Treating young as threat may stoke next revolt
The recent trend of growing population of youth across the Arab countries, registering a potential threat and signs of instability can well be regarded as a strong negative vibe among their rulers. It is strongly felt that treating the youth as a threat, not as a source of strength, may help stoking the next revolt in the region. Sadly, the Arab rulers have failed to utilise the power of the youth, who are aged 15 years to 24 years and will be numbering around 58 million in 2025, a jump from 46 million counted in 2010. What brings worries to these rulers is the power of resistance of the young generation that stormed the historic Tahrir Square in Egypt and many countries like Tunisia, libya and Yemen since 2011. With the much-tested strength and horrors of the Arab Spring which overthrew some of the old ruling classes in the region and rattled many others, may have forced the rulers of the Middle East to cast their young in bad light. The sharp fall in the oil prices, self defeating policies and finally the menace of madness spread by jihadists of the Islamic State has first spooked investors and then wrecked tourism across the Arab States. But this will make the youth more restive as today many literate people are increasingly becoming jobless than the illiterate ones.
long gone are the glorious days of the Arab nationalism under the maverick leadership of Gamal Abdel Nasser who was guaranteeing Government jobs to every youth. Today some of the oil-rich nations have extravagantly expanded the civil service and have absorbed many of the young people. But the intention behind this massive job offer to the young was what comes as a regressive and crooked tactic from the establishments to engage a large section of them ideally in public payroll than fighting the family and pseudo-democratic regimes on the Arab streets. How long these policies will continue wherein the Arab youths will always be underrated in compared to their brethrens in middle income countries or in advanced Western nationsIJ The time has come for the Arab nations to treat their youth, particularly the womenfolk as an economic blessing as they have all the power to herald innumerable changes to their haggard and traditional regimes which are fast becoming outdated in the pace of the digital globalisation. They should no more to be taken as a curse and hence made a part of the suppressed. Eventually the fallout of the evil designs, orchestrated by most of the policy-makers in the region will compel the youth to choose between a fight against poverty back home, emigration to a posh European destinations or in the worst case, taking up the gun in the name of the Islamic Caliphate. Hope they are not forced to follow either of all these.