Islam and the West… for a better world @
world. 60 % of the population of the Muslim world are under the age of 25. Who is their partner in cooperation? What are their dreams of life? We do not know sufficiently about the mind-set of these young people who will be determining the future of relations. We came to the conclusion that the young people as cooperation partners deserved much more political attention than it is the case at the moment. Unfortunately in Arab states systematic research into issues relevant to Youth was hardly heard of, also, centralistic structures and bureaucracies made research often into a frustrating experience. However, it is important to know what the young generation is thinking and what their aspirations are. Our main projects therefore try to bring Youth as a political partner-group into stronger focus. The little we know about Middle Eastern youths we have found in relevant UN-documentations. It might also be a good idea, and this is where we are looking for support to ask the UNDP initiated Arab Human Development Reports to devote one of their next reports to this issue. Out of the same motivation we are looking into joint projects targeting the review of school books in which we have already entered into an active cooperation with ALESCO – the cultural organisation of the Arab League and the Council of Europe. Also the Arab League in Cairo and German experts in this field are working closely together. If we want to achieve better understanding and tolerance we have to refrain from preaching hatred or giving stereotyped pictures of the other as the enemy. Germany has good experience in this field due to comparable projects with France and Poland. Due to the high level of frustration and the perception of a total lack of justice in international, but also sometimes in internal relations many angry young males have a tendency to reject the existing political parties and engage in radical Islamic groups. We have to admit that politically many Islamists play an active role in the social transformation process that we consider indispensable to reverse the trend of a Muslim world falling behind. But radical groups are uncompromising and dogmatic. It is not easy
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