The average Jordanian is 22 years old, consumes JD 250 per month and is 70% likely to be unemployed
Lining the streets of Amman on any given evening, are scores of hapless young men watching people, cars and life go by. They will sometimes attempt to go to the Mall, in order to watch people, particularly women, go by. In this case, even if their pockets permit, the security guard at the door (presumably once a young man himself) will not. If they can afford an evening out, to the movies or a coffee shop, a strange phenomenon comes into play. It is akin to Russian roulette, and no one knows who will come out alive. This also holds true for places, which should, by definition, be public and free.
If you are a young man in Amman, the unwritten guidelines that govern your access to places in our city seem to revolve around: Your overall “look”: hair product, brand of jeans; the amount of money you are estimated to carry; your presumed place of habitation; the likelihood your father is “important”; chances of you belonging to the same town as the guard.
Funnier still is the “couples” or “cubbles” policy, which requires young men to bring along young women in order to access restaurants and coffee shops, in a bid to protect women from harassment and uphold the “conservative” nature of our society. Need I point out the irony in that?
Left with such limited options, the young men of Amman choose quiet residential areas, or “happening” neighborhoods, or long stretches of road to spend their evenings. Their activities range from smoking, sitting, standing, carrying a laptop high in the air in the hopes of catching a signal, car-racing, drinking (when funds permit) and littering.
When there is a football match, between anyone and anyone really, and anyone wins, it is a free for all. Traffic is blocked and the honking is deafening. Young men dangle out of street windows, driving at breakneck speeds, waving flags and showing us what they are really capable of.
I may be wrong of course, and these young men could be hatching plots for world domination, developing strategies to resolve Amman’s transportation problem, or thinking of ways to end world-hunger. Given our public “educational” system, however, which operates on the brilliant threefold strategy of rote-learning, physical and mental abuse, and automatic promotion, this is highly doubtful. In any case, we will probably never know what young men talk about, because they are not allowed into the places we go.
The hardworking among them do not fare much better. On their way home from their jobs after a day at university, and an evening waiting tables at a restaurant or café, they are stopped several times for their IDs and treated with pre-determined suspicion, particularly if they happen to head in the direction of Ras il-Ain.
And what of the country’s young women? They have marginally better schools, and are allowed into all public and private spaces, but only a minority has the freedom of mobility to access such spaces. They are subject to the harassment of young men, when they happen to catch a glimpse of them on the street. The “do no evil” approach to women also means they often “do no good.” They graduate university in higher numbers than men, and with better grades, and then magically disappear from the marketplace, almost without a trace. Greatly disadvantaged, no doubt, by a culture that still holds young women responsible for upholding a family’s honor, so that she is the culprit, even when she is the victim.
Young women who are abused by family members are forced to spend years incarcerated in state-run “homes” for their own protection, while their victimizers are free to live with their families and roam the streets. When a group of abused girls tried to break out of the institution they were held in last year, they were accused of “lawlessness and destruction of public property.” Their demand was a simple one: They wanted to be able to go home and see their families.
Which brings me swiftly to the supposed “solutions”, which in my opinion are really at the heart of the “problem”. I cannot tell you the number of times, over the past 15 years working in development, that I have heard the statement “we have to do something about young men or else they might end up being terrorists” or “we need to find a solution for the problem of young people because they might turn to crime” or “If we’re not careful, we’ll have a lot of unwanted pregnancies on our hands”. We put ex-military people at the head of youth organizations and watch while they practice a policy of “containment” at best, and at worst churn out mini government bureaucrats with ugly suits and egos to match.
There is no shortage of examples in Jordan of the incredible things that young people are capable of. From citizen journalists, to inventors, to changemakers, to musicians, to artists, to entrepreneurs - young people are doing those things my generation could only dream about when we were their age. Around the Arab world, young people are changing their futures and taking their fate into their own hands. In light of all that, we may want to consider a new approach to our very own “mama3eet” or upstarts as one of our “representatives” has called them. I believe we owe them some respect.
It is not always easy to defend our sometimes-wayward youth. They annoy us all at times with their lewd remarks and lack of consideration for others, but we cannot build a society on the basis of exclusion and containment and we have to ask ourselves why they act this way to begin with. My defense of Jordan’s youth is also based on what I have witnessed in terms of accomplishments and transformations by young people who have had the opportunity to follow their passion, and whose efforts and ideas met with respect and support.
In a recent study by the University of Southern California, Stanford and the Kellogg School of Management, scientists discovered that individuals who have power without status have a tendency to engage in activities that demean others. Their study concluded that “the combination of some authority and little perceived status can be a toxic combination.” This explains the behavior of the government clerk who makes you run around unnecessarily to process your paperwork, or makes you come back the next day because he/she is on his break. It goes some way to explaining the behavior of the security apparatus, now that they feel respect for their status is diminishing. It also explains the way in which young men use their power to disturb the peace or control their sisters, knowing they can do it, and knowing they have nothing to lose, not even our respect.
@basemaggad think thats “if we don't treat the herds of youth as copy paste sexually-deprived animals with a dignity deficit, then maybe just maybe they'll act like civilized members of society, or at worse, they will act just like everyone else.”
While @robaassi believes that the answer lies in "Co-ed education. For one thing, women are likely to be better teachers because of society's insistence on teaching not being a lofty career path for talented, intelligent men. And if boys grow up to think of women as classmates, as peers, as colleagues, as teachers, and as friends, the artificial, almost magically mysterious quality of women will be slowly weeded out."
@Nadinetoukan agrees by saying “I believe we ought to abolish education segregation, kingdom-wide, overnight; females and males need to grow up together with trust and respect so that we quilt a new social safety net in our community.” She takes things further by suggesting that “We ought to cease all 'no single males' entrance policies, and penalize people who violate this openness, rather than the current policy of forbidden for all of them first because of a few bad men. And we need to figure out ways to shed the culture of burdening males with the unequal responsibility of having to be the provider and savior of family; something we practice inherently, which breaks males as they grow up, and consequently breaks an entire society. It's time for women to lead in Jordan to create a healthier common ground for gender and society at large.”
A commentator who prefers to remain anonymous says “I believe this issue is symptomatic of a paternalistic society, giving youth much more free time than someone in their twenties probably should have. Because of the nature of our family units, the individual does not become responsible for himself, or anyone else, until several years into his/her marriage. He/she remains the beneficiary of over-caring, over-powering parents and grandparents, that cater to most of that person's essential needs in the mistaken belief that this is the best way to express their love. To revolutionize society, you have to start with its most basic unit, the family.”
From her perspective, @sandrahiari believes that "One solution can be the reversal of the current behavioral trend of disintegration. By integrating the secluded population of young single men, and allowing them to mix and mingle in spaces that ought to uphold their status of being 'public', they get used to seeing what other people see and experience. After a while, a sense of familiarity with the other is assumed. At that point, both the stereotype that is created about them and the stereotype that they create about those who deny them access, is shattered."
While @mobaidat suggests “malls and some cafes think that barring young men will prevent trouble, but they are actually making things worse. When young men discriminated against, it makes some of them want to create an unconformable atmosphere for others. We are creating a wider gap between the genders, and preventing the creation of needed mutual understanding between them. In the future, the same young men who were not allowed into these places will attend universities and work environments where genders mix. Can we expect men and women to understand and respect each other when they are both are discriminated against in their own ways?”
@Farahghniem's opinion is that "as a society, if we have to resort to containment strategies in order to 'exist', then what we will encounter 5, 10 years from now will be much worse than dudes following girls at the mall and verbally harassing them. That said, I think inclusion should be regulated. The rules should be very clearly stated and disciplinary action for violating them should also be very clearly stated and implemented. Containment does not yield a healthy society. It just yields more angry and outraged young people who are bound to explode, at some point."
What do you think are possible solutions to one of the most pressing social issues of our times?
