I have deep respect for translators. Our
headphones can switch between English, French and Arabic in real time, and I
have always wondered how on earth anyone can interpret that quickly.
The conference officially launches! After a
rushed breakfast, and a catch up from the conclusions of last year’s
conference, we get into a session on Youth Perceptions on the Revolutionary
Promise. Chatham House rules dictate that I do not know how far I can go when
mentioning the speakers, so I will refrain entirely, but we were presented with
interesting data from a number of polls and focus groups on the ground.
Many of the trends were expected, and some
were quite surprising. The data is on youth perceptions from April 2012 to
December 2012, so whether this is true or not, this is the general feeling of
the youth from the tests carried out. There was a sense of confusion on
accountability, leadership and electoral vs religious legitimacy. The state
seemed to be creating polarization between ideologies and views. There was a
downright frustration with politics and government representation, and an
increasing need for a third sector or civil sector. The third sector has been
relatively successful in Tunisia, where it is the only space the youth and
women have felt represented.
Perceptions on the ground seemed to be that
state owned and independent media were both biased. There was a surprising
criticism of feminist movements, since they seemed to think that these
movements were not very useful, and they were being constantly spoken about
simply to detract from the biggest issues of inequality in the country. A very
interesting finding was that most Egyptian males had the sense of wanting to
leave their country until the situation improved, whereas the women generally
felt that they needed to stay in the country to help bring their country to
stability. Revolution is seen as entrepreneurial, but although there has been
great frustration, generally people within the country do not expect change
over night, whereas outside the country, perhaps we suffered from this ailment.
A fascinating figure from Gallup World Path
provided a number of points he thought was interesting from his analysis of the
data
1.
Structural Economic Reform –
importance of having long term economic policy
2.
Addressing mind-set dialogues
3.
Jobs are created locally, not
nationally – economically, the data does show that the President can not
realistically be expected to pass policy that will create millions of jobs.
These need to come from localities.
a.
Similar arguments in the UK
have greatly interested me
4.
Reliance on West to fix
problems – perhaps there are better models, and a recurring example has been
South American politics, which have been
among the most successful in economic reform
5.
Deception of entrepreneurship –
the idea that if you can’t find a job, make a job yourself. The proposal was
that this is not sustainable, and does not provide a solution for unemployment
6.
Jobs aren’t created in the same
way as they were in the last 100 years – training, skill set, development needs
to be looked at differently.
a.
I did not really follow this
point, but I think the focus was on technology, and skill sets that can be
acquired outside a conventional education system
There is also a difference between an Arab
National, and an Arab Citizen. More and more people want to become citizens,
and share the rights that those bring, outside just owning a passport, and an
identity label.
We then attended smaller workshops. This
always brings with it a dilemma, but I knew that educational reform was my big
passion from amongst the topics. This was a highly interactive session,
focusing solely on the challenges. It was so focused on the challenges, that we
were encouraged to phrase our solutions as challenges aswell, since the solutions
session was to follow the next day.
Speakers talked about the paradigm of
Universities as institutions that manufacture employees, and how this was a
dangerous perception as opposed to viewing them as knowledge banks of research
as well. The lack of promotion of the social sciences was an issue, and
particularly how many of these degrees are quite disenfranchised from the
labour sector. Moreover, there is not enough input from the labour sector about
what skills they actually need from graduates. Lack of humanities and Social
Sciences also leads to an underanalysed society, and a lack of justice and
discipline.
The second speaker spoke (alliteration win)
about vocational training in the UK. Trends in the UK are quite worrying,
seeing as retirees are proportionately more literate than youth, and youth
unemployment and illiteracy is remarkably high. Once more, perceptions were
that the government cannot be solely responsible, and that NGOs and social
entrepreneurs have a large role to play aswell. A trend from the 1980s was the
salary gaps between public and private sector jobs, and so the decrease in
public sector participation also led to a decrease in female participation.
I am quite aware that I cannot simply
summarise everything ever discussed on this poor blog, so I will try to
summarise from now.
I did have to leave early from the session
due to the Friday prayers. My Arabic is superbly patchy, but after a 90 min
long, highly political sermon, we went back for lunch. I tried rabbit for the first
time, and I tried something called kalb. I was quite horrified initially, but
apparently kalb is the Greek word for lamb (I hope!).
The next session analysed two case studies
on diversity, one regarding a conservative politician’s dialogue with the IRA
in Ireland, and the other was on Libyan participation after the revolution. I
realized that I had some personal work to do during the Active Citizenship
session, so I scurried to my room. I realized I was missing a session called
‘New Models of Leadership’ which sounded phenomenal, but I was resolute at
finishing my work.
….I woke up an hour later
So apparently, staying up late at night
writing blogs is a pretty interesting way of exhausting yourself beyond hope.
Well, no harm no foul. I just missed an incredibly fancy dinner at a nice
hotel. But the 10 hour sleep I got afterwards left me to bang this baby out
Day 2 boasts a great array of variety. I
want to say my Arabic and French are improving, but I am becoming increasingly proficient
at merging the two languages like any man’s business! I also make a resolution
not to sleep through any more dinners. Amen
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