Many dictionaries define the term 'youth' as a young individual in late adolescence. Reading your article o­n PAS youth chief Mahfuz Omar leading the Asean Muslim Youth movement tickled me, because Mahfuz's photo most certainly did not look young at all!

Malaysia must be the o­nly country in the world where our youth leaders have greying hair and are over the age of 35 (e.g. Puteri Umno youth chief Azalina Othman).

The reality is that many of these leaders are out of touch with the members of their organisations. They merely hold o­n to power because they believe it is the ultimate stepping stone into the ranks of the main political party.

However, they do not realise that in the process of retaining power, they are failing every single youth in our society.

We definitely need to change this mentality. Malaysian youth need to realise that any (wo)man older than 30 cannot progressively represent and understand the issues that are directly affecting the younger generation.

The older generation, o­n the other hand, needs to realise that youth must be represented by the youth themselves, and that they will most certainly do a better job of this.