ammonnews.net

Madeleine Mezagopian - I bid farewell to 2013 while facing an awkward, if not disappointing, experience of being amid exchange of stones and vandalism by youth on the road facing the University of Jordan with the gendarmes trying to control the situation as gently and peacefully as possible. I could have easily been a casualty if the stone that hit the door of my car hit instead the window glass. That specific moment, I could not but recall the images of the streets in Egypt with the Muslim Brotherhood unleashing their followers to explode rather than to revolt and destroy whatever they encounter.

However, I received 2014 amid pleasant peaceful encounters again involving the Jordanian Youth. It was indeed nice surprise to see more of Jordanian youth delivering services in many locations including Total Gas Stations where laborers and administrative staff look handsome in elegant neat uniforms. With great pride, self-confidence and self-respect Hamzeh, an aviation engineer by education and a member of a well-known Jordanian tribe, responded to my inquiry about his perception of his work and the accompanying rights and said

"Through getting engaged in Jordanian youth related activities when even I had the chance to meet the monarch and with the support of my family I overcame culture of shame and accepted to work in this station first pumping gas and now a supervisor. I have good starting salary of 400 JD in addition to other benefits. However what we miss most is the clients preserving our dignity through abandoning their condescending attitude and belittling our work when seeking our services."

Yet another good surprise involving Jordanian youth accompanied the inception of 2014. A young Jordanian pilot, also belonging to a big Jordanian tribe and initiator of Optimal Jordan targeting the gifted youth who need in kind and in cash support to advance in life with self-dignity preserved, expanded the society in support of Jordanian environment together with number of Jordanian youth keen to shoulder their community service responsibilities.

Through these two contradicting phenomena quite rampant in Jordan among the youth with the first embracing violence and the latter adopting constructive attitudes and perceptions, can an indicator of Jordanian Youth Awakening be detected?

Jordanian Youth are getting awakened not only pertinent their rights but also regarding their obligations. And through empowering and expanding the latter phenomenon, youth themselves rather than the security apparatuses will discipline and redirect the remaining youth who are resorting to options alien to our Jordanian peaceful and peace loving society, out of destitution and desperation, not least through imitating behaviors circulated and advocated by some irresponsible media means.

However, the awakening to be able to deliver warrants the awakening of all the parties involved. Hence, the latter phenomenon can be consolidated through the public sector upgrading its performance and responsibility, if not getting occupied by relevant staff, to secure stable and secure investment milieu together with the enforcement and the amendment of relevant labor laws for the labor market to prosper and expand with rights and obligations enhanced. Such enforcement and amendments will guarantee if not force the awakening of the private sector where the employers target equally to increase their profits and the living standards of their employees.

Further, it's time for the local media to also get awakened and resort to its original duty of disseminating facts, knowledge and awareness through highlighting the constructive engagements of the youth in the labor market and in the civil societies and directing the rest of the society to support these tendencies through exhibiting respect, appreciation and encouragement.

And given local societies are rarely disconnected from the outside world through foreign investors and foreign funding agencies, inter alia, awakening must also reach these entities to further extend their support to the Jordanian youth through engaging them more in their activities whether as laborers, employees or recipients of their support as members of civil societies.

This said, it becomes self-evident the awakening must move from being merely a Jordanian Youth Awakening to Global Awakening with the Arab Youth in general acting as the target and the driving force for this awakening.