The Dispossessed Generation

Ammon

5 days ago

The book 'The Dispossessed Generation: Youth in the Middle East and North Africa', prepared by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and recently published in Arabic by Dar Al Saqi, stands as a highly important and alarming research and analytical document. Its significance lies not only in presenting an accurate, data-driven portrait of Arab youth, but also in documenting a profound transformation in the relationship between this generation and its societies and states—a transformation that unfolded in the decade following a period of great hope, followed by defeat, and then exclusion.
The choice of the term 'the Dispossessed generation' in the book's title is far from arbitrary. It reflects what can be described as structural deprivation—a pattern of exclusion that is not tied to a temporary political or economic circumstance, but to a deep-seated system that continually reproduces itself. This is the generation that, a decade ago, carried slogans of freedom, justice, and dignity, believing it stood on the threshold of a new era of liberties and democracy. Today, it finds itself facing a reality that is more closed and harsher than before.
For most of these young people, the Arab Spring ended in double frustration: failure to achieve the major goals, and a worsening of the very crises they sought to resolve. The COVID-19 pandemic then deepened this frustration—economic activity stalled, unemployment rose, job opportunities shrank, and poverty indicators climbed. The uncertainty that the first surveys of the Ebert project identified five years ago has solidified into a persistent sense of blockage and fear of the future.
In this context, the analysis presented through David Harvey's theoretical lens gains special relevance. According to Harvey, deprivation is not measured by the absence of resources per se, but by the presence of structural barriers that prevent individuals from accessing them—even if they exist. These barriers can be unjust laws, biased economic policies, or closed networks of interests that monopolize resources. In the Arab case, this structure manifests as a complex system of exclusion: a limited labor market concentrated in saturated or monopolized sectors, educational systems that fail to equip students with the needed skills, political opportunities that are almost entirely closed to genuine participation, and the absence of effective social safety nets. The result is a generation trapped—not because it lacks ambition or competence, but because it faces a system that prevents it from translating its abilities into reality.
The gap between dreams and imagination on one hand, and the pressures of reality on the other, becomes even starker when viewed through Amartya Sen's concept of development as the ability to act and choose. Arab youth today, as the report's data reveals, lack this capability: they are not free to choose their way of life or future, but are instead forced to adapt to narrow options dictated by reality.
More troubling still is that a growing number of young people are losing faith in democracy as a path to solutions, leaning instead toward the 'strongman' model that promises quick stability—even at the cost of freedoms. Yet this is a dangerous equation, for the absence of freedoms, social justice, and job opportunities is precisely what breeds instability and fuels social unrest.
The report, which reflects the views of 12,000 young Arabs across 12 Arab countries and societies, warns that the deprived generation, if left to its fate, will seek exits outside the existing system: irregular migration on 'death boats,' joining extremist groups, or retreating into the worlds of drugs and addiction. These are not theoretical possibilities but trends confirmed by the survey data, which show how frustration intersects with feelings of alienation from society and a lack of trust in institutions.
While Arab states and societies are not identical in the scale or intensity of this crisis, nearly every country has its own story of a generation that feels its basic rights have been confiscated, living in an environment that prevents it from achieving self-realization. Differences in detail do not erase the existence of a shared structural danger that transcends borders and threatens the region's long-term stability.
We are facing a reality more perilous than that which preceded the Arab Spring—not only because of eroding trust or deepening crises, but because we are dealing with an entire generation that feels broken and suspended, with its future confiscated before it could even begin. And if this reality is not enough to awaken those in power, then what awaits us may be even more severe than anything described in the report.