"Who are the Arab youth and what do they want?"
"Can youth and technology bring change to the Arab world?"
Arab youth consists of those whose age doesn’t exceed thirty years. These generations have known only one political regime, since it has been maintained since they were born.
Indeed, those regimes are incarnated by one man, his family, and entourage. Even if they aren’t all absolute monarchies, their presidential elections are rigged, so the same president is renewed for several terms and some of them have even planned to enthrone their sons.
Because of this, the youth in these countries need to make themselves free from the influence of power, which puts a tremendous amount of pressure towards limiting their freedom. However, an advanced stage of pressure leads automatically to an explosion, if, of course, all the right conditions coincide. In fact, those dictatorships have not worked for their economic growth and expansion; they content themselves by seizing a part of the earnings gotten from the sale of natural resources. Those resources are then confided in foreign companies, for all kinds of reasons: extraction, refining, etc…
So the outcomes of these actions are:
- Unemployment, in particularly of graduated people.
- Unequal distribution of revenues, which generate poverty and all which that entails.
- Use of illegal means to instil “simple rights,” such as bribery, sting-pulling, or have friends in the right places…
This phenomenon makes youth feel like they are at an impass or deadlocked. To achieve their goals, Arab youth stand strong by their claim and by their need of evolving in a still climate, which guarantees them the dignity they aspire to. They think that it’s now or never, the time to insure that their dreams come true.
Therefore, the unique means that Arab youth have at their disposal is information technology, which they excel at. As we say, “Younger generations have technological tools in their blood as if they had been breast-fed with it.”
Nowadays, youth communicate and meet virtually by means of the computer (a tool used mostly to escapte control). The use of this technology allowed Egyptian and Tunisian youth to win their case. But we have to underline the fact that it would be most difficult for them without the sustaining help of:
- The mass media, especially the audiovisual ones, which have shown, commented, analysed, and followed their approach and their evolution.
- The army, which had watched over them and the security of their countries after the police had given up, and also refrained from being aggressive towards them.
Indeed, there is every reason to believe that numerous people could have been the receivers of cruel acts towards them if journalists weren’t present. In fact, governments were afraid that the world would know the eventual crimes they committed.
However, unlike the lucky results Egypt and Tunisia, other countries suffer from leaders who are desperately and seriously ill of “power.” For them, the exit may be hopeless and bloody.
By Saadia Adli, Int. 4