1April 2018, Vol. 38, No. 3 RUSI Newsbrief

Arab Youth

Seven years on from the so-called Arab Spring, the end goal of a better life remains elusive to the overwhelming majority of

people in Arab states. Only Tunisia has seen a successful transition to constitutional democracy: the country is now ranked ‘free’ by Freedom House with a score of 78 – only six points behind Greece. But this is not to say that even a country like Tunisia is without its own challenges. There are a number of problems with the way in which the new democratic order has formed. Popular protests were staged in January of this year, pertaining to the rising cost of living as a result of a tax rate hike. The political elite that has formed in Tunisia still seem more concerned with pursuing a middle-class agenda that benefits those who had already prospered under the regime of former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Tunisia still stands as one of the great achievements of the Arab Spring, but it is important to place that achievement in its proper context, as a deeply (though not fatally) flawed system of government. It also pays credence to the idea that to have democracy is not enough to satisfy what the protesters of 2011 wanted. Stability and prosperity remain as desires that cannot be ignored.

The majority of other Arab states, however, are locked in conflicts, ranging from the Syrian civil war and the terrorism of Daesh (also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, ISIS) to the rise and fall of Mohamed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. The original optimism of the Arab Spring has been replaced with the dejected acceptance that the 2011 protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square failed to achieve

their political objectives. This article seeks to understand why that spring has turned into winter, and what role youth have played and will continue to play going forward.

Arab YouthIt is important to remember the age range being referred to when we talk about Arab youth. For the sake of simplicity, ‘youth’ can be considered to be those who are between the ages of 16 and 24 – the generation that is most proficient in computer technology and suffers from the lowest levels of employment and job security. According to Adeel Malik of Oxford University, ‘Arab revolutions had a clear economic underpinning; they were fuelled by poverty, unemployment and a lack of economic opportunity. Without a concrete economic response, therefore, the hopes generated by these revolutions can easily give way to despair, raising the spectre of future political volatility’.

Unfortunately, even in those countries that have not fallen into civil war, economic conditions have only worsened. According to the International Labour Organization, youth unemployment across the region has risen from 25% in 2011 to over 30% in 2016 – this represents a rate that is more than double the world average and which is the highest globally. According to the World Bank, GDP per capita in real terms since 2011 has also fallen across most states, including Tunisia, Algeria, Iraq, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Coupled with inflation, this suggests that Arab youth, who often have little or no savings, are fighting an uphill battle to maintain

basic economic security for themselves and their families.

The Arab Spring, which had promised so much, has therefore failed to improve the lives of everyday Arabs, essentially marking a continuation – if not a degradation – of the status quo. Nowhere is this more obvious than in Egypt. With the hope that a democratic transition of power could be secured, the imprisonment of Mohamed Morsi resulted in General Sisi’s military junta taking charge, marking a transition from civilian dictatorship to one premised on the expectation of force.

The implications of this continued failure are significant: prolonged economic insecurity and a lack of change are sapping the strength of protest movements by reassigning priorities for the young and reinforcing the fact that protest and revolution cannot change economic realities for those who need it the most.

Beyond economic insecurity, the use of social media came to the fore during the Arab Spring and was used for a variety of purposes, ranging from raising awareness of police brutality to mobilising people to join the protests. Although states such as Egypt and Bahrain have significantly higher internet penetration than Yemen and Libya, it was still seen as a vehicle through which protesters could connect and create a sense of unity and identity. This has been helped by rising rates of adult literacy, computer literacy and the increased prevalence of mobile devices with photographic and video capabilities. The ability to share user-generated content and discuss pressing issues on web forums has been indispensable in creating a shared identity. Crucially,

Spring Goes to Winter: A Very Twenty-First Century Revolution in the Middle East Rucheka Jain

The Arab Spring of 2011, a time of hope and optimism especially for the region’s young people, has become an Arab Winter. To turn the tide, young people must rally behind a unifying cause and not be discouraged by incremental, imperfect reforms.

2April 2018, Vol. 38, No. 3 RUSI Newsbrief

these have also provided a space for these groups to organise themselves, mobilise protests and serve as a base to educate and co-opt new people into the movement.

However, over time, this initial enthusiasm for social media as a tool for revolutionary purposes has been eroded. Although most ruling elites initially had a very limited online presence, once the threat of social media and the internet had been identified, protesters were met with illiberal responses from those in power.

At the end of January 2011, Egypt shut down access to the internet for five days, while other regimes sought to deliberately disseminate counter-narratives on social media through the targeting of social media accounts with phishing software and the seeding of forums with ‘trolls’. This was done with a single purpose in mind. To be able to better monitor those sections of the population prone to dissidence. Surveillance of such groups is traditionally more difficult, as they take greater safeguards against government snooping.

Even the most successful activist groups – such as ‘We Are All Khaled Said’, a group formed following the death of a young Egyptian, Khaled Mohamed Said, who died while in police custody in 2011 – have seen a slow decline in activity, with active users

decreasing: its last post on Facebook was in May 2016. As a result, the young feel less secure when they communicate with one another, as they feel they have lost the one place where they could express revolutionary sentiment and galvanise support for protests. The recruitment of new members to democratic causes relies on both informal and formal news to raise awareness and to educate. As stated above, informal, user-generated content is increasingly under threat as regimes use social media themselves to counter the protesters’ narrative or to disrupt their activities.

Yet even formal news, previously regarded as ‘more credible’, is under threat. Al Jazeera, Qatar’s state-owned news network, is a case in point. Although the channel has faced criticism – for example over alleged favouritism of the Muslim Brotherhood during the 2013 Egyptian elections – it (and its English-language channel in particular) serves an important function across the Arab world, providing comprehensive coverage of regional current affairs. Al Jazeera is particularly crucial to the youth of the Gulf states, as it covers stories that countries in the sub-region have sought to repress. For example, it aired a story on a Kuwaiti police crackdown in May 2016 that was not broadcast elsewhere.

Al Jazeera is, therefore, banned by many governments, with Egypt being

the latest – it blocked the broadcaster’s website in May 2017. The latest political crisis in the Gulf – caused by a row between Saudi Arabia and Qatar – has further threatened access to Al Jazeera’s news and its credibility in the eyes of those who rely on it the most. The attack on social media and any news that is deemed too dangerous to broadcast not only further contributes to the growing weariness brought about by revolutionary failure and economic insecurity, but also removes one of the key advantages that Arab youth initially held over their regimes.

Finally, despite the initial unity of the youth movement – even across states – the past few years have exposed how fragmented the groups are. The main problems faced by Arab youth were to do with their background and the very structure of their activities. This was a group of people who were bound together by a sense of disgust at the state of present affairs, as opposed to a large ideological mass that agreed upon the means and ends of achieving a post-tyrant world.

One of the main problems the movement – or movements – has faced is that, while it has had several figureheads and martyrs, it has lacked any sense of an overall hierarchy or leadership that would be able to coordinate the efforts of the disaffected. In effect, there is a

Tunisians gather in Tunis, April 2013, holding photographs of young men who died during the 2011 Tunisian revolution. On this ‘Martyrs’ Day’, a holiday to commemorate a failed 1938 uprising against French colonial rule, citizens demand justice for the victims of the 2011 uprising, which to many has failed to secure real change. Courtesy of Wikimedia/Magharebia

3April 2018, Vol. 38, No. 3 RUSI Newsbrief

lack of ideological unity, which means a lack of a common, wider purpose.

Changing the PathAll these challenges come at a time when the face of state power has changed massively since the Arab Spring. Some regimes – Bashar Al Assad’s being the most tragic example – have been willing to see their cities burn and people die rather than give in to the opposition. Russia’s support means that Assad is as secure now as he has been for years.

Other states, for example, Egypt and Iran, have become much more adept at handling online threats, and now know that repression remains a viable option (provided that the armed forces are on their side) and are hence much less likely to panic in the face of mass protests.

With Europe mired in its own problems, US President Donald Trump leading an unpredictable and unsympathetic administration that has often praised the Al Saud family and President Sisi, and the inability for any country to assert itself as a global leader, Arab youth increasingly feel they are where they were seven years ago – except now they are mostly worse off, have fewer avenues for change and have been worn down by repeated false dawns.

This all paints a bleak picture for Arab youth, but there are a few positives. Despite a rocky start, Tunisia is doing well, which proves that Arab states – for all their deep-rooted structural problems – can make a relatively peaceful transition from autocracy to democracy. Lower oil prices mean that states such as Saudi Arabia, under the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman, are acknowledging the need to reform and diversify their economies. This is encouraging. Daesh has been all but defeated, and Iraq is making cautious progress towards normality.

Finally, it cannot be overlooked that many of the old guard of strongmen – such as Tunisia’s Ben Ali, Libya’s Muammar Qadhafi and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak – are now gone. This is important because a large part of what had kept these people in power for so long was that the majority of the populations of these countries had known nothing else. These leaders had

the ability to appeal to tradition as a means of preserving their status. In all of these countries, whatever fills the power vacuum within the medium term will not have the same level of historic legitimacy bestowed upon them.

Additionally, there has been concrete progress in education, leading towards the establishment of a dialogue with Arab youth. The Arab world is slowly but surely getting close to achieving the second Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education. With expanded education budgets and the increase in foreign aid, hundreds of millions are now being invested in the development of educational institutions that teach internationally recognised curriculums and produce students who are internationally competitive.

The young people of the Arab world are also those best placed to push for change, and as such must ensure that they look forward with hope rather than look backwards with despair

This is closely related to the increasing prominence and cultural acceptance of women, particularly young Arab women, in positions of power. Almost a third of Tunisia’s parliament are women, and the world’s youngest government minister, Shamma Al Mazrui of the UAE (appointed at the age of 22), is also the region’s first ever minister for youth. With these developments, not all is bleak for the future of Arab youth. Even Saudi Arabia, seen as a bastion of conservative Islamist ideology, is pushing to have greater female involvement in the corridors of power.

As such, the struggle is to maintain optimism. Tunisia – even if imperfect – needs to continue to be a beacon for the region, and the young people in other countries need to resist falling prey to radicalisation and other forms of division like sectarian conflict, and

engage in positive commitments, such as joining civil society movements. In Lebanon, for example, Beirut Madinati (Beirut, My City) is a group that aims to tackle issues such as uncollected rubbish and electricity blackouts. Such groups are not only productive for their own sake but also help to galvanise young people. Indeed, Beirut Madinati won 40% of the vote in Lebanon’s local elections last year, demonstrating a positive force for social mobilisation in legitimate spheres.

The challenge is for these movements to become more widespread to provide a more unifying sense of community for those Arab youth who feel mostly despair in the midst of this Arab Winter, to which there appears to be no foreseeable end. However, the young people of the Arab world are also those best placed to push for change, and as such must ensure that they look forward with hope rather than look backwards with despair. Perhaps the recent events in Tunisia provide a good vantage point through which it is possible to look at this disappointment. But it was not the abstract political goal of realising democracy that caused for the Arab Spring to happen. It was for concrete goals, such as a fairer distribution of wealth, currently in the hands of the closeted elites, a greater sense of inclusion, and the perpetuation of the idea that the ordinary citizen matters.

But this is not an unconditional conclusion. Several things need to change to create long-term political success. There needs to be a greater sense of organisation, and a shedding of the reluctance to find more formal structures through which energy can be more efficiently channelled.

Rucheka JainRucheka completed her high school education in India and is currently a student at the University of California at Berkeley, majoring in Political Science and Economics. She has served as the Student Ambassador of India for the World Federation of the United Nations Association from 2015–2017.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of RUSI or any other institution.

Arab Youth