Daily World Buzz: The challenge of youth humiliated by the old dictator can now shake the Maghreb

Friday, January 14, 2011

The challenge of youth humiliated by the old dictator can now shake the Maghreb

On both sides, on the Western (Maghreb) as on that of the East (Mashreck), the Arab world is experiencing a troubled season. Blood flows and old dictator threatened his job. The Muslim regimes between the Atlantic and the Red Sea, many of whom lined up on the southern coast of the Mediterranean, are much more stable, or long-lived, however, of what has generally led to believe.

And now, even for the advanced age of the owners, they know the troubles of old age, that does not save the policy, especially when the older governing society young, very young indeed. The most warm, even hot, is that of Tunisia, to some arm of the sea from our islands to the South's portrait of 75-year-old president, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, is burned on the streets, between Bizerte and Sfax, from young people born in the (almost) twenty-four years when he dominate unchallenged, uninterrupted, on all public walls and walls of the Republic.

A clear his face with anger are guys come into the world when he was already in power and who often die (a settantantina were killed in recent days) with him always in power. But for much longer? What is called the "little Maghreb", which includes Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia (the "great" also includes Mauritania and Libya), is considered by many economists as a natural extension of the future of Europe, beyond Mediterranean.

It is in fact intended to provide, as is the case, to the Old Continent and many of the young workers he will need more and more, and eventually become a big reservoir of consumers. In fact, it already is for our products exchanged with Algerian gas. With the "small" Maghreb Europe has now shared by the disease of youth unemployment.

Hundreds of thousands of young people emerging from technical colleges and universities do not find a job. And the general crisis has drastically reduced the possibility of emigrating to Europe. 62 percent of the unemployed Moroccans, 72 percent of Tunisians and 75 percent of Algerians (according to economist Lahcen Achy Carnegie Foundation) have between fifteen and twenty-nine.

Together with the impossibility of finding a job, these young people denounce the hogra, a term that expresses the humiliation inflicted by the abuse of power of the old leaders, contempt and arrogance of the authorities. Over the past twenty years, the strong economic growth (almost always more than 5 percent) made it more tolerable to the Tunisian police regime.

She had created something like a vague social contract according to which the authoritarianism and corruption were offset by the rapid development, admired, envied by the neighbors. Tunisia has a dynamic and daring entrepreneurial class that was able to take advantage of strong foreign investment (especially French and Italian) drawn by a skilled workforce, competitive and yet cheap.

The financial upheaval and economic stagnation in the West have reduced activity and reduced the number of tourists on warm beaches of Tunisia. If the entrepreneurial middle class, superprotetta, remained loyal to the regime, the intellectual classes, often educated in France or influenced by French culture, felt even more the weight of a society dominated by an old chair, surrounded by a family known for its greed.

Young people have materialized with facing that frustration. The nearby Western countries such as France and Italy, still reluctant to deprive a president of their support for "secular" in their eyes that has prevented the emergence of an Islamic power overlooking the Mediterranean. Tolerance as an accomplice and blind religious fanaticism thrives where injustice reigns and explodes the popular anger.

None of the countries of the "small" Maghreb is immune. The targeted youth are powerful detonators which can impose political change. For now, this has not happened, although the favorable season. The old Moroccan monarchy, aided by the prestige (including religious) enjoyed, adopted in the last ten years, since the skilled and ruthless Hassan II was succeeded by milder Mohammed VI, a system that seeks with varying effectiveness, to help graduates and unemployed graduates.

The monarch, who reigns and rules with a liberal spirit far removed from that of a Western democracy, but also distinct from that of neighboring Arab authoritarianism, authorized the creation of associations in which graduates find themselves unemployed. I'm kind of unions that also serve as a vent, as its members gather almost daily to protest outside Parliament.

And the government is not totally deaf on time because it takes a number in the state. Despite the strong social inequalities Morocco has not experienced yet youthful explosions, although there is often talk of a dense work of Islamists eager to collect and frame the discontent. The neighboring Algeria on time for years but knows bloody revolts.

Abdelaziz Bouteflika, 74, was elected president for the first time at the end of the last century and started the third term in 2009. It 'a representative of the political class of the liberation war, which ended with independence in 1962. If the army is in power it must, like all his predecessors.

With the exception of Ben Bella, who three years little has tried in vain to embody a revolution, in a way faithful to the confusing plans outlined during the courageous armed struggle. Thanks to oil, which account for 97 percent of revenue, the system (composed of military personnel in uniform or in civilian clothes) keeps the country.

The hogra, that the humiliation imposed by the power of the authorities, is an expression of Algerian origin. The arrogance of those in power in Algeria does not prevent people from speaking (almost) freely, contrary to what was happening until yesterday in neighboring Tunisia. Apart from Morocco, where the dynasty ensure a smooth transition to the throne, the North African countries suffer from the evil of the sequence, because no one wants to relinquish power to a stranger.

And then there is a president who has not amended the Constitution to make an unspecified number of mandates. Muammar Gaddafi in Libya ruled since 1969, more than forty years, and being on the threshold of the seventy apparently is pondering which of the two children to leave one day, still far away, the leadership of the country.

But the most thorny and Egypt. In the most prestigious Arab nation, where he started the Mashreq (the Arab East and the Levant), Hosni Mubarak eighty-two years and is head of state of thirty-two, after the death of Nasser. And its future is how to transmit large enterprise the power to his son Gamal.

The tragedy of the small Tunisia, where the young to the old rebel satrap, can inspire even the great nations.