Dr. Hossam Badrawi Official Website
Who fills the void?
Written by Hossam Badrawi
The basic foundations of the July 1952 Revolution were based on the state apparatus playing the role of guardian of the ideas and visions of youth, and the intervention of the regime and its ruling popular organization, whatever its name, in determining the goals of working with youth, and marginalizing the role of youth belonging to any other movement or trend that has an opposition or even a different policy. The trends of governance have been linked to using youth to serve the goals of the political system at every stage, as happened during the era of President Nasser and his reliance on the vanguard organization of the Youth Organization, and then President Sadat and his policy of pushing the Brotherhood and Islamic movements to confront the Nasserist movement within the universities, which ended with his assassination by them.
Likewise, attempts were made to reunite young people, but did not continue, during the Mubarak era, the most important of which was the “Horus” experiment, which was adopted by the Supreme Council for Youth and Sports.
Then, during the period of Brotherhood rule in 2013, the Brotherhood organization relied on the Brotherhood’s youth and Salafists to impose the ruling regime’s control over the street from the village to the city, and their movement crystallized in besieging the Media Production City and controlling it, then besieging the Constitutional Court and preventing the meeting of its members, and in using them around the Republican Palace. To confront the demonstrations, and create a quasi-regular army parallel to the police force that enforces obedience and punishes those who differ from their ideology.
However, this vision, which its proponents thought was valid during the period of rule during the three eras of the July Revolution, then the era of the Brotherhood, is no longer valid now. The sharp diversity of ideas and visions that society is witnessing represents a serious challenge in itself, and an opportunity at the same time.
Therefore, it becomes necessary to formulate a new general youth policy that the state is committed to, and in which the minds of experts participate with the serious participation of young people in its formulation. Without formulating this policy, the future of Egypt’s democratic experience becomes in danger, as it collides with a number of obstacles and challenges:
The first challenge lies in who has the right to set state youth policy. We ask ourselves this question related to the right to change the culture based on national youth policies, and that it is necessary to create a new culture based on respect for the representation of the role of civil society with its civil society organizations that accommodate volunteer work, its political parties, and its private sector with its for-profit and non-profit aspects.
The principle is to create a natural base of young people who respect considerations of merit and competence to hold public positions away from direct state interference in employment (except within the narrowest limits).
Empowering youth has a comprehensive meaning that is not limited only to providing differential quotas, but extends beyond it to a climate of opportunity creation (the state’s job is to create opportunities, not employment), and opening the doors to transparent competition among youth. The state must create this climate and promote equal opportunities and equality. The challenge is to bring stakeholders together. The call from the executive authority for the participation of parliament and civil society in its broad sense for this gathering may be the best way for youth policies to have a minimum level of consensus, and each political party is left to express its privacy in the way it sees fit as long as it does not conflict with the constitution and the law.
The second challenge revolves around the unattractiveness of the topic of setting a vision and general policies for many groups of youth who have become bored with the abundance of theoretical talk about youth problems and the necessary solutions to them, especially in light of the failure to issue a simplified guide on the benefits resulting from applying this policy to all groups of youth, in a simplified language. It suits the needs of each segment of them.
Some people think that there is no need to develop state policies for youth, because they represent 60% of the population, and all state policies are directed at them anyway.
The third challenge is the deepening of the culture of dependence on the state, the father and mother, which spends, supports, employs and guarantees, something that has become impossible in all the economies of the world, not to mention the countries that spend more than they produce.
The fourth challenge is a dual challenge, which is represented by the small number of youth NGOs entrusted with discussing and implementing these policies, if they are established, and the lack of trust in these few associations and the apprehension of any of their activities that involve young people, and then their lack of funding to the extent that allows them to participate.
This challenge also includes the lack of a legislative framework that allows Internet activists and actors to participate in youth initiatives in an institutional capacity, away from their personal selves.
The fifth challenge is the lack of sustainability of any policy in Egypt for a sufficient period to achieve its goals, even within the framework of one regime. Governments change under one regime and policies change with them. When developing a youth policy, it is necessary to establish a framework that guarantees its sustainability.
The sixth challenge is the extreme centralization of the Egyptian state, which prevents the state’s parties, including organizations, associations, and decentralized formations, from effectively contributing to serving youth, and from implementing any policy.
The seventh challenge is the difficulty of attracting and rallying young people around a vision that speaks of pluralism, respect for difference, and the exchange of power, in the face of visions that use ignorance and need to attract young people to religious or worldly ideologies in a single-minded approach that ends in blind obedience and rigidity in confrontation.
The danger also lies in the fact that the different parties are not accustomed to the presence of the other, and are not represented by a party so that the people can choose from among them, and their reliance on a lot of electronic fabrication to distort the other.
Managing youth work themselves without imposing it on the various sectors of youth.
We see the necessity of having a comprehensive vision for dealing with youth, based on a specific ideology and content for how to create the modern civil state recognized by the country’s constitution, in which young people enjoy equal opportunities and equality regardless of their political, religious, or intellectual affiliations.
Disseminating the country’s vision and policies is important, but developing programs that serve segments of society and allow for a fair distribution of spending is vital.
Therefore, we must define the age stage that we mean by youth. The stage of secondary education and higher education, that is, the age group from 14 years to 23 years, is a special stage, because youth exists within the framework of educational institutions, and it is possible to reach it in an easy way. It is an age stage that has its own characteristics related to biological development, emotional outburst, and the desire to experience everything. This stage must have an idea in which the Ministry of Education is the primary partner with the family, directly or through the media.
As for the age stage from 24 years to 35 years, it is a stage with different characteristics, where the search for work, independence from the family, and the creation of a new family begins, and hopes are raised or frustrated.
This age stage is extremely dangerous, as the void therein will definitely be filled by something, and reaching them will become more difficult because it will depend on attracting them to civil organizations, whether they are civil associations, political parties, or gatherings that attract extremist ideas that use their frustrations and eclipse their hopes to create chaos and lack of belief in legitimacy. The modern civil state that we seek.
This age stage must include policies and projects, training and equipment, creating job opportunities, and preparing and financing them to start pioneering work that will achieve a decent living for them. In this age stage, public transportation, decent dealings with state agencies, housing, and the possibility of marriage and creating a new family influence them.
Taking into account all of the above, the main areas must be identified in which measures need to be taken to empower these young people according to the characteristics of their age.
Vision:
Enabling the country’s youth to reach their full mental, physical and spiritual potential, and through them enabling Egypt to achieve its development vision and find its rightful place among the peoples of the world.
