Dr. Ayari began with his topic on Tunisia: The Birth Place of the Arab Spring.
Some key points...
- Approximately 55% of the population is under 25, yet unemployment rate is 30.3% for youth. The "official" unemployment rate is around 14%.
- Totalitarian, corrupt and oppressive regimes occur
- Income disparity, corruption, housing, health issues, water shortage are some of the problems that many people face
- 20+ million people in the Arab world use Facebook, Thousands of Tunisians and Egyptians use social network to mobilize demonstrations
Some key points...
- Many conflicting roles when it comes to oil
- Converted to energy for industry and transport... but it is a depletable resource and pollution/greenhouse gases arise
- Dominant form of seaborne trade... but limits industrial powers with conflict zones
- Highly profitable for oil companies... but main destination for industrial terrorism
- Employs millions worldwide... but displaces millions of others through wars
- 41% of world oil reserves and 23% of world gas reserves lie in the Arab Gulf States
- Jebel Ali (in Dubai) is the largest human-made port that serves as a trade hub
One of the most interesting things which maybe shouldn't have been surprising was the role of social media in the Arab Spring. It seems that social media plays a positive role after all.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting you bring that up that particular point, Polly--in one of my classes last semester, we spent an entire class period talking about the role of social media in the Arab Spring. We looked at reports on the topic from newspapers all over the world. They all came to similar conclusions (that social media played a crucial role in the way events unfolded), but it was interesting to hear a native Tunisian's perspective. Also, it seems like complaining about how connected everyone is today (Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, etc.) is rather in vogue, so it's nice to know that social media do serve some greater purpose.
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