A Dangerous Time Bomb

The population of Iran and the Arab world is growing at a dizzying rate. Peter Philipp says that, if these young people are to be offered a perspective as they storm into the job market, the West must help in promoting the economic development of these countries.

The former Iranian president Mohamad Khatami used to promise repeatedly to reduce unemployment in his country and create up to 800,000 jobs a year. He failed: unemployment in Iran is estimated at between thirty and forty percent, and, every year, almost another million young people try to find their place in the already limited job market.

With over sixty percent of Iran's population under 35 years old, that makes for a dangerous potential. And it may well be that the Islamist hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the recent presidential elections because his promise of help, justice and above all work for the poor appealed to this potential.

Iran is no exception in the Middle East. The Arab states also suffer from the fact that their young populations are growing at a dizzying pace, but without the prospect of employment. In most of the countries, the economy is stagnant and education is inadequate.

In the second half of the twentieth century the population of the Arab world quadrupled from 75 million in 1950 to 300 million in 2000, and there is no end to this development in sight. Prince Hassan of Jordan warns that the population could double once more in the next 25 years.

Six hundred million people without adequate income or education make up an extremely dangerous time bomb—dangerous not just for their various regimes. (Damage to them, bearing in mind their lack of democratic legitimacy, would not be a cause of great regret.)

Such a mass of discontent is also dangerous for other regions of the world. It provides a huge and inexhaustible reservoir for demagogues and terrorists, who, like Osama bin Laden, can turn frustration and discontent into enmity and hate against the West.

The rest of the world has little chance of preventing such a development on its own. But Europe and the West should work harder to push for an improvement in the economic development of the countries of the Middle East, so that more jobs can be created.

They should also push for an improvement in educational opportunities in the region, especially for women. The more education women have, the more they are prepared to do to slow down the population explosion. In Yemen, for example, only 20% of women use contraception. In Egypt the figure is 56% and in Iran it is as high as 73%.

The situation can only begin to improve slowly when these fundamental preconditions have been fulfilled. But it will remain a difficult process which will only come about in conjunction with a democratisation of the region.

Democracy on its own will be of as little use to the people as education or employment on their own. It has to be a combination of all three. And it is clear that the people of the region cannot reach these targets on their own. Nor can the governments, nor for that matter can the rest of the world. All three have to work together. The problem of the growing population of Iran and the Arab world affects them all.

Peter Philipp

Translation from German: Michael Lawton

Qantara.de

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