They are young, they are frustrated and there are more of them than at any other time in history. Ian MacLeod breaks down the demographics to explain how age rage is fuelling the uprisings in the Arab world, and how the phenomenon might play out in the years to come.
Today's Arab rebellion began rising three decades ago as a neonatal bulge rippling across the Middle East and North Africa.
As fertility rates climbed in the villages of Bahrain and Algeria and the streets of Cairo, Damascus, Tunis and Sanaa, experts warned countries to brace for an unparalleled "youth bulge" that would some day demand skills training, jobs, homes and prosperity.
Autocrats who failed to take heed and harness the advancing multitude with economic opportunities risked rebellion.
That day, of course, has arrived with incendiary force.
With a record 100 million young people aged 15 to 29 in the Arab world -and tens of millions of youngsters behind them -the age imbalance has matured into a leviathan of civil unrest bent on crushing the region's most sclerotic regimes.
The roots of revolt lie in grievances from people of all ages: high unemployment, poor living conditions, food inflation, police brutality, gender inequality, corruption, despotic rule.
But it is the region's tilted demographic forces and the rebellious soul of youth that is driving the resentment, frustration and anger into the streets and the history books.
Mohamed Bouazizi, a 26-year-old Tunisian street fruit vendor, triggered the mass rage by setting himself ablaze Dec. 17 to protest government harassment.
Bouazizi was one of 5.3 million Tunisians under 30 -half the total population -and was struggling to earn $140 a month to support his mother, uncle and siblings in a country.
73% of Yemenis are under 30 years of age.
36% of Canadians are under 30.
His desperate act and death Jan. 4 ignited popular uprisings in a half dozen countries. Soon after, Tunisia's president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was ousted, followed by Egypt's Hosni Mubarak. In Bahrain, Shia protesters took to the streets last week demanding an elected government for the tiny Gulf Arab island where a Sunni king rules a Shia majority, and today in Libya, where an estimated 2,000 people have died, there is continuing violence to overthrow dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
Tunisia was not only at the forefront of the insurrection, but stands to emerge earliest from the unrest and with new promise.
As one of the countries in the region where the 15-29 age group has peaked and the fertility rate is low (and falling) compared to the North African and Middle Eastern averages, Tunisia's prospects for social and political stability, and even the likelihood of achieving and maintaining democratic governance, are better than many of its neighbours.
By the same measures, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Iran are not expected to reach a more balanced age demographic for another decade.
Others, including Iraq, the West Bank and Gaza, and Yemen face the greatest challenges. Yemeni women have an average of half a dozen children and 55 per cent of the population is under the age of 20. Seventythree per cent is under 30. (In Canada, it's 36 per cent.)
The world now has the largest generation of young people in history, with 3.6 billion people under 30. Research shows 80 per cent of all civil conflicts that caused at least 25 deaths between 1970 and 1999 occurred in countries where 60 per cent or more of the population was under age 30.
Young Arabs, like much of their global cohort, view the rest of the world through the twinkling prism of the Internet. What they see -affluence, political inclusion, advanced education systems, freedom of speech, promise -is largely alien to their lives.
"Opportunities are available elsewhere and that can create grievances and frustrations about why those same opportunities aren't available to them," says Elizabeth Leahy Madsen, a senior research associate at Population Action International, a Washington advocacy group.
Mass grievances can lead people to rise up and speak out, but can also incite armed rebellion, a point not lost on recruiters for al-Qaeda and its extremist affiliates that prey on youth in failing and failed states.
"If you don't have access to good jobs, to be self-sustainable, the 'opportunity costs' of joining a rebel movement or uprising is lower because there's little else that you're giving up," says Madsen, co-author of The Shape of Things to Come: Why Age Structure Matters to a Safer, More Equitable World.
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