AMMAN — A
two-day conference on the political participation of youth in the MENA region,
organized jointly by the Norwegian embassy and
Al-Quds Center for Political Studies concluded in Amman on Sunday with the participation of media
professionals, politicians, and professors who sought to find solutions to
youth abstinence from engaging in political life.
اضافة اعلان
Founder of Al-Quds
Center for Political Studies
Oraib Rantawi said the aim of the two day meeting
was to explore the reasons behind youth’s engagement in civil society and in
social media, but not in political parties as a means to express themselves and
voice their opinions and political concerns.
Rantawi said he
brought together “a rich diversity of voices from the Arab world to try and
explain why youth fail to engage in politics.” He said that many young men and
women take part in political movements, but the question is “are these
movements sufficient for the youth to achieve their goals!”
He said the focus
was on identifying the shortcomings facing the youth in political life, and
attempting to bridge the gap between the youth and their respective political
systems.
Although there are
commonalities between countries of the region, the answers differed from one country
to the other.
The youth from
Sudan, Iraq, Algeria, Lebanon, and Jordan engaged in conversations on the
political, social, and economic situation in their respective countries and
agreed that there were common factors that contribute to the disinterest in
engaging in politics, primarily economic hardships resulting from unemployment
and lack of job stability, coupled with of a sense of being disenfranchised and
marginalized by the system.
They also listed
other factors like loss of faith — although in varying degrees — in the
political systems of their countries as well as lack of knowledge and awareness
in the workings of their governments, pointing to the need for higher education
institutions to focus more on political education.
In the case of
Algerian youth, for example, participants elaborated on the influence of Algeria’s
military institutions on the country’s politics, which they said surely plays a
role in their hesitation to get politically involved.
In the context of
Sudan, participants praised the youth for the role they played in orchestrating
recent political revolutions, notably the 2018 revolt that disposed of
President Omar Al-Bashir, but wondered why their engagement was not sustained.
Read more National news
.jpg)
.jpg)
