Seriously? Elsewhere we have youth unemployment and rioting and looting. We have an Arab youth uprising, and hundreds of millions of young people across the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia – angry, frustrated, not knowing what work they’ll be able to take on in life.
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But too many old people doing taiji in the park – that’s what you’re gonna lead with? 未富先老
The prospects for substantive change elsewhere, leading to genuine improvement in economic conditions, are similarly dim. In Egypt, after a coordinated youth-led revolt succeeded in unseating long-time strongman Mubarak, the army is in charge until elections later this year, while the Egyptian economy appears to be teetering on the verge of collapse. Dictators in Bahrain, Syria, and Yemen are fighting ruthlessly to maintain control of their countries, leading some commentators to speak of a summer of counter-revolution (following the spring of uprisings). In Libya, Muammar Gaddafi’s eventual replacement will almost certainly be hand-picked by the CIA; meanwhile, however, that nation appears to be fracturing permanently, so that it may never again comprise a single coherent entity. A similar fate may await Yemen.