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While it was largely the youth who launched revolutions against the status quo in a number of Arab countries, it has been the veteran politicians and political parties in those countries that have profited.
As opposition figures vie for positions in the post-revolutionary environment, youth organizers from Tunisia to Yemen are voicing their frustration over their perceived marginalization from the resulting political process that they arguably set in motion.
In assessing the political scenes in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen, one will find that the youth coalitions in these countries have not only been largely sidelined from politics but their key role in these revolutions have hardly been acknowledged by those who gained power at their expense.
For example, Yemeni political analyst Jamila Ali Raja told Al-Jazeera’s Adrian Finighan on Inside Story that interim president Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi “has not directly spoken to the youth…(.) I think that if he does not address the youth very soon,” she warns, “these youth might be frustrated; these youth might continue to be in the squares; these youth might be possible candidates for Al-Qaeda or any fundamental group in the future…(.)”
This is true in all Arab countries where large numbers of youth have risked their lives to change the system. Consequently, Arab youth must forcibly insert themselves into the transitioning political order or else they will be left behind.
Aspiring politicians living in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region have two things going for them, however: One, 60 percent of the population in this region are under 30; two, the challenges they face in the political arena are predictable, and therefore manageable.
Where the political establishment has not sidelined the youth, the youth have either declined to participate or have failed to play politics in a way that would win over their colleagues, and more importantly, the public.
Those youth who wish to enter government face two major challenges: inexperience and disunity.
Disunity is the curse of all groups on a mission, and in the cases of Tunisian, Egyptian and Yemeni youth, it was bound to happen once their initial goal of toppling the dictator had been achieved. With the loss of their primary mobilizing factor, youth coalitions have fractured and succumbed to internal fighting, hampering their chances to further their political goals. This is true for political parties and demonstrators alike.
The election in Tunisia genuinely underscored the importance of unity in the political arena—while the central to left leaning parties projected confidence, they inevitably lost to the hugely popular Islamic party, Ennahda, which won 90 seats, or 41.5 percent, in the constituent assembly, constituting quite a victory and signifying incredible unity for a political party that represents the largest share of the electorate.
Meanwhile, the other half of the electorate was split between Tunisia’s numerous liberal parties, the larger of which should have unified against what ended up being their main opponent—Ennahda.
Several liberal voters I spoke to after the election admitted that it was no one’s fault but their own, that they should have been more organized and more unified. True. In a democracy, they will get another shot at it.
Inexperience, the second challenge to aspiring politicians, can be just as if not more deadly than disunity as it causes an array of problems not easily solved, including a lack of understanding of how politics and government work, little to no access to traditional political structures, little to no financial support and very little trust on the part of the public.
We can see the results of this in the lack of youth representation in the Tunisian, Egyptian and Yemeni transitional governments. In Tunisia and Egypt, for example, youth leaders and organizers who decided to form political parties ended up severely fracturing the electorate because they did not identify shared goals and join forces with larger and more established political parties, which would could have offered more financial support, political prowess, wider access and valuable training. Consequently, very few youth parties got the support they needed to enter parliament.
Inexperience cannot be blamed on the youth themselves. It is the result of decades of authoritarian rule and the political apathy it breeds.
Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen have entered a new era, one that requires all citizens to learn from the post-revolutionary process, and to prepare for their next big chance to make change happen.
