Young people of the Arab world overwhelmingly reject the violent and nihilistic thinking coming from Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) and like-minded groups who offer a similar narrow view based on hatred and extremism.
The vast majority of people who live in the Arab world know this from their own daily experience of meeting friends and acquaintances, but it is hard to explain this to sceptical viewers outside the region who see regular news footage of young men marching behind black flags shouting slogans in support of Daesh.
This is why the findings of the eighth annual Asda’a Burson-Marsteller Arab Youth Survey carry such importance. They are a snapshot of what the 200 million young Arabs aged between 18 to 24 years think about their world and their society, and they offer a far more realistic and exciting picture than the grim news of war and anarchy.
Half of the respondents said that the rise of Daesh was the biggest obstacle facing the Middle East, which rated this current political phenomenon as more important for now than their underlying long-term concerns, which include unemployment, civil unrest and the rising cost of living.
It is also important that the pollsters pushed hard to check the young people’s rejection of Daesh, and asked a further question on whether they would support the ideas promulgated by the group if the organisation used less violence. There was a resounding 78 per cent rejection of the idea of supporting Daesh and its ideas in any form, and a further 76 per cent thought that Daesh will ultimately fail to establish an Islamic state in the Arab world.
These findings will resonate throughout the Middle East and encourage the forces trying re-establish the rule of law and the rule of national governments committed to the betterment of their people. They will also resonate across the home states of the members of the international coalitions fighting Daesh in Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere around the region. It will be very encouraging for a European head of government committing troops to fight in the Arab world to know that their sacrifices and efforts are in line with the aspirations of the next generation, and will be appreciated in the years to come.
Young Arabs are keenly aware that improving their economic situation plays an important part in the fight against Daesh. This was illustrated by the way they thought that the most important reason for any young Arab to be attracted to Daesh was a lack of jobs and opportunities. The young Arabs polled did not think that the main reason to join Daesh was because it offered the right theological message, or to quote any sectarian loyalties, although both possibilities were part of the survey.
Purely political reasons
This rather humdrum answer to why people join Daesh was also expanded by a commentary by Hassan Hassan of the Tahrir Institute who commented in the survey that the hard-core believers in Daesh are very few. He sees much larger groups of Daesh members as including many naive religious youngsters who are being brainwashed into their activism, and many other individuals who join for purely political reasons because Daesh may dominate their area or may be fighting a government that they bitterly oppose.
Forty seven per cent of the young Arabs polled thought that sectarian relations have worsened in the past five years. But it was encouraging that the Arab Youth Survey linked this observation of a fact with an opinion expressed by 72 per cent of young Arabs that the sectarian divide has a significant negative impact on the region, with 20 of the 72 per cent saying that it is the primary cause of unrest.
This offers the important conclusion that young Arabs are aware that the sectarian divide is a problem, so therefore there could be substantial support from the people for any effort to reduce the divide. And at the very least the answer makes clear that the vast majority of young Arabs do not have theological or personal reasons to support the Sunni-Shiite divide, which will give comfort to the religious leaders who are reaching out to try and mend the growing split.
In previous surveys, the young Arabs polled had aspirations to make their societies more transparent with more democracy. This hope remains, but given the current chaos in the region is it not surprising that just over half the youth polled agreed with the suggestion that promoting stability is more important than promoting democracy.
This search for stability is accompanied by a steady fall in optimism since the Arab ‘Spring’ of 2011. In the midst of the excitement in 2012, 72 per cent of young people thought the Arab world was better off after the changes triggered in 2011. Ever since then this rating has steadily fallen to this year, in which only 36 per cent felt that the Arab world had progressed since the revolutions of 2011.
The 2016 Arab Youth Survey had more political answers than its predecessors, but this is a reflection of the aspirations of the vast majority of the 200 million young Arabs between 18 and 24 years old, who want to have a stable society in which they can get on with shaping their own lives and fulfilling their personal ambitions.
