Enabling right choices

This year’s World Economic Forum, held on the Dead Sea shore, brought together over 1,100 political and business leaders from over 50 countries.

Addressing it, HRH Crown Prince Hussein talked about the aspirations and accomplishments of Arab youth who want a fair chance to be heard and make a difference.

In a touching, pithy speech, the Prince talked about the hopes of young people in this region, whose “unique” characteristic is “a yearning and thirst that I have not seen anywhere else”, engendered, “perhaps” by the fact that “our dire circumstances make us cling more tightly to hope”.

But for them to have “ opportunity, access and hope”, the youth need a “region-wide support system”, one that could be guaranteed by collective global will and constructive partnerships.

Growing up in a world of rapid change, “for young people everywhere, including those who form the large majority in my region, transformation is the reality we were born into. For us, continuous innovation is part of the rhythm of life. We grew up embracing new technologies, apps, and processes that give us new ways to connect, learn and work. Constant change is our status quo”, said the Prince eloquently, underscoring the power of adaptation to change, but also the vast capability, when given the right education and possibilities, young people have to invent, innovate and become driving engines of progress and economic growth.

But in this same world of change and technological development, also lurks danger, and if not aware, if not equipped to discern correctly, the youth could be led astray.

“Like young people everywhere, the youth of the Middle East is living in this vast sea of change, but the region’s particular waters are characterised by two opposing currents. Both are forceful and potent, but each is pulling us towards drastically different shores,” Prince Hussein said, wisely encapsulating a reality many fail to see.

In the absence of education, hope and adequate support, the youth may be drawn towards “a dark reality” of violence, intolerance and regression, “through the corrosive power of an extremist ideology”.

When wise and aware, which comes from education and an inquisitive mind whose thirst for knowledge is quenched by sensible teachers, young people can be transported to “sunnier shores, where moderation sees our Muslim and Arab identities at peace with modernity and progress, a reality where we can be productive and positive contributors to the world around us”.

The choice is for the youth to make, but leaving it in their hands alone, without assistance and guidance from the older generation and policy makers, could be risky. 

And here the role of world leaders is important; where they need to lend their support — moral, financial, political — to create the conditions that enable the youth to make the right choices.