Palestine's young people can lead the way
Howard Williamson
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
At the end of January, the Council of Europe held a seminar with the League of Arab States on the development and implementation of youth policy in the Euro-Mediterranean region.
In the context of the recent conflict between Israel and Palestine, one has to wonder how any constructive and purposeful youth policy might take root amid religious fundamentalism, political extremism, military aggression, entrenched hostility and hatred, and death and destruction.
But surely it must. Unless young people in areas of conflict can believe there can be some other way and remain committed to making it more of a reality when they come to hold the reins of power, then all hope is almost certainly lost and the cycles of confrontation and despair go on. Reconciliation and hope may be elusive, but their prospect should never be abandoned.
Some years ago I ran a seminar on The Making of Youth Policy for civil servants and ministers from countries across the world. One of the participants was the youth minister for the Palestinian National Authority. He was a medical doctor by profession who, one day, had been summoned by Yasser Arafat, the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, to be told he was to be the first minister for youth.
The minister had no office, no staff and few resources. He decided to base his responsibilities on a single mission: that the world might slowly start to accept that not every Palestinian wanted to pick up a Kalashnikov and shoot Israelis. To that end, he launched a two-pronged strategy. It involved engaging with the range of international youth networks, first to encourage young people from other countries to visit Palestine (and in particular the Gaza strip); and second, to prepare young Palestinians for more active participation in the international youth agenda.
I recall commenting that the few Palestinian young people I had met conducted themselves very professionally at meetings, taking the whole proceedings exceptionally seriously. He explained that this was because the young people who took part had usually been trained for at least a year ahead of their participation and had been firmly briefed that they had to serve as ambassadors for the Palestinian authority. With the opportunity to travel abroad and forge networks for the future came an enormous burden of responsibility, which young people shouldered impressively. I had many conversations with such young people about the conditions of their lives.
The minister contributed passionately to the seminar and others in the room were moved by what he had achieved with the resources at his disposal. It put the rest of us to shame. He left a day early: Arafat's HQ at Ramallah, where the minister's family lived, was being shelled by the Israelis. Eventually he put his family first, but in our subsequent correspondence, he continued to believe that young people would eventually provide another way.