Youth Activism in the South and East Mediterranean
YOUTH ACTIVISM IN THE SOUTH AND EAST MEDITERRANEAN COUNTRIES SINCE THE ARAB UPRISINGS: CHALLENGES AND POLICY OPTIONS for the project “Euro-Mediterranean Political Research and Dialogue for Inclusive Policy-Making Processes and Dissemination through Network Participation” POLICY STUDY Silvia Colombo, Senior Fellow, International Affairs Institute (IAI), Rome Nadine Abdalla, Research Associate, Arab Forum for Alternatives (AFA), and EUME Post- Doctoral Fellow, Center of Middle Eastern and North African Politics, Free University of Berlin Omar Shaban, Director, Pal-Think, Gaza Isabel Schäfer, Senior Researcher, German Development Institute (DIE), Bonn 1. Youth Activism, Government Policies and the Role of the EU Silvia Colombo The Arab upheavals in 2010-2011 that took place in several countries in the South and East Mediterranean (SEM) were largely depicted as expressions of youth-led activism after many years of relative calm. The rapid and unexpected mass mobilisations of 2010-2011, anticipated by the development over the last decade of youth-based activist groups and by the spread of new communication technologies, has been described as the coming on the scene of a new generation united by the shared experience of the economic, political and social failures of post-independence regimes and by new ways to protest and act. These events brought Arab youth dramatically into the limelight, by renewing the world’s attention towards the status and conditions of young generations in the region. In fact, most analyses of the uprisings have identified the region’s exceptionally high rates of youth unemployment, exacerbated by a dramatic demographic bulge, and in general their unsustainable exclusion from political, social and economic opportunities as the main causes of diffuse discontent and anger.
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