heroes and graduands seizing control of your own story is critical because you must be the driver of your own life journey not merely be a passenger or a spectator on that journey. Don't compromise on your values that you have now. Try to create a life of meaning and purpose for yourself and in some way challenge the status quo. It's not all about just having you know paid employment. It's also about doing a voluntary work in your communities. Last October the Oxford dictionary's word of the year was youth quake and youth quake is defined as a significant cultural social change arising from the actions or influence of young people. That's what I urge you to create a youth quake because you're not the next generation. You are the now generation and as you today rightly bask in the glory of being awarded your degrees. You mustn't lose sight of that and as your parents perhaps breathe a sigh of relief that at last just at last perhaps the bank of mother and father might be shutting down as the graduates find their way in paid employment strike out on your own in the world make your family proud make yourselves proud go forth with passion compassion ideals and change the world for the better help eliminate the bad and create the good graduands. I have bombarded you with advice end of sermon renewed congratulations and may the ceremony begin. Thank you.