The United Arab Emirates is a young nation and a young community. Citizens and migrants are all of young age. Youth is a distinctive feature of the Emirati scene. Hence; Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Military’s Supreme Commander Deputy, his Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s strong attention to the youth comes as no surprise. The youth is the ‘United House’ mainstay that represents an immunity to our nation in the face of challenges and potential strategic threats.
According to official statements, UAE young people make 50% of the total population. Because UAE races time and leaves no room for luck in a globally fierce competition, it decided to appoint a Youth Affairs Minister in her early twenties. The Emirates Youth Council and its academically and professionally qualified cadre members of youth are worthy of admiration and appreciation, while the average age of eight ministers chosen to join the line-up of the current government is only 38 years.
The Youth are also given special attention from the wise leadership of the Emirates as most governmental efforts and plans target the youth essentially, either in sectors of education and scientific research, or in housing and job creation. Even traffic and road networks’ policies target preserving the lives of young people and protecting them from road accidents.
The Youth then enjoy a vital value in the Emirates’ leadership system. The matter concerns the country’s future. The adoption of serious plans for the auspice of young people is one of EAU’s strong assets in this perspective. No resonant slogans or senseless banners are deployed to delude people; only serious, genuine and fruitful work to build the future is counted, a future that means the youth: The youth is the future’s synonym.
In connection to the above, his Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan stressed the need to invest the youth’s free time in activities that could benefit them best and strengthen their abilities to enhance the development process. His Highness’ call reflects a thorough and responsible understanding of the youth’s variables and circumstances in one hand, and reveals the reality of the contemporary world on the other hand. The creation and programming of communication channels and dialogue between generations, particularly among the youth and societies are the most difficult challenges that contemporary societies are faced with.
The difficulty of this challenge lies in internet’s current influx of ideas in all fields. Many of these ideas contradict our cultural and societal specificities, others contain extreme ideological propaganda as an attempt to either polarize and recruit young people from various Arab and Muslim communities to terrorist organizations’ ranks, or at least gain their sympathy with the subversive ideology of these organizations through more than a thousand websites containing extremist propaganda that promotes violence thinking directly or indirectly.
It is commonly known that the UAE is a global leader in the adoption of the smart e-government concept; it has taken proactive steps to reach the ranks of leading nations in the digital transformation domain. UAE’s large human base of internet and smart communication means’ users makes it important to immunize our young people in our confrontation of targeted phishing schemes manipulated by criminals and terrorists around the clock on the internet, in addition to the Emirates actual need of its children especially the youth in order to participate in the development and modernization of our country, after having gone beyond the construction phase. We have been engaged in a competitive race for creativity, innovation and global excellence in various sectors.
Our young people are our genuine fortune should not be considered a mere talk; it is backed with tangible facts and proofs that render it credible. Everyone realizes our human capital’s scarcity compared to entrants participating in the country’s comprehensive development process. Hence, we ensure that every one of our citizens is taken care of just as we ensure that this country’s future is secure. Citizens, both males and females, are for us branches in our future tree. They are the source of our dreams; we know that we cannot bid on ‘quality’ if we lack ‘quantity’. We invest in our citizens to strengthen their competitiveness and qualify them to attain maximum levels of performance in different work and production fields in a way that could offset the shortage in the human capital. Our young people are the Emirates ‘beating heart’, as his Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan said lately in a tweet he posted on the social network ‘Twitter’ on the occasion of Youth International Day, ‘We salute the young people of our country, they are aware of the responsibility that lays on their shoulders. They are our permanent bet.’
Betting on the youth is a perfect idea. This idea is frequent in our Arab and Muslim countries but absent in real life-situations. However; in the Emirates, the bet translates into actions and concrete plans that pave the way to existence through a number of instructions and guidance with regard to the empowerment of the youth. The youth lead the Emirates scene in many of its manifestations. Young people are now occupying high profile positions in sectors that were limited to the elderly such as the diplomatic sector and other areas. Confidence in the UAE’s youth is a truth and not only slogans as I mentioned. What boosts this confidence is that young potentials holding such responsibilities were earnestly qualified after receiving a quality education which saved them years that some needed to get to a certain level of awareness and gain the required experience and competence to take such positions.
We realize that one of the important challenges facing our country in its way to global competitiveness lies in effective and successful harmony between our cultural and values specificity on the one hand, and our desire to continue our progress and modernization plans on the other hand. Here comes the importance of his Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s comments on the need to take care of young people in summer vacations and other holidays. We are in a constant race with time, we are in an urgent need to fortify the collective consciousness of these young people and provide them with critical thinking tools which will enable them to fend off alienation, violence and extremism waves, in addition to what they learn from periods of their involvement in the digital world.
‘Whoever wishes to succeed needs to be hopeful in a better future. We have to remain positive and learn from the experiences of others.’ This was his Highness, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s message to a delegation of young Emiratis. It is a message of hope that millions of young people need in many regions in our Arab and Islamic world. Hope is indeed a lifeline for millions suffering of frustration and despair. Let us all be positive and take the UAE’s experience as an example in the importance it gives to its youth.
