Showing posts from category Middle East.
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The Youth of North Africa
Surging on a Knife’s Edge
›March 23, 2011 // By Christina DaggettThe Middle East/North Africa region is experiencing a “youth surge,” said Jack Goldstone, director of the George Mason University’s Center for Global Policy, at a recent GMU event. “In the last two decades the number of people in their late teens and twenties has increased… It’s doubled in Egypt; it’s grown by half in Tunisia; and nearly doubled in Libya,” he told Warren Olney on KCRW’s To the Point.
Such youth surges are problematic because, Goldstone wrote in ECSP Report 13, “population distortions – in which populations grow too young, or too fast, or too urbanized – make it difficult for prevailing economic and administrative institutions to maintain stable socialization and labor-force absorption.”
In the case of Egypt, the youth surge put enormous pressure on a government system that could no longer guarantee jobs to every college graduate, said Goldstone. When government guarantees dried up, graduates found that their poor-quality degrees were of little use, especially in a system that prioritized connections and bribery. The result was an unemployment rate of 25 percent among Egyptian youth and a mounting sense of frustration with the economic system and the government.
This frustration found a symbol when Mohammed Bouazizi, a 26-year-old Tunisian, set himself – and an entire region – on fire after his third run-in with the police cut off his only source of income. Youth across North Africa and the Middle East, Goldstone said, could identify with Bouazizi’s desperation and frustration after years of dealing with a closed economic system and a corrupt government.
While overall economic growth has been strong in the region – a fact which had misled many observers (including himself, Goldstone admits) into thinking the region was more stable – these economic gains were apparently being captured by the ruling elite to a far greater degree than previously thought, said Goldstone. For example, it is estimated that ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and his family are worth between $40 and $70 billion.
Meanwhile, a burgeoning surge of young people were struggling to get by. Goldstone pointed to a Gallup poll conducted in 2010 in which only 12 percent of Egyptians and 14 percent of Tunisians would classify themselves as “thriving” – down from 25 and 24 percent, respectively, in 2007 and 2008.
While the Ben Ali and Mubarak regimes have fallen, these revolutions do not ensure the youth in these countries will have a prosperous future. They need not only access to capital, said Goldstone, but also access to information and social networks so that they can identify market opportunities and stay connected.
Immigration to more developed countries could also be an important avenue for economic growth and education. In a Foreign Affairs article, “The New Population Bomb,” Goldstone writes, “Given the dangers of young, underemployed, and unstable populations in developing countries, immigration to developed countries can provide economic opportunities for the ambitious and serve as a safety valve for all.”
The future of Middle Eastern youth, and that of the region at large, depends on the quality of their education and their ability to be productive, said Goldstone. They stand on “a knife edge,” he said, and the transition to democracy will not be smooth or easy.
Image Credit: “Protest Face Paint,” courtesy of flickr user Ahmad Hammoud.
Sources: The Economist, ECSP Report 13, Foreign Affairs, Gallup, International Monetary Fund, KCRW, Voice of America. -
Carla Koppell and Haleh Esfandiari
Make Sure Women Can Lead in the Middle East
›In Libya, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Tunisia, and elsewhere, women have stood with men pushing for change. In Libya, Iman and Salwa Bagaighif are helping lead, shape, and support protesters. And in Egypt, the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, one of the oldest and most well-known non-governmental organizations in Egypt, estimated that at least 20 percent of the protesters were women.
For example, the 26-year-old co-founder of Egypt’s April 6 Youth Movement, Asmaa Mahfouz, mobilized thousands of youth in support of the protest through her impassioned YouTube video. In Yemen, a 32-year-old mother of three, Tawakkul Karman, helped organize protests against the current government.
History of Frustration
Yet women’s leadership is not a new phenomenon. In Iran, women have for many years successfully pushed for greater freedom in personal status law and greater employment and educational opportunities. Many Iranian women have been imprisoned simply for endorsing the Million Signature Campaign, which seeks equal rights and the repeal of laws that discriminate against women.
Women have been using social media and leveraged communications technology to pursue greater social and political openness since before the arrival of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Notwithstanding a rich history of non-violent activism and extraordinary leadership, women have rarely been involved in political decision-making in the Middle East and North Africa region.
At an even more basic level, women do not feel confident that their rights will be preserved under the systems emerging from recent political transformations.
In Iraq, there have been female judges since the 1950s and thus many of women’s rights have been protected since 1978 by a personal status law. Yet in 2003, the new Iraqi Governing Council sought to strip women of these rights. Only in the face of domestic petitions, letter writing, and face-to-face advocacy were women successful in ensuring their rights were preserved. Iraqi women continue to face efforts to reduce their freedoms and each time they have defeated the assault.
Already Egyptian women are risking similar marginalization. There are no women on the committee revising the constitution. In an almost uncanny parallel to the struggle of Iraqi women after former President Saddam Hussein, Egyptians have drafted a petition, endorsed by over 60 local organizations, decrying women’s absence from transitional political bodies.
Bias embedded in the new draft constitution suggests that these concerns may be real.
“Prerequisite for an Arab Renaissance”
The international community and the new generation of progressive, democracy-minded leaders in the Middle East need to see women as critical partners for change. The evidence is indisputable. The 2005 UN Arab Human Development Report cautions that under-employment and under-investment in women severely drains overall well-being and concludes that “the rise of women is in fact a prerequisite for an Arab renaissance, inseparably and causally linked to the fate of the Arab world.”
The world has an unprecedented opportunity to transform nations held down for decades by oppressive regimes. We must make sure that this opportunity is open to all citizens, including women.
Women’s role must be honored in the struggle and protected against the fundamentalist push. Most importantly, their involvement will be key to enabling pluralistic, economically thriving societies to emerge in a region where progress has been stalled for generations.
The window is small but the time is now and the opportunity is enormous. As we celebrate the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, let’s remember how critical advancing the status of women will be to success.
Carla Koppell is director of The Institute for Inclusive Security. Haleh Esfandiari is director of the Wilson Center’s Middle East Program. This article was originally written for the Common Ground News Service.
Sources: UN Development Programme, Women Living Under Muslim Laws.
Photo Credit: Adapted from “Just Passing Through,” courtesy of flickr user Alexbip. -
Watch: Richard Cincotta on Political Demography and Unrest in the Middle East
›March 9, 2011 // By Schuyler Null“Countries that have a high proportion of young people are typically more prone to political violence,” said demographer-in-residence at the Stimson Center, Richard Cincotta, in this interview with ECSP. “That is, not necessarily international war [but] internal conflict, which may take different forms,” including civil and ethnic strife, domestic terrorism, and violent political demonstrations.
The role of unemployed and angry youths in the recent unrest that has swept the Middle East has received a great deal of coverage, but though the region in general is very young, some countries are more so than others.
Tunisia (median age of 29) is actually well into its demographic transition, where fertility declines towards replacement level. “Fertility – the number of children women have in their lifetime – is now lower than it is in the United States,” said Cincotta. As a result, Tunisia’s prospects for achieving a stable, liberal democracy – based on the historical relationship between age structure and political freedoms (see Cincotta’s full post on Tunisia and the two follow-ups for a more complete treatment of that relationship) – are about even.
In contrast, Egypt’s age structure remains young (median age of 24) and Yemen’s (median age of 17) is extremely young. “Those difference are very stark,” said Cincotta, and they play out in the risk of political violence: Tunisia is less likely to experience continuing political violence; Egypt, more so; and Yemen, even more likely.
The relationships between age structure and political violence and the emergence of democratic institutions can be useful in other conflict-prone regions as well. “Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, the Palestinian Authority, most of the central band of sub-Saharan Africa – from Nigeria to the Congo, to Kenya and Ethiopia – we know that these countries are volatile, we’re not always sure why,” said Cincotta. But “age structure gives you a clue, because it tells you something about a lot of barriers that are important to development.”
Sources: UN Population Division. -
Of Revolutions, Regime Change, and State Collapse in the Arab World
›The original version of this article, by David Ottaway and Marina Ottaway, was published by the Wilson Center’s Middle East Program.
With breath-taking speed, massive popular protests across the Arab world have swept away two Arab strongmen and shaken half a dozen monarchies and republics to their core. But the Arab world has yet to witness any fundamental change in ruling elites and even less in the nature of governance.
Libya now seems poised to be the first country to see a true change in governance, thanks to Muammar Qaddafi’s megalomania and his amorphous jamahiriya (state of the masses). But such change may not have a happy ending. The damage Qaddafi has inflicted on his country is likely to extend well past his demise because he leaves behind a weak state without functioning institutions.
The uprisings sweeping across the Middle East have similar causes and share certain conditions: authoritarian and ossified regimes, economic hardship, growing contrast between great wealth and dire poverty, all worsened by the extraordinarily large number of young people who demand a better future. But the consequences will not be the same everywhere.
Tunisia and Egypt: A System Still in Place
Pro-democracy protesters in Tunisia and Egypt have been quick to use the word “revolution” to describe their astounding achievement in forcing Presidents Zine el Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak from power after decades of rule. Tunisia’s “Jasmine Revolution” and Egypt’s “January 25 Revolution” have certainly injected the long-silenced voice of the people into the autocratic politics of the region. But they have not brought to the fore a new ruling class, system of governance, or the profound social and economic changes associated with the classical meaning of revolution. And it remains to be seen whether they will succeed in doing so.
Continue reading at the Wilson Center’s Middle East Program.
Photo Credit: Adapted from “Libya-protests_025,” courtesy of flickr user Crethi Plethi. -
What’s Behind Iraq’s Day of Rage? It’s Pretty Basic
›March 4, 2011 // By Schuyler NullIraq’s “Day of Rage” – a phenomenon that has swept the Middle East since Tunisia’s “Jasmine Revolution” – reportedly claimed the lives of nearly 20 people last week. But though the protests may have been inspired by the current broader movement in the region, they are also a symptom of long-standing grievances ordinary Iraqis have had with their government since the American invasion, including lack of public services like access to clean water and especially, reliable electricity.
While these protests alone are unlikely to lead to revolution, they reveal basic livelihood challenges that neither the United States nor the Maliki government have effectively addressed.
The protests in Baghdad and more than 10 other cities were the largest since last summer, when demonstrations over access to electricity led to the death of two protestors in Basra. The New Security Beat spoke to Iraq’s first Minister of the Environment, Mishkat Al Moumin, after those protests to ask her about the lack of services and Iraq’s other non-security challenges, including water security, women’s empowerment, and demographics. She said that decentralizing decision-making power might help alleviate pressure on the government and provide more effective local services:Enacting policies at the local level establishes a sense of ownership among local communities and provides them with an incentive to protect their environmental resources. Moreover, it provides a better opportunity to involve the main stakeholders in policymaking.
Frederick Burkle, senior public policy scholar at the Wilson Center and a senior fellow of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative at the Harvard School of Public Health, recently cited the military’s failure to restore services, specifically public health services in Iraq, as something the State Department and USAID should seize on to justify the end of “militarized aid.” He pointed out that a 2004 joint report by the Iraqi Ministry of Health and Red Cross found more death and illness was due to the country’s decimated public health infrastructure and social protections than to the violence of war:These indirect deaths from war are preventable but require attention from the occupying powers to the invaded country’s declining public health, social, and physical protections. Iraqis were well aware of this deficiency, and the United States’ lack of attention to the matter led to the loss of lasting trust.
For more on Iraq, be sure to also check out The New Security Beat’s interview with Steve Lonergan, former head of Canada-Iraq Marshlands Initiative, on the state of the southern marshes and their potential for peacemaking.
Sources: Foreign Affairs, The New York Times.
Photo Credit: Adapted from “Tangle of electrical wires in Baghdad,” courtesy of flickr user News Hour (PBS News Hour – Larisa Epatko). -
Youth Revolt in Egypt: A Country at the Turning Point
›March 2, 2011 // By Wilson Center StaffThe original version of this article, by Farzaneh Roudi-Fahimi, Shereen El Feki, and Tyjen Tsai, appeared at the Population Reference Bureau.
Egyptians know some dates by heart: July 26, 1952, marks the overthrow of Egypt’s last monarch; October 6, 1973, is the date of the country’s attack to reclaim the Sinai Peninsula. Now another date can be added to that list: January 25, 2011, the first day of anti-government protests that led to President Hosni Mubarak’s resignation 18 days later. Mubarak ruled Egypt for nearly 30 years, during which the country’s population grew by 90 percent – from 45 million to 85 million according to UN estimates, despite concerted government campaigns to slow population growth. The demographic strength of Egypt is undeniable, not just in absolute numbers but in its age distribution. Egypt is experiencing a “youth bulge:” One in five Egyptians is between ages 15 and 24, and one-half of the population is below age 25 (see figure above), a powerful engine of renewal for the country.
Youth as the Drivers of Change
Egyptians of all ages and walks of life participated in the protests, unified in aspirations and demands including political freedom, better wages, and better working conditions. But it was the astonishing numbers of young people participating in demonstrations that gave the uprising its momentum, and were key to sustaining it, as hundreds of thousands gathered in Tahrir (Liberation) Square in Cairo and other cities across the country. Egypt’s youth are the faces behind this leaderless revolution; the revolt, in large part, was spurred by their finesse in using social media to organize and make their voices heard.
Young people arguably have the most at stake in the outcome of this revolution. The results have immediate impact and future implications in how they construct their lives. Recent studies show the frustrations young Egyptians feel at the stagnancy of their lives. They are a generation waiting for better access to quality education, secure employment, and the financial stability necessary to get married and start their own families.
Continue reading at the Population Reference Bureau.
Sources: UN Population Division.
Image Credit: Population pyramid from PRB, data from the UN Population Division. -
The Middle East’s Demographic Destiny
›February 25, 2011 // By Jennifer Dabbs SciubbaThe original version of this article, by Jennifer Dabbs Sciubba, appeared on her blog. Sciubba will be speaking at the Wilson Center on March 14 about her newest book The Future Faces of War: Population and National Security.
The so-called “arc of revolution” sweeping across the Middle East and North Africa has some demographers feeling smug. In Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Jordan, and Lebanon the population ages 15-29 – a key group for demographers – is very large, about 41-50 percent of all adults ages 15-59. No matter where you’re born, this life period is significant because during this time young adults expect to finish their education, get a job, get married, maybe start a family, and have some say in the way they are governed. As many have noted, the problem in each of these countries is that the desires of young adults are being dashed as they are shut out of economic, political, and even social opportunities. The result is all over the headlines.
Aside from structural failures like corruption and inattention of politicians to creating jobs, why are young people so disadvantaged? The answer lies in demography. Opportunities for young adults are limited in these countries because of what demographers refer to as “cohort crowding,” a situation that results when an age group, in Tunisia’s case those aged 25-29, is significantly larger than the preceding age group. Generally, jobs cannot be created fast enough to keep pace with this demographic bump, so those in the large cohorts are “crowded” out of the labor market. This situation turns into protest and violence when youth from large cohorts fall short of the living standards of preceding generations, which are smaller. In a 2009 Pew Global Attitudes survey, 50 percent of respondents ages 18-29 in Egypt said they thought children born today would be worse off than their parents. In Jordan and Lebanon, 38 and 40 percent, respectively, of respondents had a similarly depressed attitude.
Continue reading on The Future Faces of War: Population and National Security blog.
Sources: Pew Research Center, U.S. Census Bureau.
Photo Credit: “DS-RY028 World Bank,” courtesy of flickr user World Bank Photo Collection (Dana Smillie). -
QDDR Coverage Wrap-up: Institutional Shifts, Development-as-Security, Women’s Empowerment, and Complex New Threats
›February 23, 2011 // By Schuyler NullSomewhat lost in the wake of turmoil in the Middle East and the budget battle in Congress has been the State Department’s most aggressive attempt yet to reshape itself for the dynamic foreign policy challenges of the 21st century.
