Face of Mideast Unrest: Young and Hungry for Jobs
- Posted on January 30, 2011 at 8:43am by
Scott Baker
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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Just days before fleeing Tunisia, the embattled leader went on national television to promise 300,000 new jobs over two years.
Egypt’s stunned President Hosni Mubarak did much the same on Saturday as riots gripped Cairo and other cities: offering more economic opportunities in a country where half the people live on less than $2 a day.
The pledges-under-siege have something else in common: an acknowledgment that the unprecedented anger on Arab streets is at its core a long-brewing rage against decades of economic imbalances that have rewarded the political elite and left many others on the margins.
With startling speed — less than two months since the first protests in Tunisia — underscored the wobbly condition of the systems used by some Arab regimes to hold power since the 1980s or earlier. The once formidable mix of economic cronyism and hard-line policing — which authorities sometime claim was needed to fight Islamic hard-liners or possible Israeli spies — now appears under serious strain from societies pushing back against the old matrix.
Mubarak and other Arab leaders have only to look to Cairo’s streets: a population of 18 million with about half under 30 years old and no longer content to have a modest civil servant job as their top aspiration. One protester in Cairo waved a hand-drawn copy of his university diploma amid clouds of tear gas and shouted what may best sum up the complexities of the domino-style unrest in a single word: Jobs.
“The regimes and the leaders are the ones under fire, but it’s really about despair over the future,” said Sami Alfaraj, director of the Kuwait Center for Strategic Studies. “The faces of this include the young man with a university degree who cannot find work or the mother who has trouble feeding her family.”
The narrative of economic injustice has surrounded the protests from the beginning. Tunisia’s mutiny that ousted President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was touched off by a struggling 26-year-old university graduate who lit himself on fire after police confiscated his fruit and vegetable cart in December. Apparent copycat self-immolations quickly spread to Egypt, Yemen and elsewhere.
In Yemen, the poorest nation on the Arabian peninsula, sporadic riots have forced President Ali Abdullah Saleh into quick economic concessions, including slashing income taxes in half and ordering price controls on food and basic goods.
On Friday in Jordan, thousands of marchers clogged streets to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Samir Rifai and call for measures to control rising prices and unemployment. Many chanted: “Rifai go away, prices are on fire and so are the Jordanians.”
King Abdullah II also has tried to dampen the fury by promising reforms, and the prime minister announced a $550 million package of new subsidies for fuel and staple products like rice, sugar, livestock and liquefied gas used for heating and cooking.
What feeds the flames is common across much of the Arab world: young populations, a growing middle class seeking more opportunities and access to websites and international cable channels, such as Al-Jazeera, which have eroded the state’s hold on the media.
There are no clear signs on whether more protests could erupt.
Syria’s authoritarian regime remains in firm control and has taken gradual steps to open up the economy. Rulers in the wealthy Gulf states have the luxuries of relatively small populations that often receive generous state benefits and other largesse. Kuwait’s emir, for example, pledged this month 1,000 dinars ($3,559) and free food coupons for each citizen to mark several anniversaries, including the 1991 U.S.-led invasion that drove out Saddam Hussein’s army.
But there have been stirrings of discontent in North Africa. Earlier this month, security forces in Algeria clashed with opposition activists staging a rally apparently inspired by neighboring Tunisia. In Mauritania, a businessman died after setting himself ablaze in a protest against the government.
A state-backed newspaper in Abu Dhabi, The National, ran interviews from four men from across the Middle East describing their trouble finding work. One 33-year-old Syrian, who has an English literature degree from Damascus University, complained he cannot find a teaching job or afford to get married.
“I feel as though I am in the Samuel Beckett play ‘Waiting for Godot,’ which I studied during my degree,” Khaled Kapoun was quoted as saying. “I keep hoping that tomorrow a job will come along.”
Even high Arab officials have expressed unusual candor following Tunisia’s upheaval.
Earlier this month, the head of the Arab League warned that the “Arab soul is broken by poverty, unemployment and general recession.”
“The Tunisian revolution is not far from us,” Amr Moussa said in his opening address to the 20 Arab leaders and other representatives of Arab League members gathered in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. “The Arab citizen entered an unprecedented state of anger and frustration.”
Moussa, who is Egyptian, called for an Arab “renaissance” aimed at creating jobs and addressing shortcomings in society.
But at the Global Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, some experts said an education overhaul is needed in the region to shift from emphasis on state jobs to more dynamic private sector demands.
“Many people have degrees but they do not have the skill set,” Masood Ahmed, director of the Middle East and Asia department of the International Monetary Fund, said earlier this week.
“The scarce resource is talent,” agreed Omar Alghanim, a prominent Gulf businessman. The employment pool available in the region “is not at all what’s needed in the global economy.”
___
Associated Press writers Ian Deitch in Jerusalem and Dan Perry in Davos, Switzerland, contributed to this report.
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Comments (66)
Derfel Cadarn
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 12:22pmThis is a highlight film of Americas future,not a pretty sight. Bobos going to have to pull 6,ooo,ooo jobs out of his ass to keep pace. The people world wide have finally had enough cannot say that I blame them. This is all that hopey change Bobo keeps going on about. To all the elites ask yourselves where will you flee when the people come for you? Should have built that base on the moon when you had the chance.
Report Post »troll_patrol
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 3:05pmIf it does occur in the US, then it will occur the areas that have a high liberal/progressive influence.
Report Post »I.e.: New York, Boston, Chicago, LA, and San Fran.
Other areas with less “progressive” influences understand
“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed”
christian
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 11:57amdesperate times call for desperate lies…
Report Post »KeithOlberdink
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 11:21amComing to a town near you.
Report Post »swimmer1940
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 11:02amSo many without jobs? So many under thirty. So many under fifteen Why not try a little birth control, or perhaps self control? The price of unlimited population growth is inevitably hunger, disease and destabilization. This is brought on by sheer ignorance, because the higher the education of the people, the fewer births.
Report Post »I am quite certain that Mubarik and cronies have big fat accounts in Switzerland while his people were left uneducated with the final result being what is happening now. Like other deposed despots, wherever they go, the present government of Egypt will have their collective pockets full of U.S. aid dollars.
chuck
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 10:16amGas…
Report Post »xm-1774u
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 10:12amwith what?
Report Post »hiramsmaxim
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 10:03amThe only outcome of this uprising will be Islamic hard line (Iran) style government..
Going from bad to worse as quickly as possible.
P S don’t forget to fill up your vehicles and extra tanks!!!!!
Report Post »spreadcommonsensenot pc
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 9:53amisnt about time for “cash for camels” stimulazzz………….
Report Post »The NWO new living wage for allllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll————$3.00p/d
PIGSWILLNEVERFLY
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 9:46amSee the story on Drudgereport by the Telegraph re: US “secretly backs uprising”. US State department sent Egyptian student to NY………. all this was planned and the opportunity was seized….our rotten Federal Government at work again, playing both sides against citizens. I pray for all the newly elected US republican state governors to take back the power to the local level and limit the Feds to Protecting US citizens ONLY.
Report Post »sarg356
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 10:02amamen
Report Post »neverending
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 10:10amYou got that right “rotten government”,
Report Post »Mister_Bill
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 9:43amComing to a theater near you “The New Riots”. The only thing that puts them in Egypt instead of here is we have not run out of money we borrowed from the Chinese, or we just printed more money.Do our current leaders (The President) take us for a fool? (Answer ) First Class. “Give me control over a nation’s currency, and I care not who makes the laws.” (Baron Mayer Amschel Rothschild) The revolution begin in 2012, make sure to vote.
Report Post »SeymourJohnsonafb
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 9:41amI think we should all learn from Egypt now. Say it together…”Hey Hey…Ho Ho…Barack Obama has to go.” See how easy that was?
Report Post »kryptonite
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 10:47amYes!!!!
Report Post »William113
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 9:37amThis is will happen in the US. The jews have NY, CA and soon Raum the israeli officer will have Chicago. Where do think all the Israeli’s are go to run, let me think New York city is already like tel aviv. They have already morally and financially ruined this country don’t let them take are land.
Report Post »chuck
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 10:13amyou are crazy, if you think the Jewish people are our enemy?! You talk like a moronic mudslime! Get a life and quite blaming the Jews for everything, they just want a homeland – it is the mudslimes one has to worry about, not the Jews – good grief! Wake up…
Report Post »NHABE64
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 9:37amAmerica is indeed the beacon of the world and we have spent more money and loss more military personnel pulling other country’s out of the muck than most people know. I could care less about Eqypt. I care about the United States of America. Would Eqypt come to our rescue ? Hell no! Barack Obama has no clue what to do with this but you can be sure if there is a chance of spending more American dollars or wasting more American lives that might muster up a few votes for him, he WILL do it. Eqypt has a personal problem, let those corrupt bastards fix their own damn problem.
Report Post »lasthouseontheright
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 9:31amI too believe that freedom is at the root of all this and that is what worries me. Our President has no idea what freedom is. He is all about big government.
Report Post »MaggieRose
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 9:30amHmmm… protesting in the streets over high taxes, high food costs, high housing costs, folks with college degrees unable to find jobs… oh wait! That’s overseas? *Whew* Guess our beloved country dodged another riot there…
Report Post »Koran Burner
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 9:27am“Democratic” uprising?? B.S.!!! It’s another islamofacist takeover!!! God help Israel, I hope they are up for another round of butt kicking cause they need to be! When we find out B.O. and “the boyz” are behind the jihadi takeover of Egypt WHAT WILL WE DO THEN ???HMMM? “Vote”? I swear by ODIN’S empty eye socket that if the repubes put up romney(or ANY other “whitey”) we are DONE! The ONLY chance we have is to put up a CONSERVATIVE BLACK MAN to run against the commie! THEN and ONLY then can we have a race free of the “RACE” card!!! HERMAN CAIN seems like a dude with his head on straight! WHAT have we got to loose??? Almost nothin left!
Report Post »KeithOlberdink
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 11:28amWrong! what America needs is a real leader. Not another president chosen soley because of his skin color. Gov Christie beats obama in every poll by 5 points. Christie has shown he can lead and thats what America is truly thirsting for.
By the way I love your name.
Report Post »dchetak
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 9:19amWherever you have governments sucking the wealth out of a society, eventually nature takes over and the natural state of “man” is free.
Report Post »Thevoice
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 9:18amNow the people see it is Individual freedom and responisibility that works …Not government intervention and control…Maybe Obama should take note …His progressive idology is wrong …and is causeing the same problems in our society . Wake up you idiot ….
Report Post »chuck
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 9:18amWhy do the Arabs put up with these dictatorships and the theocracy? I mean, these guys have palaces, live in opulance, yet the regular everyday people, live in poverty…I am not surprised by what is happenning at all…and to think ONE INDIVIDUAL in Tunisia, who set himself ablaze started all of this? Who said the INDIVIDUAL is not better than the COLLECTIVE – bunch of BS my friends, just look for yourselves!
Report Post »sarg356
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 9:16amThe middle east are holding our feet to the fire with oil. We can do it with our farms and drill for our own oil. Problem is greed.
Report Post »ADNIL
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 10:40amIt’s not about greed. It’s about dependency and control. If we are made to be dependent, we can be more easily controlled. It’s evident to me that our leader wants us dependent and controlable. Shame on him! If we allow it, shame on us.
Report Post »lasthouseontheright
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 9:14amThis is all a very sad state of affairs. It is also what Beck has been tring to warn us about. If we think we are safe from this sort of thing we better think again.
Report Post »streetrodder
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 9:07amBy the time they get done there will be alot of jobs in construction to rebuild everything they destroy.
Report Post »AzDebi
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 9:14amI KNEW they had a plan! There you go…they are just “saving” or “creating” jobs!
Report Post »historyguy48
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 9:15amYes, just like in East Germany after the wall came down, they then began rebuilding the damage done during WWII.
Report Post »Seen pictures of Beirut? That used to be a beautiful city. These peoples are destroyers of civilization, the “Huns” of our times, not the creator of civilization (the Romans of our time). They are trying to bring us back to the 11-12 century AD.
Xcori8r
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 9:18amOne problem.
The only country that can afford to rebuild the world now is China.
Report Post »Dustyluv
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 9:21amTheir version of cash for clunkers! Yea, that worked out good…
Report Post »Thighmaster
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 8:51amand yet they have cell phone service…
Report Post »AzDebi
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 9:12amYep…guess they could call for pizza delivery if they get hungry, right? OH, that’s right…they don‘t have any MONEY because they don’t have a job! Who provides the cell phone? OH, the “goberment” does! Makes all the sense in the world to me…how “bout” you?
Report Post »GulfPeg
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 8:49amAnd this is the United State’s fault? Take note suicide bombers in the mid-east: it is your leader’s corruption that is to blame, NOT the U.S.
Report Post »RobR
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 9:38amThe blaming US propaganda is more a fabrication of the Obama regime, not the actual cause & effect corrollary.
Obama operates what he commonly refers to as HIS government ( it is not ) as a queer melding of northern European socialism and south American banana republic.
I have never once heard a suicide bomber in Europe / M iddle East whether beforehand, nor in a suicide note, blame the United States of America.
This misinformation only pours forth from the America hating foreigner living in our White Houseand his equally misguided, sycophant, left wing zealot follows.
America needs to wake up & smell the reality. What is happening in the streets around the world is coming to a street near you.
Obama didn’t waste all those years since he arrived in the US becoming a radical community organizer, front row participant in Rev. Wrights black activist church, and an intregal player in the construction and illegal entity called A.C.O.R.N. simply because he wanted to be the president of the United States of America. Not even close……
Report Post »Cemoto78
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 8:48amBut at the Global Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, some experts said an education overhaul is needed in the region to shift from emphasis on state jobs to more dynamic private sector demands.
Gee, this could work in America too.
Report Post »Cobra Blue
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 8:54amThe embattled leader promised 300,000 new jobs over the next two years. That’s what Obama has been doing since he was elected. Do you see any similarities here? Just asking….
Report Post »psycodad36
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 9:01ampeople with university degree‘s can’t find work.so the solution is obviously more education and more money for ed.they ARE trying that here too.foolish cycle they keep repeating over and over.
Report Post »historyguy48
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 9:04amThis is coming to Europe with it’s average 18+% unemployment (it has started already). They stalled this for a while with more false promises, including the lie of a bailout.
Report Post »This will also come to America. Our current true unemployment is also around 18%. As inflation really gets going (of course only in sectors not used for analysis, food and energy) the pressure will get worse with every passing day on American families. They have been working very hard to create this situation. The “breakdown” will allow martial law. Of course that will only last “until the end of this crisis”.
Be prepared. It is coming quickly.
AzDebi
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 9:07amYou said a mouth full! Social Engineering DOES NOT work! Our Democratic Republic has RAISED the world because we have done more to aid the poor throughout the world than any other nation in the history of man kind…over the past 60 years our own government has taken it upon itself to socially engineer this great Nation and our glorious country is SLOWLY grinding to a halt! It is breaking my heart! WAKE UP America!
Report Post »Xcori8r
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 9:16am“a long-brewing rage against decades of economic imbalances that have rewarded the political elite and left many others on the margins.”
We have every reason to have the same gripes.
Report Post »Dustyluv
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 9:19amJust wait until the US Government can‘t pay people not to work anymore and can’t pay out welfare checks anymore…DC will burn like Cairo…
Report Post »grandmaof5
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 9:28amFace of the United States: Young, middle aged, not so old Americans and hungry for jobs! But just remember, there’s always “hope and change” if you need jobs, food or homes.
Report Post »NickDeringer
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 9:30amStatism is in collapse around the world and where is Professor O’Barry taking America….Statism. You can’t treat your people like cattle to be milked for every last drop.
Report Post »It doesn’t work.
It never has worked.
It never will work.
HillBillySam1
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 9:34am“Social engineering” is an abject failure but our government, and many other world governments, will never admit to it. The whole idea behind social engineering is to have the citizens in a near-total state of dependancy upon the government. It is the government that creates the jobs, provides for the curriculim in the education of it’s people, determines what “social justice” is and who recieves it, and determines what entitlement programs are established and how much taxes to pay for those programs are taken from the citizens. There is little to no emphasis on “personal responsibility” or pride in in self-achievment. The government cannot control those things and most governments would rather control than inspire.. This is the argument for a smaller, less intrusive government….get out of the way and let the people thrive. If the people feel like they are an integral part of their own government, they will take pride in their country and do the things to make their country great. If the people feel disinfranchised, there are not enough social programs to keep the government from crumbling.
The whole concept about “Big Government” is about the job security of the politicians…..and no one else. For all of the Left’s talk about the evils of “Big Corporations”, the danger of “Big Government” is much greater. We are just like cattle to them…..and after a while, it gets a little old. People do not like being treated like cattle…..or enemies….or of being stupid…..or like slaves.
Report Post »dchetak
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 9:34amThe economic imbalance is being caused by our government leaders and those on the left who want more power consolidated in the hands of fewer individuals. This is not a class warfare thing unless the classes being spoken of are the “people” class and the “government” class. Let government get out of way and FREE THE PEOPLE and let the individual succeed or fail on their own merits and hard work.
Report Post »AzDebi
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 9:37am“A gift that won’t be offered again”
“The most depressing and even frightening part of the tepid US response to the protests across the region is the lack of appreciation of what kind of gift the US, and West more broadly, are being handed by these movements. Their very existence is bringing unprecedented levels of hope and productive activism to a region and as such constitutes a direct rebuttal to the power and prestige of al-Qaeda.
Instead of embracing the push for real democratic change, however, surface reforms that would preserve the system intact are all that’s recommended. Instead of declaring loud and clear a support for a real democracy agenda, the president speaks only of “disrupting plots and securing our cities and skies” and “tak[ing] the fight to al-Qaeda and their allies”, as he declared in his State of the Union address.
Obama doesn‘t seem to understand that the US doesn’t need to “take the fight” to al-Qaeda, or even fire a single shot, to score its greatest victory in the “war on terror”. Supporting real democratisation will do more to downgrade al-Qaeda’s capabilities than any number of military attacks. He had better gain this understanding quickly because in the next hours or days the Egypt’s revolution will likely face its moment of truth. And right behind Egypt are Yemen, Jordan, Algeria, and who knows what other countries, all looking to free themselves of governments that the US and its European allies have uncritically supported for decades.
If president Obama has the courage to support genuine democracy, even at the expense of immediate American policy interests, he could well go down in history as one of the heroes of the Middle East’s Jasmine winter. If he chooses platitudes and the status quo, the harm to America’s standing in the region will likely take decades to repair.”
Mark LeVine is a professor of history at UC Irvine
Report Post »gramma b
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 9:46amThe problem is that all over the Third World, in what passes for “education,” young people have been taught that it is the job of the government to create jobs and make sure that people have them. Governments just can’t do that — at least not for the long term.
Report Post »Ruler4You
Posted on January 30, 2011 at 7:22pmLiteracy and political involvement are the two most valuable actions any single person can take up. A life of illiteracy (or narrow education) will doom one to failure and or enslavement. An a-political life will doom one to tyranny.
Report Post »longhorn mama
Posted on January 31, 2011 at 3:05am@AZDEBI
Report Post »It worked out so well for Iran. Pure democracy is mob rule which is perfect for the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Quaeda to usurp the revolution and power.
longhorn mama
Posted on January 31, 2011 at 3:09amAll the Socialists and Communists refer to their movements as democratic.
Report Post »Here is an interesting article from Investor’s Business Daily:
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/561401/201101281856/Fright-Of-Egypt.htm
EP46
Posted on January 31, 2011 at 7:16amHey, why are they complaining about $2 a day ??? In China people get $30 a month…and this is obama’s plan for the U.S.
Report Post »