What’s Really Happening in the Middle East

The news coverage you’re seeing of the attacks on U.S. and other embassies in the Middle East is, frankly, uninformed. Reporters and talking heads, not to mention diplomats, are severely misinterpreting the reality and deep-seated attitudes on the ground.

Let me give you my view on this as bluntly as possible: This is not about religion. Rage in the Middle East has never been about religion, or not primarily so.

The anger you’re seeing stems from the desperation and personal humiliation of young males who have no jobs.

Yes, of course, this idiotic anti-Islam video has triggered chaos, just as Quran burnings have done in the past. But anger over disrespect toward Islam is, in my view, a proxy for the deep and searing pain that young males feel when they are desperately and hopelessly unemployed.

To illustrate: Gallup finds that 18% of adults 15 years and older living in the Middle East and North Africa region have a full-time job with an employer -- well below the global average and most other regions.  This Payroll to Population employment rate, as Gallup calls it, is 22% in Egypt, at 24% in Tunisia, and at 10% in Yemen. The extraordinary discomfort of joblessness, which is felt most painfully by young males, is what’s really driving instability in these countries and others nearby.

Consider their state of mind. A young Muslim male in, say, Egypt who has no job cannot get married. And if he can’t get married, he can’t have a family and all of the things that make life complete. Not having a job nor a wife, he experiences deep personal disgrace and humiliation that needs an outlet. What’s worse, he believes he will never get a job. That is where you find the deadly state of hopelessness. And, of course, compounding all of this is perceived corruption throughout society, particularly in government.

Now, despite the images you see on TV and the misguided reporting on the subject, the deep-seated anger isn’t really toward America or Germany or England, in my view. Western nations are merely the scapegoats of extreme human pain and humiliation.

The fact is, the U.S. and other Western nations cannot diplomatically finesse or bomb their way out of the growing anger in the Middle East. Rather, they must deeply understand the will of the young males there --- and theirs is no different than the will of everyone in the world, in every country, everywhere. One of Gallup’s most significant findings is that what everyone in the world wants most is a good job. In this sense, a young male in Alexandria, Egypt, is no different than his counterpart in Alexandria, Virginia.

How can the Middle East, with the West’s help, produce more good jobs? By expanding free enterprise throughout the region. Until the Middle East is 100% committed to creating customers, there will never be authentic, sustainable job growth. Jobs follow customers, and customers are created by highly engaged workplaces. Every time an engaged workplace creates a new customer, it creates new jobs. The more this happens, the better off a society becomes. Rage is replaced by the rewards of prosperity.

Let me give the last word here to Abdullah, a young car salesman in the Middle East. He shared the thoughts below while taking one of Gallup’s leadership courses. You should send this quote to every lousy leader, misguided diplomat, and wrong-headed reporter in the world, because he clearly sees the solution that everyone else is missing:

“Engagement is bigger than me. It means if I do my job well, then I can care for my family. If my team does their job well, they can care for theirs. If together we care for our customers, then we create more opportunities for growth. That means more jobs for the people in our community, sustainability for our economy, increased freedoms and choices for our region. It’s not enough to see this as a way to please our customers. The truth is, it’s the way to save the world.”