Low expectations foment revolt
Some 60 per cent of the people in the Middle East are under 30 years of age, and many of the restless young are understandably angry, wired only with cell-phones and feisty determination, with nowhere to go but the streets, nothing to do but rebel. Today'
In the Middle East, Israel has by far the most Internet users, followed by the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Some 55 per cent of users in the UAE are female, who access the Internet more than seven hours a day. As the blogosphere has expanded, youths have more access to information, contrasting the lack of transparency in their own country with the relative openness of liberties enjoyed elsewhere. Social media enable young men and women to share their desires and frustrations in ways they couldn’t in the past. No longer feeling isolated or alone, they feel connected to like-minded allies. Like young people everywhere, young entrepreneurs have lofty ambitions, too often thwarted by lack of political connections or patronage cronyism.
Opinion polls show that the increasingly distrusted US has fallen out of favour. Most Middle Eastern youth are more pragmatically concerned about personal wellbeing than abstract issues such as democracy. Priorities include creating jobs, fair pay, stabilising the cost of living, improving educational opportunities, better health care, social justice and expanding individual freedoms – of speech, expression, assembly. A wide gap separates youth from older-generation mindsets, which remain out of touch with the need to implement change. The unresponsive elite has done little or nothing to prepare disillusioned, disenfranchised and disaffected youth for the future or to provide them with viable career options.
The extent to which the quietly desperate young, struggling to get involved and take ownership of their own futures, will become healthy and productive members of the global community effectively depends on how well foreign governments, international monetary institutions, humanitarian agencies and progressive civil societies invest in economic initiatives and political advances. For now, there’s just waiting and waiting with low expectations – for decent jobs, better education, marriage, family, liberty, the right to vote freely and to have a voice.
Charles Frederickson
Bangkok
