Imagined Youths

Author(s): Ted Swedenburg

Source: Middle East Report, No. 245, The Politics of Youth (Winter, 2007), pp. 4-11
Published by: Middle East Research and Information Project, Inc. (MERIP)
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25164815
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HHBLmiiiiiiiiiiIiIiiiiiiiiwipiiii111 >.'in iwinj mi "iii I fi.iii"? n'fi ih 'iniiiiiiiiiiiiii'ii lyni" hi i ii i ? ? "- ?* litlJiff^^

Youth gather in a Baghdad park at the end of Ramadan. ceerwan aziz/rkutlrs/landov

Youth?what is it? The notion tends to be taken for number of unemployed males between 15 and 30 constitute
granted, as a natural stage in human development. But, "a natural source of instability and violence." And poor
in fact, "youth" is a socially and culturally determined countries are not the only ones thought to have a problem:
category, a transitional phase between childhood and "Too often Muslims are against physical labor, so they bring
adulthood that, in its contemporary form, is a product of in Koreans and Pakistanis while their young people remain
modernity. In the pre-modern era, adolescents were usually unemployed," mused ex-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
regarded as troublemakers, and so it was customary to marry in one of his "snowflake" memoranda. "An unemployed
them off soon after the onset of puberty, giving them adult population is easy to recruit to radicalism."1 Such concerns
responsibilities in order to stave off any social threat and have been felt as urgent because twentieth-century public
ensure uninterrupted agrarian and pastoral production. The health advances have created a "youth bulge" in the region's
forces of modernity, and in particular the forms of education demographic profile: In most countries of the region, at least
that capitalist production requires, have greatly extended 20 percent of the population is between 15 and 24 (though,
the period of youth and delayed the age of marriage. Youth as the adjacent chart shows, such "bulges" are not unusual
today is typically defined as a phase in life between the ages in other populous, non-Western countries). The flip side
of 15 and 24, but in practice one's youth knows very fuzzy of this coin for Westerners is to see the rising generations,
bounds. Young men in the Middle East may belong to this "globalized" by technology and the allure of liberal capitalism,
social category well into their thirties, due to the economic as the agents of inexorable "change" in countries perceived
difficulties that many of them face in getting married. as mired in stagnation or worse.
Delayed marriage is one of several socio-economic
realities?another being high unemployment?that has had Problem Children
Western observers and regional governments worried about
a youth "problem" in the Middle East for decades. Samuel It has frequently been claimed that the so-called youth
Huntington, for instance, has argued famously that the large problem of the Middle East is essentially a demographic
one: There are simply too many of them. Typically cited
Ted Swedenburg, an editor of this magazine, teaches anthropology at the University
of Arkansas. as evidence are the high percentages of young people, that

4 MIDDLE EAST REPORT 245 WINTER 2007

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 in Iran in 2005, for instance, 25 percent of the population of HIV/AIDS, premarital sex, drugs, suicide, Satanism and
was between 14 and 25.2 Others argue, however, that the so on. A related threat is the media, held as responsible for
problem is not so much demographics as the expectations relaying corrupting influences to young people, and there
generated by the forces of modernization. The Middle East fore film, music, radio and satellite TV broadcasts, and the
has witnessed a massive and rapid increase in its educated Internet are all foci of great concern. In Egypt such dangers
young population, and in particular, a dramatic growth in are usually summed up as the "cultural invasion" (ghazw
the number of educated females. Large numbers are entering thaqafi), which foists bad morals and "vulgar" culture?the
the labor market and are unable to find jobs commensurate macarena, Madonna and Michael Jackson?upon youth,
with their education. High rates of unemployment and leaving them without viable national role models, only alien
under-employment particularly afflict those with higher and decadent ones.5
levels of education, and such problems are exacerbated in
countries undergoing "structural adjustment," where employ The Daddy State
ment opportunities are declining in state-owned firms and
the bureaucracy. In addition, young people who hope to Symptomatic of such perceptions about the dangerous poten
become financially and socially independent, which means tiality of youth and their need for supervision, instruction and
finding suitable employment, leaving home and setting up a protection is the fact that states explicitly view themselves as
household as part of a married couple, frequently face critical surrogate parents (and especially "fathers") for the country's
shortages of housing. (Somewhat different problems affect youth. One facet of this assumed parental role has been the
less privileged classes in both urban and rural areas, where establishment of Ministries of Youth and Sports, many set up
many young people enter the work force at an early age.) during the 1990s, for instance, the Palestinian Authority's in
And when marriage is, for most, the only sanctioned outlet 1994 and Egypt's in 1998. (In
for sexual activity, the issue of what young people do in their Tunisia, the parallel body is Percentage of Population Aged
spare time becomes particularly salient for elites. known as the Ministry of 15-24(2005)_
Youth were not always perceived as a crisis in the making. Youth, Sports and Physical Algeria_22.6
During the optimistic years that succeeded independence (as Education.) The purpose of Bahrain_16.1
in Egypt after 1952) or revolution (as in Iran after 1979), youth such ministries is to develop Egypt_20.8
symbolized the future of the modern nation that the state a national youth policy and Iran_25.2
hoped to build. Whereas the older, under-educated generation youth programs.
Iraq 20.1
Israel 16.1
represented backwardness, the youth were imagined to be the It is telling, of course,
recipients of a modern progressive education and the imbibers that government policy Jordan_20.4
of state-propagated ideology. In Iran, youth were regarded as and discourse links youth Kuwait_16.0
Lebanon 18.0
the index of the success of the state in creating a true Islamic and sports so intimately.
Republic, until the success of the state's pro-natalist policies Sports are regarded as a
Libya_21.7
Morocco 21.1
prompted a rethinking.3 In Turkey during the Kemalist era, way of channeling youthful
energies into activities that
Oman_21.5
educated youth were viewed as the main instrument of the
are wholesome and, not
Palestine_19.3
state's national civilizational project.
Qatar_13.9
The trajectory of the image of youth in Turkey may be taken coincidentally, serve as Saudi Arabia_18.5
as an exemplary case. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, means of bringing glory to
the nation. Saudi Arabia
Sudan_20.1
when violent conflict erupted on university campuses between Syria_23.2
leftist and rightist students, youth came to be reimagined established the General Tunisia 20.9
in public discourse as a "threat" to the national interest.4 Presidency of Youth Welfare Turkey_18.6
This theme, of "dangerous" youth, has become increasingly in 1974, in part with the aim UAE_16.3
common in public discourse in Middle Eastern countries. But of fostering boys' interest in Western Sahara_20.1
in contrast to how the theme is understood in the West, where sports, and by 1994 it report Yemen 21.6

youth is "dangerous" because the young are self-motivated edly had established strong Brazil_18.9

delinquents, in the Middle East it is more frequent for young programs in 18,000 schools India_19.3
throughout the kingdom.6
people to be seen as vulnerable innocents. The forces which are Indonesia_19.0
said to threaten youth are various and changeable, depending The importance that states Mexico_18.2
on the context, and depending on the political affiliation of attach to sports as a youth Nigeria_20.3
South Africa 20.0
the commentator. policy can be gauged by
Westernization is regarded across the board as one of the the fact that such ministe
World_17.1
United States 14.3
greatest sources of danger to susceptible youth. Western rial posts are not neces Source: UN Population Division, World
culture and its immoral values (related forces include sarily honorary sinecures Population Prospects: The 2006
Revision (2007), www.esa.un.org/unpp.
Zionism and globalization) threaten youth with the evils for politically unimportant

MIDDLE EAST REPORT 245 WINTER 2007 5

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TWo young porters in Tehran's main bazaar. bruno stevens

figures. Algeria's current president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, got emerged amidst post-World War II affluence and the develop
his start in government as minister of youth and sports. 'Ali ment of the category of the "teenager." Such images depend
al-Din Hilal Disouqi, who recently gave up his post as Egypt's on the ability of youth to participate as independent agents
minister of youth and sports, has been touted as one of the in consumer culture and on the growth of market niches
main mentors of Gamal Mubarak, who to all appearances is targeted at youth. There is evidence to suggest that youth are
being groomed to succeed his father, Husni, as president.7 a growing target for marketers and advertisers, particularly in
And then there is Uday Hussein, son of former Iraqi dictator the more affluent Gulf countries. The Middle East contains
Saddam Hussein, and his notorious tenure as head of Iraq's some of the globe's fastest-growing ad markets and audiences;
Olympic Committee and national soccer team (as well as the Dubai is the advertising hub and Saudi Arabia contains the
youth television network Shabab). largest audience, while Lebanon supplies the local creative
States also make great efforts to guide youth through the talent.10 The State Department has even dipped into these
ideological work of institutions devoted to education and waters, launching a slick lifestyle magazine in 2003 called Hi,
health, conscription into the military, and the establishment aimed at the same affluent Arab youth targeted by Dubai's
of state-directed youth and student unions. The concern of the advertising agencies?but apparently failing to gain enough
state, then, is not simply protection of its youth from danger, readers, and ad revenue, to sustain itself.11 The glossy was
but national and social reproduction, the project of ensuring"suspended" in 2005.
that young people do not deviate from the transcendent goal There is abundant evidence to suggest that increasing
of maintaining the integrity of the nation.8 numbers of Middle Eastern youth are participating, to various
degrees and in various ways, in a globalized capitalist youth
Market Niche culture. Although this is good for business, the processes of
incorporation of youth as consumers are full of contradic
Dick Hebdige has observed that the two key themes in tions and pitfalls. In Turkey, for instance, todays youth are
modern representations of Western youth are "youth as regarded as shallow, individualistic, driven by crass desires
trouble" and "youth as fun."9 The images of "youth as fun" for consumption, apolitical and insufficiently nationalist. It

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 is common in Turkish public discourse for young people to
be found wanting in comparison to what are regarded as the
more "heroic" previous generations, especially those of the
Looking for photographs
nationalist (Kemalist) or revolutionary ("Sixties") eras.12 On of the Middle East?
the other hand, even supposedly apolitical efforts to promote
youth as consumers can spin out of control, as when Saudi
Arabia suspended publication of the youth-targeted daily
newspaper Shams, which was launched in 2005 and was
circulated widely in Gulf states, after it reprinted some of the
cartoons of the prophet Muhammad originally appearing in
I can find the best photos for your
the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, as part of an editorial
critical of the papers action. project from the millions available.
One of the most significant signs of the mobilization
of images of youth as fun and youth consumption is the
ubiquity of the "clips" (music videos) on Arab satellite TV * historical * documentary *
(and the Internet). As Walter Armbrust shows, hostility to
these video clips on the part of pundits and commentators art* journalism
is as omnipresent as the clips themselves. According to
Armbrust, typical arguments are that video clips are a form
of Western cultural hegemony that "make Arab youth want
to become what they can never be'" (Palestinian poet Tamim
Barghouthi) and that undermine patriarchal society through
the marketing of sex, which " makes marriage increasingly
difficult as a practical course of action'" (Egyptian professor
Abd al-Wahhab al-Massiri).13
Mass consumption, therefore, even when it involves local
products, can also be regarded as posing dangers to youth or
producing "youth as trouble." One peril is said to be that Arab
youth will be tantalized by the offerings of global culture, yet i
unable to afford the commodities of their dreams or get access
to public spaces in which to enjoy the pleasures associated
with such products. + Photo editor of Middle East Report

Limits of Disaffection + Based in Beirut & Baltimore

The discourses of the state, the mass media, pundits and profes
sional commentators tend, on the whole, to position Middle + Excellent contacts with photo
Eastern youth as lacking in agency, needing protection and agencies & freelance photographers
requiring the tutelage of state institutions, experts and the
nationalist intelligentsia. While such discourses are correct in
in the region
their understanding that youth are in a position of dependency
on their elders and the institutions they control, what about + Committed to finding the most
youths' own motivations and desires?
striking photos that go
One of the countries whose youth have received the
most attention is Iran. Roxanne Varzi, in her important beyond the usual cliches
ethnography on Iranian youth, finds widespread disaffec
tion for the ideology of the Islamic Republic among the Contact Michelle Woodward
middle-class youth of northern Tehran. While showing
how such youth deploy various features of Western popular
michelle@mwoodward.com
culture in expressing their dissent, Varzi is careful to avoid
the trap of many Western observers who see such Iranian
More info online:
youth as so intensely disaffected that they are all secular
and Westernized. Varzi demonstrates, on the contrary, that www. m wood wa rd .com
middle-class youth have been molded by the Iranian state

MIDDLE EAST REPORT 245 WINTER 2007 7

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Sisters watch as an artisan prepares a personalized pendant in the Hamidiyya souk, Damascus. kim badawi/redux

project of religiosity. Religion is very much a part of their Marc Schade-Poulsen's important ethnographic work in
lives, and their expressions of resistance, rather than being Oran, Algeria in the early 1990s likewise avoids the errors made
external to them. For instance, one of the modes of disaffec by many Western observers of rai music, who tend to view it,
tion is an embrace of what Varzi labels "Sufi cool" by long like rock *n roll, as a youth-based cultural movement striking
haired, bohemian Iranian youth. The state has responded by blows against the puritanical and conservative practices
producing its own brand of mystical pop music in an effort supported by an authoritarian state and backward, intolerant
to appropriate and compete with Islamic practices outside religious mandarins. Schade-Poulsen demonstrates that there
its control.14 In addition, young people in the northern is no inherent contradiction between listening to rai music
suburbs typically use Shi'i religious rituals like Ashura as and being a believing Muslim, despite the violent antagonism
occasions to mingle freely and publicly with the opposite toward rai artists on the part of some militant Islamists. And
sex, turning such events into street parties. Similar things while rai music is associated with youth in Oran, it is by no
occur at mulids (saints' days) in Cairo, in this case, among means exclusively consumed by them, but, in different ways,
youth of working-class and lower middle-class backgrounds, by all generations, and especially, and collectively, at weddings.
as depicted in Yousry Nasrallah's 1995 documentary, On Moreover, rai music is not "authored" by young musicians
Boys, Girls and the Veil. but by older producers and established studio musicians, and

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 I is mostly performed in slip to reveal frosted hair obscures a more complicated reality.
nightclubs frequented Young volunteers man the paramilitary basij, which is on the
by well-off adults, front lines of the Islamic Republic's struggle against "immoral"
rather than young behavior, particularly on the part of privileged youth. This is
people who have little one indicator of the regimes continued support among many
disposable cash. For lower and working-class youth. Moreover, Iranian univer
young men in Oran, sity students may be disenchanted but they are essentially
rai is not exactly "rebel apolitical. They are mostly concerned with quotidian goals
music" a la punk or such as landing a job or getting admitted to graduate school.
reggae; rather, its lyrics In fact, 150,000 Iranian professionals leave the country each
represent a means by year, giving Iran one of the highest rates of "brain drain" in
which they negotiate the Middle East.16
the difficulties they Given the severe limitations on youth incomes, the paucity
face in meeting and of public spaces for youth leisure and the nervousness on the
dealing with young part of authoritarian states about congregations of young
women, at a time when people, "oppositional" youth movements are unlikely to
women, as a result of take the same forms as youth subcultures in the West. Other
modern education andWestern frames of analysis of youth, such as the notion of the
employment, wield "generation gap," can likewise be misleading. As Varzi shows,
more social power than for instance, secular youth in upscale precincts of Tehran
in the past.15 rely on the discretion and permission of their parents when
Armbrust's examina they organize private parties in their homes that sometimes
tion of the discourses involve mixed-gender socializing, live music and consump
surrounding video tion of alcohol.17 Claims that mass consumption and access
clips likewise demon to the trappings of globalized youth culture will necessarily
strates the importance make young people materialistic, individualistic, apolitical
of avoiding simplistic and lacking in social consciousness are equally dubious.
stereotypes when Palestinian youth who have embraced rap music, for instance,
it comes to youth have typically deployed this art form to articulate fiercely
culture and consump nationalistic political concerns. And Turkish youth, widely
tion. While many local criticized for their selfish consumerism, turned out to be at
observers condemn the the forefront of relief efforts in the wake of the Marmara
clips as corrupting, and earthquake of 1999.18
Western observers often
view them as sticking Liberators in Trouble
it to the man (through
depictions of liberated The theme of "youth as trouble" emerges most clearly?and
sexuality), Armbrust the fears of Western observers and Middle Eastern states
shows that the reality is converge?with regard to militant Islamism, the supreme ill
much more complicated. The video flow includes not only the from which young people must be protected (or else). In the
celebrated (and maligned) gyrations of sexpots Haifa Wehbe and minds of Westerners prone to "clash of civilizations" thinking,
the supposed susceptibility of Middle Eastern youth to radical
Elissa, but also the "family values" clips of Ali Gawhar and clips
of the massively popular Sami Yusuf, which use "pop" conven Islam is the factor that most calls into question the belief that
tions to articulate messages of Islamic piety and devotion. youth will set the region free. If not even the new generation
All this suggests the need for careful study of the daily can be trusted to embrace "moderation"?acquiescence in the
US-sponsored liberal capitalist order?then there is no hope
lives of young people, but also a caution against focusing on
the spectacular or relying overly upon Western models. A of coexistence. In the words of Thomas Friedman, "Young
spate of articles and books, for instance, has suggested that Israelis dream of being inventors, and their role models are
Iran's young people are overwhelmingly secular and thirsty the Israeli innovators who made it to the Nasdaq. Hizballah
for Western commodities and lifestyles. These youth are youth dream of being martyrs, and their role models are
believed to represent the best hope that Iran will abandon Islamic militants who made it to the Next World."19 In the
its fundamentalist ways and rejoin the civilized community Middle East, the young may not be seen as irredeemable, but
of nations. An analytical focus on Iranian rappers and young they are no less at risk: The success of Muslim "extremists" is
women wearing makeup and allowing their headscarves to often attributed to their ability to prey on youth, in particular,

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 Moroccan rappers Fati Show and DJ Dees rehearsing at a Casablanca nightclub. thomas vanhaute

underprivileged young men who are sexually frustrated due West over Palestinians' "use" of children in the first year of
to their inability to afford the costs of marriage. A paradig the second intifada, culminating in Palestinian spokespeople
matic example of such representation in Egypt is the 1994 being forced to argue that Palestinian mothers actually do
hit film The Terrorist (al-Irhabi), in which the young terrorist love their children and do not send them out to force the
(played by the not so young Adil Imam) is recruited when Israeli army to shoot them. On the one hand, the denial of
the Islamist group promises him a wife in return for fulfilling agency to the youngest stone throwers allowed Westerners
an assassination mission. (and Israelis) to locate the cause of the children's victimhood
More broadly, there is a tension in dominant discourses in a flaw of Palestinian culture, rather than the occupation.
about youth between seeing them as victims or perpetrators On the other hand, the older "stone-throwing youths" of a
of violence. Consider the great outrage and distress in the thousand wire photos?having acquired agency by dint of

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 I their age?were regarded
as purveyors of violence,
not victims. This episode
also serves as a reminder
that, for Middle Eastern
states worried about
their youth problem, the
project of national repro
duction has always been
managed within an inter
national arena of (Euro
American) expectation
that judges the modernity
of other countries by how
those deemed vulnerable
are treated. The category
of the vulnerable in the
Middle East includes
women and ethnic minori
ties (Jews, Berbers, Kurds),
but also the young. When
Middle Eastern states are
judged incompetent in
their care for youth, the
response of the West may
be to assert surrogate
parental rights of its own,
intervening directly to
save the madrasa-bound
boys and unschooled
girls of Afghanistan, or
encouraging the students
of Iranian universities to
rebel against their elders.
In the post-September
ii era, indeed, the sheer
numbers of Middle Eastern
youth have been cited as the
Achilles' heel of the existing
non-democratic order in
the region. It has become a
media truism, for instance,
that 60 percent of Iran's
population of 70 million is
less than 30 years of age, including a substantial cohort born
well after the 1979 revolution. This fact is frequently adduced
to imply that hardline clerical rule has no future.20 In a sign
that such hopes have not faded in Foggy Bottom, the State
Department has lately employed one Jared Cohen, 26, author
of Children of Jihad: A Young Americans Travels Among the
Youth of the Middle East, to advise its policy planning staff on
how to "divert the world's impressionable youth away from
'illicit actors.'" Cohen told a New Yorker profiler: "I always say
that the largest party in every country?the largest opposition
MIDDLE EAST REPORT 245 WINTER 2007 11
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group in every country?is the youth party."21 Yet following
the 2005 election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which
consolidated all the branches of the Iranian government under
conservative control, Iranian youth have largely been relegated
to the role of victim in Western discourse. "Iran's youth are
as talented as young Indians and Chinese, but they have no
chance to show it," the ever quotable Friedman has lamented.
"Iran has been reduced to selling its natural resources to India
and China?so Chinese and Indian youth can invent the future,
while Iran's young people are trapped in the past."22 It is a short
distance from this avuncular solicitude to the proposition that
Iranian youth could reclaim their agency?with a helpful
nudge from outside.
Youth in the Middle East are burdened with authoritarian
states, corruption and nepotism that circumscribe their life
chances, as well as structural socio-economic crisis stem
ming from the failures of state-led development and the
systemic inequalities of global capitalism. Not the least of
their burdens, however, are the expectations and imprecations
generated by the "youth" of the elite imagination. In the
manner of youth everywhere, young Middle Easterners can
be expected to heed the paternalism of their governments and
the projections of outsiders unevenly at best, as they strive to
fulfill their own aspirations, whether they are emancipatory,
mundane or somewhere in between.
Author's Note: Thanks to Lori Allen, Arang Keshavarzian and Paul Silverstein for their helpful
and timely suggestions and comments.
Endnotes
1 Washington Post, November i, 2007.
2 Farzaneh Roudi-Fahimi and Mary Mederios Kent, "Challenges and Opportunities: The
Population of the Middle East and North Africa," Population Bulletin 62/2 (June 2007), p.
15. Future generations can expect to encounter different sorts of problems, given that the
birth rate in many Middle Eastern countries has declined significantly, in some cases close
to European levels.
3 Roxanne Varzi, Warring Souls: Youth, Media and Martyrdom in Post-Revolution Iran (Durham,
NC: Duke University Press, 2006), p. 11.
4 Leyla Neyzi, "Object or Subject? The Paradox of'Youth' in Turkey," International Journal
of Middle East Studies 33/3 (August 2001), p. 420.
5 A mild version of this argument appears in Galal Amin, Whatever Happened to the Egyptians?
(Cairo: Dar al-Hilal, 1998). [Arabic]
6 Brian Clark, "A Cupful of Pride," Saudi Aramco World (September/October 1994).
7 New York Times, October 3, 2002.
8 On this process in Algeria, see Kamel Rarrbo, L'Algerie et sajeunesse: Marginalisations sociales
et desarroi culturel (Paris: Harmattan, 1995).
9 Dick Hebdige, Hiding in the Light (London: Routledge, 1998).
10 Tim Burrowes, "Middle Eastern Promise," Campaign, May 26, 2006.
11 Elliott Colla and Chris Toensing, "Never Too Soon to Say Goodbye to Hi" Middle East
Report Online (May 2003).
12 Neyzi, p. 424.
13 See Walter Armbrust, "What Would Sayyid Qutb Say? Some Reflections on Video Clips,"
Transnational Broadcasting Studies 14 (Spring 2005).
14 Varzi, pp. 21,133,136.
15 Marc Schade-Poulsen, Men and Popular Music in Algeria: The Social Significance ofRai
(Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1999).
16 Kaveh Basmenji, Tehran Blues: How Iranian Youth Rebelled Against Iran's Founding Fathers
(London: Saqi Books, 2005), p. 316.
17 Varzi, p. 166.
18 Neyzi, p. 426.
19 Thomas Friedman, "Buffett and Hizballah's Surprise War," New York Times, August 9,
2006.
20 See, for example, Christian Science Monitor, June 16, 2003.
21 Jesse Lichtenstein, "Condi's Party Starter," New Yorker, November 5, 2007.
22 Thomas Friedman, "A Shah with a Turban," New York Times, December 23, 2005.