The most important question today is: What is the point of Prime Minister Dr Hani Mulqi’s recent meet with, with 130 Jordanian youths, representing 189 youth centres? What benefit comes from the forum, organised by the Ministry of Youth, on the challenges of Jordan’s present and future?
Well, it is actually a very good idea to engage and involve Jordanian youths in the making and building of their country’s future.
But alas, the meeting was merely a celebratory formality, so long as the government has not yet proposed a single agenda or programme to address any of the issues Dr Mulqi brought up at the meeting!
It would have been beneficial had the meeting been arranged following a series of meets with the government’s economic team, to brainstorm solutions for the current problems. But no; nothing noteworthy came out of the meeting.
After lunch, the whole thing was over.
The government was unable to reassure the youth that they have a plan figured out for their future, nor convince them of any sort of light in the end of the tunnel.
Youths in Jordan comprise more than 70 per cent of Jordan’s national population.
It only makes sense, with the evident failure to communicate hope and reassurance, that so many took the streets just hours after the meeting to protest their living conditions. No positive impact, whatsoever, on the grander scale of things, did meeting have on our youth.
It did not alleviate the youths’ anxiety and fear of what is yet to come, as the challenges of reality tries the patience of Jordanians day after another. The only thing the government has done is raise prices and abide by the requirements of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Nothing, at all, was done for the people, let alone the youth.
I have no idea what criteria was set for the selection of the youths who attended the meeting. But according to the government, the attendees represented the youth sector and expressed the concerns and demands “typically” shared by their peers.
The government wants Jordanians to toggle down their consumption patterns. This is only one of the things Mulqi highlighted during the meeting. Ironically, though, the PM himself admitted to the fact that the public sector is Jordan’s largest employment sector, and that the sector is crawling under its own weight! Who exactly needs to toggle down spending and consumption patterns? The government? Or the people?!
Evident, from the scale of deficiency and all the overspending, that the government is in dire need to keep its spending in check.
Most people do not make enough to meet their basic needs, let alone overspend! How many families rely on welfare, which is barely helping? Really, I would ask the Premier, how exactly are Jordanians overspending?
Most importantly, Mr Mulqi mentioned the youth and how they are the wealth of our nation. The government also launched a hashtag to promote the notion.
Still, however, even though he had mentioned it at least a few times since he arrived in the Fourth Circle, nothing was done to counter youth unemployment, which is already at 45 per cent. We’re wasting our youth and their potential. Our demographic window will soon begin to narrow, and we have yet to put a penny into it.
The idea of meeting with the youth and engaging them is positive. The problem is that the meeting did not appeal to the youth; no message was conveyed. Jordanian youths are far more interested in practical steps entailing a full scale programmatic effort to address the crises of their country, and their future. This, sadly, the forum lacked.
Young Jordanians no longer care for the government’s wiggly, impractical, sedative statements.
Everybody knows that there is a gap between the government and the citizens, and that the gap is widening. There is no trust. The challenges of our reality press on, inside out. If such meetings futile, then why call for them?
It would have been better had the government postponed the meet, instead of rushing in. The message could have been convincing, had the government anything concrete to say.
Bridging the gap, with the youth particularly, requires a far more structured and calculated approach.
The government said that the youths’ demands were heard, and noted! As if their needs and demands were ever a secret; as though the government had just broken through to the youth and uncovered their long lost desires, which they intend to include on the government’s executive agenda! Really?
I have to ask, in the midst of all we’re going through, do we have the luxury of wasting time at such a precise and defining moment in our history?! Are the youth even listening?
This article is an edited translation of the Arabic version, published by AlGhad.
