It's The Youth, Stupid

Those who have invested their faith in religious fundamentalism know well that they are directed to "go forth and multiply". Not necessarily through indoctrinating others in the fine points of their religious beliefs. But by having babies, lots of them. In religious communities women are invariably kept fairly confined; their job is to bear the young and raise them. The greater the number of children the prouder they can be that they have heeded the covenant obeying God's will.

Woman's value is seen in her breeding capacity. In Islam, as in any other fundamentalist form of religion, women are urged to understand their respected place within the community. As a faithful adherent to her religious belief, as a dutiful and fecund wife, as a nurturing mother. The perfect formula to ensure that the world will not run out of a youth demographic. Which goes a long way to explaining just how and why it is that in those countries of the world that are majority Muslim there's a lot of kids.

In a country like Canada, a wealthy democracy with a population of 33.8-million, women are forgetting about the fundamentals of child-bearing. The population is barely replacing itself. Population growth is highly dependent on immigration to ensure a large enough workforce exists to fill all the employment needs of that vast country. And, in Canada, the under-30 population stands at 36% of the entire population. Conversely, there is unemployment, but it is still manageable.

In contrast, in countries of the Middle East and North Africa which are majority-Muslim, that percentage of the population in each country representing the under-30s demographic ranges from a relative low of 48% to 73%. Egypt's youth, that is, those under 30 years of age stands at 61%. Egypt absorbs as many of its educated youth as it can manage into its bureaucracy. Leaving a whole whack of other, unemployed youth to fidget and worry about their future.

It was that large group of unemployed youth that formed the backbone of their still-simmering revolutionary protest against the status quo. In Tunisia, a country with a population one-eighth of Egypt's 80.5-million, there exists 51% under-30. It has a higher literacy rate, and a better-educated population. And large unemployment. Fuelling much discontent among the youth; fuelling one to protest in the only way he knew how, by becoming a human fireball.

That unemployed young man's self-sacrifice in protest against a heartless bureaucracy and utter lack of opportunity to make a decent living to support his family, caused a firestorm of protest that has lit up the Middle East and North Africa.