Taylor Dillingham
Final Blog Post
I spent my entire semester discussing the Tunisian economy and youth. I covered a lot of topics. Some of the topics were how the youth fit into the new economy, the transition into the new economy, where women are taking place in society, the new culture of the youth, Tunisia and their new government, and where Tunisia stands on a global perspective. I tied these together and talked about how Tunisia grew as a whole, and how other countries involved in the Arab Spring can work to be like Tunisia too. My theme for the semester was that change is possible. If the people really want change, it will happen. Tunisia is a perfect example of how if a country comes together, they can accomplish anything they want.
As I said in my very first blog posts, I had numerous reasons why I chose the Tunisian economy and youth as my topic for the semester. At the global workshop last year, I was put at the Tunisia table. I was taught about the country and its social as well as economic problems. When I saw this as a topic choice, I was intrigued because I was curious to see if they had gotten out of the bad spot that they were in as of last year. As I began reading I thought I was reading about the wrong country. They had already come such a long way within the last year. At the beginning of the year I would have never guessed that they would have continued to make the increasingly large amount of progress that they have throughout this year.
The first thing I talked in my blog after that was about is where the youth fit into the economy. A lot of the articles I read discussed how as of right now, 40% of the educated youth are not employed. What is so unfortunate about that is that they are the most educated, and if they were in the workforce they could really turn the economy around. They are trying to turn their economy around, but it is hard when a big portion of the youth cannot be in the workforce due to lack of jobs. They are going to have to start creating jobs to match the new era. The problem is that the older and less educated people are staying in the workforce, and holding onto their jobs. Which would not be a problem, but since the youth are more educated, they could do the job significantly better. The other issue is that the older generation are trying to hold onto jobs that just are not needed as much anymore due to a change in the times. With advances in technology, and other outside factors, Tunisia needs to get rid of some of the jobs that the older generation are trying to keep. I read an article that talked about how a traditional hat for religious practices used to be Tunisia’s big cash crop. However, other countries are now making more of a profit because they can get the resources cheaper than Tunisians can. The older generation are trying to keep the old economy, and that just cannot happen if they want to be prosperous as a country. That 40% of the educated youth need to step in and continue to build up the new economy that has already been started to be built up by the youth.
My next topic I covered was the transition into the new economy. Tunisia within the last few years has made tremendous progress as a country. Their economy has completely turned around and is becoming prosperous. The real reason why the economy has turned itself around is due to the youth. They are changing the way that the country earns its money. They are making technological advances which are increasing the country’s profits as a whole. By creating a new generation of products, they are putting Tunisia on the map. Along with all of these new products and advances comes global recognition. One of my articles talks about Obama seeing the potential in the Tunisian youth, and giving them over a billion dollars in funding for the entrepreneurs within the youth. I have noticed the entire semester how far they have come and their future is definitely bright.
I also talked about women in Tunisia. The Tunisian women are definitely beginning to be a big contributor to the success of their country’s economy. I posted an article that discussed education in Tunisia along with other relevant statistics about what the education people are doing. What it showed was that there are more educated women than men. They start out in the work force, and all leave around the same age to start families. What is so unfortunate about that is that if the educated women stayed in the work force, a lot more could get accomplished. The reason why they do not come back has to do with society and the gender roles that have become social norms. Women traditionally are not in the work force, and the men work to support the family. With the times changing, women are becoming educated, but men are not wanting to stay home. The women are ready for the social norms to change, they are simply waiting on the men to be ready as well. This will work best when men can let go of old traditional gender roles and find peace with staying at home and taking care of the family. If the women are more educated, they deserve to be in the work force. The only solution to that problem is time. They are most definitely heading in the right direction.
I also noticed a pretty drastic change in the culture of the youth. What was very obvious was that they are becoming what is internationally perceived as, “Americanized.” One of the articles that I talked about discussed the rave that the youth threw on the set of the new Star Wars movie. They all seem to like that American party lifestyle, and are wanting to integrate it into their own culture. What is bad about that is they will begin to lose their own culture. They are so obsessed with integrating technology, staying u to date with the rest of the world, and changing their traditions, that they are going to lose everything about their culture that their country was built on. With all of these new changes with the country, especially with their technological advances and social media, the youth are just wanting to change their entire culture. I am very interested to continue to watch the behavior of the Tunisian youth and how it progresses with more time.
I discussed Tunisia and how they are changing their current government to a democracy. I think this has a lot of different factors within it that somewhat bring all of my subtopics together. Tunisia is beginning to form a democracy. I think they are doing this for several reasons. The first is the youth trying to be more Americanized. They want to have a similar culture, have a similar economy, so why not have a similar government to ensure that those things happen. I think the new government is coming in hand in hand with the other changes that are being made. In order to have a more successful economy, they need to change their government to match what they want as their new economy. This was what I saw as a very noticeable statement to the world that they are ready for a fresh start and they are ready to be a key player in the global perspective of things.
My last big topic was where Tunisia stands on a global perspective. They are trying to be noticed. They are trying to become a country that competes with the rest of the world on a global level. So far they are doing a pretty good job. One of the articles I discussed talked about how this year for the second year in a row, Tunisia has won the contest for Global App of the Year. Out of all of the competing countries in the entire world, they not only won this year, but the year before. They are trying to make huge technological advances in order to get noticed. I think that this topic brings all of my sub topics together in a sense that this is the big picture. Turning the economy around, starting fresh with a new government, creating jobs and for the new workforce, having that new workforce create new products, and changing social norms, is how they are going to get noticed on a global perspective. They are working at all of the sub projects for the big project; to put their country on the map.
This is very relevant to the Arab Spring. Tunisia as very involved in the entire Arab Spring, just like all of the other countries that were involved. However, they have come out of that are and still managed to build something out of themselves. I think that this sets a huge example for anyone who was involved in the Arab Spring that wants to see progress within their country. Tunisia’s story should give all of them hope. Tunisia was in just as bad of a state as anyone else. The difference is that they did everything that they could to overcome it. They made the changes that needed to be made for the greater good of their entire country.
Before this project, I always thought all of those third world countries, and the other countries that were in poverty and extreme forms of trouble in general, were never going to see any progress. I just thought that they would be like that forever, and all of those people were just extremely unfortunate to be put into that bad situation. I was dead set that there was no hope, and they were never going to amount to much of anything. This project made me realize how wrong I was. Tunisia showed me how a country that has absolutely nothing can turn themselves around if they really believe in themselves and want to see a change. This applies to all of the countries. All of these countries that are going through hard times are just as capable of helping themselves and rising up against all odds. Hard work within a country as a whole genuinely pays off.
Even though I am done with this project for the semester, I am still very excited to continue to watch Tunisia grow. This country has an extremely bright future. It is full of a new generation with fresh ideas that I think will add value to the entire world population.