TUNIS // When the Arab Spring was born, it had a young face. On the streets of Sidi Bouzid, then Tunis, then Cairo, Benghazi, and beyond, it was 20- and 30-somethings who hit the pavement to demand change in the face of tear gas and bullets.
They were lauded as a new, internet-savvy generation fed up with the archaic dictators of the past.
But 10 months later, the revolution has aged. In the first democratic election since the turmoil began, Tunisia has elected a greying political class. More than half the candidates for the new Constituent Assembly to draft a new Constitution over the next year were over 46. And the leaders of the three most successful parties are all over 65. Two of these men lived in exile in France for 20 years, removed from the hard reality that spurred revolution.
It's often said revolutions eat their young, but rarely has it been such a feast. On the streets of Tunis and across the Middle East, the young revolutionaries have been taken aback. A movement that spread on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube is today being run by a generation that lived without computers most of their lives. Now, if the Arab Spring fails to incorporate the younger generation, it could meet the fate that so many revolutions do - leaving out those who first sparked change.
"The people on the streets in January all went back to their normal lives because other people came back from Paris and started talking on behalf of 'the people'," argues Moez Ali, a founder of the newly-created Union of Independent Tunisians for Liberty. "We who made the revolution were not organised to keep control of it."
"It was a missed chance with liberty," agrees Raouf Raissi, a human-rights activist and an independent newspaper publisher who believes the revolution has been merely in name. He believes one corrupt political class — that of ousted President Zide El Abidine Ben Ali — has simply been replaced by another ageing, self-interested cadre. "Those who marched for liberty became its orphans."
In many ways, the young revolutionaries were never a match for the organisation that older parties boasted by the time the barriers of dictatorship fell. When Ben Ali fled, parties such as Ettakatol immediately kicked their underground political machinery into gear. Exiled leaders began coming home from years abroad organising a political class-in-waiting and an abundance of funds.
No one was better prepared for a homecoming than Rached Ghannouchi, the 71-year-old leader of the moderate Islamist party, Ennahda, which won the most votes and 41 per cent of the seats on October 23. His party was equipped with resources that, by all appearances, dwarfed any of his nearest competitors. And it used them. The party produced media material that would impress even the slickest western campaigns. Fluent translators offered broadcasts of Arabic news conferences in French and English better than the election commission's.
"(Ennahda is) present in every small town with even a few houses," says Khaled Houssein, a project coordinator at the Centre of Arab Woman Training and Research, who toured the countryside in the weeks before the election.
That institutionalism appealed to many voters - even young ones - who by October had been living for months without any such stability to cling to. No independent parties had ever run Tunisia but at least Ennahda had several decades of running itself.
"Ennahda is not a young party," says Aymen Brayek, a university student and party youth organiser. "It was the party who said no to Ben Ali and refused all forms of corruption (under his regime)."
Yet while Ennahda retains legitimacy for its history of resistance to Ben Ali, there have been more extreme cases of the revolution being co-opted as well. A party run by Hechmi Haamdi, a media mogul who spent the past two decades living in London and who failed to return home even to campaign, won a surprising 39 of 217 seats in the assembly.
His victory can almost certainly be attributed to the Tunisian expatriate TV channel, Al Mustakillah, which allowed him to reach voters in places and at times other candidates weren't allowed or couldn't afford to. However, Haamdi was found in violation of regulations and several of his party's seats have been cancelled.
In the face of such organised politicking, the revolutionary machinery that first brought protesters onto the streets fractured.
"The January 14 movement is today divided," laments Nargh Aname, a 27-year-old who participated in the revolution but who says his peers have scattered into various political camps.
For those who couldn't bear to be swallowed by an existing party or ideology, apathy often followed, says Ali of the Union of Independent Tunisians for Liberty. "Most of the youth don't know who they voted for. They don't know the parties and they don't trust the parties, which are saying the same thing we have heard for decades. We need to see action before we start believing in them."
In recent weeks, and particularly ahead of Tunisia's vote, the emerging political class has begun to worry about cutting off the youth — and their vote.
"The young are the last ones to think about politics right now," says Abdelfattah Mourou, a founding member of Ennahda who ran as an independent.
Indeed, if for no other reason than their numbers, Tunisia's new leaders will have to find a way to bring the young on board.
Forty per cent of the population is under 24, according to United Nations data. What's more, their economic conditions are more desperate than their elders. The African Development Bank says unemployment for university graduates skyrocketed from just under five per cent in 1994 to 20 per cent by 2010 - even as overall unemployment hovered around 15 per cent.
They are also the group most likely to come onto the streets again if the revolution heads off track.
After all, this was their revolution.
"Only two words were respected after the 14th of January: democracy and revolution," recalls Raissi. "The words felt full of substance. Now we have a demcracy of thieves."
foreign.desk@thenational.ae
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WWE TLC results
Asuka won the SmackDown Women's title in a TLC triple threat with Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair
Dean Ambrose won the Intercontinental title against Seth Rollins
Daniel Bryan retained the WWE World Heavyweight Championship against AJ Styles
Ronda Rousey retained the Raw Women's Championship against Nia Jax
Rey Mysterio beat Randy Orton in a chairs match
Finn Balor defeated Drew McIntyre
Natalya beat Ruby Riott in a tables match
Braun Strowman beat Baron Corbin in a TLC match
Sheamus and Cesaro retained the SmackDown Tag Titles against The Usos and New Day
R-Truth and Carmella won the Mixed Match Challenge by beating Jinder Mahal and Alicia Fox
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
About Okadoc
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Children who witnessed blood bath want to help others
Aged just 11, Khulood Al Najjar’s daughter, Nora, bravely attempted to fight off Philip Spence. Her finger was injured when she put her hand in between the claw hammer and her mother’s head.
As a vital witness, she was forced to relive the ordeal by police who needed to identify the attacker and ensure he was found guilty.
Now aged 16, Nora has decided she wants to dedicate her career to helping other victims of crime.
“It was very horrible for her. She saw her mum, dying, just next to her eyes. But now she just wants to go forward,” said Khulood, speaking about how her eldest daughter was dealing with the trauma of the incident five years ago. “She is saying, 'mama, I want to be a lawyer, I want to help people achieve justice'.”
Khulood’s youngest daughter, Fatima, was seven at the time of the attack and attempted to help paramedics responding to the incident.
“Now she wants to be a maxillofacial doctor,” Khulood said. “She said to me ‘it is because a maxillofacial doctor returned your face, mama’. Now she wants to help people see themselves in the mirror again.”
Khulood’s son, Saeed, was nine in 2014 and slept through the attack. While he did not witness the trauma, this made it more difficult for him to understand what had happened. He has ambitions to become an engineer.
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Election pledges on migration
CDU: "Now is the time to control the German borders and enforce strict border rejections"
SPD: "Border closures and blanket rejections at internal borders contradict the spirit of a common area of freedom"
The five pillars of Islam
2025 Fifa Club World Cup groups
Group A: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.
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