By Mohammed Nosseir
‘Youth is the future!’ is a common phrase frequently repeated in Egypt – but those who utter it are referring to the distant future; only when it has become old will the present generation of young people be entitled to claim this promising future. In other words, young people will be deemed qualified to govern after their ideas have become obsolete and their interest in reform is long gone. The real challenge that Egypt is facing today (and that we are evading) is not one of ideological conflict or terrorism. It concerns a generation gap and the ongoing struggle between the mindsets of the young and the old.
For quite a few decades now, Egypt has been ruled by old-fashioned autocrats who seek to capitalise on the energy of youth without, of course, allowing any degree of power sharing – or even enabling young Egyptians to reap their just material rewards. Young people are often labelled as immature, irresponsible and seeking to consume more than they offer. They therefore need to be controlled by the older generations (the purpose being to make them think, act and behave as the generation of their grandfathers did).
“Experience is invaluable!” is a false argument that has been used in Egypt to enable older generations to manipulate all executive positions for decades, to the extent that certain names became strongly associated with the positions they occupied (without any fair performance assessment) for so many years. Obviously, the longer an executive holds the same position, the more experience he/she will accumulate. Over time, members of this older generation grew attached to their positions, forming a clinging managerial layer.
While most European countries face the major demographic challenge of being aging societies, Egypt, where young people make up two-thirds of the population, has been confronting the opposite challenge, the challenge of being a young society. Nevertheless, consecutive Egyptian rulers have worked on defusing and marginalising the young segment of society. They do so using many ploys, such as creating an internal conflict on the subject of youth, highlighting the mistakes while ignoring the positive contributions of young people, and subjecting them to continuous media harassment.
The 25 January Revolution, initiated, managed (and eventually failed) by youth effort, constituted a tremendous shock to the older generation of Egyptians. To preclude any chance of another revolution aiming to terminate their dominance, the older generation of Egyptians eventually began to work on framing young people. Depowering our youth has become a common mission for a variety of different groups, including the Egyptian Deep State, the Muslim Brotherhood, businesspeople, respective parents and many others. The goal of these groups is to avoid the outbreak of another youth-led revolution that, in their opinion, could lead to the collapse of the State.
In his handling of the youth challenge, President Al-Sisi is no different from his predecessors. A fake picture depicting the President’s popularity among young people is often projected, but in fact, our youth has never admired any ruler who applies Egypt’s old-fashioned tactics. The small number of photos taken of President Al-Sisi in the company of a few happy young Egyptians will not alter the reality of this relationship. In an attempt to lend credibility to this false image, other elderly executives have from time to time invited a couple of youngsters to their meetings, hoping to claim inclusivity. Nevertheless, the ugly truth is that the majority of Egypt’s youth is depressed and frustrated and would like to seize any opportunity to leave the country.
The President, who recently met with a number of creative youngsters with the aim of transforming their innovative ideas into reality, should have realised that if his government were functioning properly, these clever youngsters would not need his support; they would already be happily employed. If our talented youths are struggling to make their ideas known, what can be said about the millions of unemployed, less-educated, poor young people who hold no hope for the future? This is a challenge that needs to be addressed through a bottom-up, not a top-down, approach.
The President believes that impeding citizens’ ability to demonstrate while simultaneously using the old autocratic regime to control political channels will prevent young people from threatening the ruling regime. I am convinced that he is mistaken. The present state of Egypt’s youth can be likened to boiling oil in an extremely hot pan covered with a tightly sealed lid (the clinging elderly generation and repressive government behaviour). The ruler is confident that he can ensure immunity from any youthful reform efforts by using the lid to securely seal off the pan’s contents.
The youth threat will continue to exist until the government begins to view young people not as a burden, but as an asset, developing proper constructive channels to take advantage of their creativities, energies and eagerness to reform their country. Even if this approach proves to be unsuccessful, it will at least have served to engage young Egyptians in their country’s problems and to provide a positive outlet for their energy.
By maintaining the policy of youth marginalisation and continuing to ignore the demands of the revolution, the current regime will remain subject to a real and permanent threat. The pan is so hot that its lid will eventually blow off – regardless of how many clinging layers the ruler keeps adding. We must constantly remind ourselves that, despite the tougher policies applied during Mubarak’s era, the youth did revolt.
Mohammed Nosseir is an Egyptian Liberal Politician working on reforming Egypt on true liberal values, proper application of democracy and free market economy. Mohammed was member of the Higher Committee, and headed the International Relations of the Democratic Front Party from 2008 to 2012
