Naheed Nenshi: Crucial players in 2011’s revolutions – The Globe and Mail

Naheed Nenshi

Old-style politics leaves people cold, the young most of all. Where time-serving cynicism abounds, creativity is silenced and hopefulness scorned. The sudden and joyful arrival of 39-year-old Naheed Nenshi as mayor of Calgary drastically altered that dreary template and supplied a powerful shock of delight to a moribund political system. There’s a place for talent, real talent, in politics, and you don’t have to park your brains or exuberance at the door.

Mr. Nenshi is an Ismaili Muslim with a Harvard pedigree, an urbanist policy wonk who refused to accept that people like him and his energized supporters didn’t fit the old Cowtown model. In a drab era where politicians have retreated into a safety-first survival mode, his optimistic devotion to new ideas is refreshingly heterodox.

He’s both a fighter and a reconciler, an inspirational civic booster who’s willing to point out what’s wrong in plain speech that refuses to prevaricate. Honesty and openness is exciting in a public figure, and also unifying: Mr. Nenshi channels a spirit of street-level humanity that makes politics seem personal rather than somebody else’s business.

via Reshaping history: Crucial players in 2011’s revolutions – The Globe and Mail.