Written by: Awni Al-Tawil

“Age is not made politically.” It is not a phrase that needs to be promoted. Rather, we need to search with our thoughts for a way to impose it on our reality and not only theorize about it. Inour country, young people are usually excluded as political candidates because the field of politics in our country is seen as a space for experienced men only. Senior politician is send to be more experienced but this artificial theory must be confronted. What makes politics is the vital ideas, the broadening of perceptions closeness to the public, and the insight into understanding their needs and thoughts. So, management and youth are the greatest recipes for success in any country. We need to manage our country, not to rule it, and we will come to this in our next article.

The world has made progress in this aspect and is still struggling. Reflecting on history, when Napoleon Bonaparte had the power as the first elected president of the French Republic in1848, he was 40 years old. Who among us or our children has not read about or known this young emperor? In our modern history, Emmanuel Macron came to compete for his title as the youngest president in the history of France, and Macron became the youngest French president at the age of 39.

There are only five presidents in the world today who do not exceed the age of forty. As for the ministers and members of parliaments in those countries, they are many who do. The old continent in terms of population is the young continent in terms of rulers. As for the Arabs, their leaders are young people. The decision to rule them was linked to many factors other than the will of the people. We either agreed or disagreed with their personalities, such as inheritance in monarchies, and some of them came to power in republican Arab countries. However, this has nothing to do with their entitlement as young people who persevered and struggled to create their seat themselves. Rather, it was in the manner of convincing succession. I will present to you a clear example: Lebanon. Many officials assumed the political leadership in their youth, such as Walid Jumblatt and Suleiman Franjieh, and now Saad Hariri, as a patriarchal family legacy. The current political scene presents a similar picture of the arrival of deputies and ministers, their political roles remained hidden, but their affiliation with political families, opened the way for them. The situation was also conveyed in some Arab series, the latest of which is the entitled “Five and a half”.This is our case in the Middle East. In the North, however, the view of the traditional leader has begun to recede in front of the changes of the modern era, the time of space flights, the nuclear threat, espionage, electronic piracy and social networks. This is an era led by young people behind a computer or mobile screen.

The richest people in the world today are young people. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Tesla founder Elon Musk, and not to forget the owner of Facebook, Tik Tok and Google. For this reason, young people are at the front of the stage. This is not just because of their age. If adolescents rule Arab countries with their sterile policies that have not changed for decades, they will remain as they are. In Arab countries, there is a need to invent a new method of governance that keeps pace with the modern world, and only young people are capable to do that.

When young people present the list of the richest people in the world, it is because they were able to manage themselves first and then manage the world through the technologies. They imposed to change the course of communication between people. This means that a country that does not contribute to its rule through young people is a country that looks to the past more than the future.

In Palestine, youth institutions are plenty but the percentage of political participation in them is often reduced to zero. We have 372 youth institutions but despite the vitality and abundance of these institutions, they did not live up to the challenges and aspirations of the expanding youth in Palestinian society. Are they just programs that fulfill the conditions of the financier without following up on the resulting effect? Is it required that the young man continue to demand and search in the circle of claims so that he or she knows all rights well? At that time, hopes are shattered and a defeatist generation begins to rise with a desire to take revenge on the same politics, after wanting to participate.

Young people’s role is to lead the stages of liberation and then fight battles for democracy, but when picking the fruits, they are asked to carry the bags in which the fruits fall without being allowed to wither. They are only required to be satisfied by inhaling its scent from afar. In our country, young people are used as tools in the hands of leaders. Traditionalists exploit them for their own benefit even though the Palestinian youth did what they could to advance their society by standing in the face of all the storms and fighting battles with the occupation. In any movement for democracy and in the very end, young people pave the way for others. They have to sow and others can reap.

This is one of the reasons for our regression. The argument of requiring the association of experience with age is an outdated idea that only those who want their people to look under their feet adhere to. Guevara becomes a symbol of the revolution that a young man led and left with a bullet ending his life. This still did not end his inspiration for a future generation that is panned until now…

The world’s view of young people has changed; especially in Europe. European parliaments have been filled with them. It is no longer surprising to see a thirty-year-old president of France or leading Great Britain. Young people there insisted on picking the fruits themselves and not just carrying bags to collect them.

The opinions expressed in this article are the views of the author and not necessarily the opinion of the Association or donor.