Tag: "Politics"

Requiem for the Age of Oil (Think About This #63)

All of the footage coming out of Iran over the last few weeks has revealed to the world, in living color, a new generation of web-connected young people foretelling radical change making its way to the Middle East. In the current issue of EnlightenNext magazine, we interview Elza Maalouf, CEO of the Center for Human Emergence-Middle East and a native of Lebanon, about her views on the current trends that could define the future of the Muslim world:

There are a couple of things that are changing all over the Muslim world that I think will continue to accelerate in the near future. One is that oil is dying, and the Obama administration is focusing on the development of new energy technologies. This will no doubt push oil-rich countries to look for other ways to enrich themselves. I’m seeing this trend in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and even Iraq. They are starting to focus on developing people. This is particularly important for Gen Y. In the Arab world, sixty percent of the population is under the age of twenty-five. They are educated, intelligent, innovative, and globally connected. They are the unused resource in Middle Eastern and Muslim countries.

To listen to an excerpt from the interview with Elza Maalouf, click below:

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