With close to half of the Arab population constituting of youths, a quarter of whom are unemployed and many of whom are blamed for rising militancy, the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs saw fit to dedicate its annual seminar to youth issues.
Joining forces with the Goethe Institute in Beirut and calling on the expertise of a dozen local and regional social scientists, IFI's Research and Policy Forum on Youth in the Arab World held a two-day seminar, titled "Studying Youth in the Arab World.”
Rote pedagogy and delayed adulthood were declared the main causes of stagnation and frustration among the region's youth, by a number of social scientists.
Paul Dyer from Middle East Youth Initiative (MEYI) and Jamil Mouawad from the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies both argued that rote learning discourages critical and analytical thinking and hence potentially gives rise to political servants instead of active, questioning citizens.
The MEYI is a policy-oriented research jointly established by the Dubai School of Govt and the Wolfensohn Center for Development at Brookings.
On the other hand, delayed adulthood—the result of the rising cost of marriage, unemployment and/or skewed gender ratios in many countries—has led to reduced fertility, increase in marriage substitutes, such as zawaj al-urfi and zawaj al-mutaa, which in turn contribute to the breakdown of the family and to compromising sexual health.
But the positive outcome of deferred adulthood, as Social and Behavioral Studies Professor Samir Khalaf, noted is that it has given rise to a population of "cultural entrepreneurs" among women, who, according to him, currently constitute the most interesting subject for study in the Arab world.
Women, he said, are graduating from universities in larger numbers than men and are more likely to engage in creative activities. "Women's roles are changing…and, because of the greater variety of choices available to them, they are getting more involved in the production and consumption of post-modern values," said Khalaf, who was recently honored by Harvard University for his life's work.
On the other hand, because of this prolonged "waithood," young people are resorting to religion and consumerism, especially the internet, in order to empower themselves and make their wait less frustrating.
"But they are living a dissonant life, because they cannot incorporate the values they are exposed to," noted Khalaf.
Dyer urged policy-makers to find solutions to help make young Arabs' wait for employment and full adulthood more productive, perhaps by promoting volunteerism.
In fact, this failure to tap into youth potential is costing the Arab world billions of dollars, according to economist Jad Chaaban.
"Estimates of the aggregate economic costs of youth exclusion are as high as US$53 billion in Egypt (17% of GDP) and US$1.5 billion in Jordan (7% of GDP)," he said, noting that costs do not capture the wide-ranging social or psychological costs of exclusion. "The true costs of youth exclusion in the region may be much higher."
He added: "Most MENA countries … could have decreased youth economic exclusion, without increasing public spending, by at least 60 percent."
For many social scientists present at the seminar, an absence of reliable data on youth is preventing the creation of projects and programs catering to their needs.
For this reason, Mathias Albert, co-author of two Shell Youth Surveys in Germany, highlighted the importance of youth surveys for generating accurate data and "a country discourse in society about what to do about young people."
Albert added that surveys, in general, "ensure that young people figure high on political and social agendas."
While several participants said that the youth are considered the builders of the future and agents of change, Adnan el-Amine, an education professor at the Lebanese University, noted that young people are only agents of change only because of their flexibility to learn new patterns of behavior and at the same time produce new alternatives.
However, he argued that in the absence of flexible social mingling and integration among Lebanon's youth—who are currently less likely to mingle with people of different political and religious affiliations than their counterparts in the 1970s—the possibility for change in Lebanon is dim.
"In the absence of an appropriate context for social integration, young men and women, who are often subjected to adult rules and culture, end up reproducing the disintegrated social status quo [bequeathed to them by their parents,]" he said.
Al-Amine noted that places of formal and social inter-mingling are currently limited, with most universities consisting of a uniform student body. "According to a survey conducted in 1997 only 7% of students were studying in socially mixed institutions with 74% studying in one-religion institutions. The only really mixed institution was AUB, which is obviously an elite institution," he said.
However, the absence of social mixing also affects political and social values, he added, noting that studies have often shown that religious inter-mingling often gives rise to more socially-favorable attitudes toward women. Religious inter-mingling also promotes secular political parties over radical Christian or Muslim parties.
While AUB Professor and MP Farid El-Khazen argued that the Cedar Revolution was a unique manifestation of a youth movement effecting political change in the Arab world, Jad Mouawad from LCPS argued that young people in Lebanon only express the views of their parents due to the hierarchical and patriarchal family structure. He gave as an example, Sami Gemayel, the son of Former President Amin Gemayel, who initially set out to establish a voice for himself, through his own Lubanouna movement, defying his family's political traditions. However, once his brother, MP Pierre Gemayel, was killed, Sami went back into the fold and assumed the traditional role of inheriting a political role through his family.
