Sayyid Ammar Al-Hakim: Investing the energies of youth requires a healthy environment, a cultural revolution and support actions, not words.
Head of the Al-Hikma National Movement, Sayyid Ammar al-Hakim, identified points he described essential and important when talking about the issues of youth and seeking to build their abilities and develop their talents and invest their energies, including proper upbringing that starts from the right environment, and explained the need for culture to support creativity and permanence of development of talents, as well as the importance of care that by starts by actions not slogans and words, called on the shadow government originating from the Opposition Front to adopt the recommendations of the 2nd Arab Entrepreneurship Conference, held in the office of his eminence Saturday, 14 September 2018 and in addition to the conclusions of experts specialized in the field of pedagogy, education and youth, and announcing this as demands for the Opposition Front and work to adopt it by the government and the Parliament, stressed the importance of correcting what can be remedied in reforming the pedagogic and educational reality and issues concerning youth and creators who are forgotten and inactivated in the Iraqi reality.
His eminence stressed that proper construction starts from healthy environment “it is not possible to talk about building and developing youth in an environment and atmosphere that is repellent and repulsive to any rectifying process”, and wondered "is it reasonable to talk about the need to invest in the talented and creator while our pedagogic and educational situation is below the level of ambition," and added, "How do we strive to build youth and care of talented and creative people while our available tools, methods and resources in our schools and universities are inadequate for development and creativity? What sort of reality we can imagine and we are still dealing with the most important ministry affecting lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi families, such as the Ministry of Education, which has been run by proxy for nearly a year after forming the government”? His eminence stressed the need for solid laws, rapid scientific procedures, a sophisticated teaching system, ambitious government plans and social and political solidarity to make the advancement of our educational and educational reality a top priority, called on His Excellency the President of the Republic with his experience and a good model in this field to give, encourage and push the government to this direction, “there is no more important than building a capable and skilled generation that takes it upon itself to build and develop Iraq, pointed out that the opportunity still exists to create a responsible generation aware of their phase and national role, “and all that is possible if good political will meets with the experience and sincere boldness of the government, and with firm will, rethinking the priorities and investing energies”, and indicated that will create a completely different reality in caring for talented and creative people and making a generation for the foreseen future.
His eminence stressed the importance of culture integration with creativity and development of talents, recalled Iraq's suffering from the scourge of wars and its psychological and physical repercussions, called for turning the page on the past with all its vestiges and effects and focus on generational wealth and starting from them towards the future that befits Iraq and its place through history, and added "We want a generation that focuses more on its future than the past, we want a generation that learns from yesterday and does not stand confined in it, we want a generation that sees time a wealth and does not drown in limbo, we want a generation that competes with other generations of nations and raise Iraq high to the top. All of that and other aspects will not be attained without a serious and real cultural revolution. People are built with culture first, with their knowledge, cultural heritage and social poise.”
His eminence pointed to the cultural depth of Iraq, diagnosed the problem by "that we are still not aware of the priority when building, and we do not recognize the hierarchy when planning and do not realize the real dangers that affect our reality and threaten our youth and our future generation. And wondered " Where are the government's plans to confront and address drug abuse of youth? Where are the government's plans to confront and address phenomenon of militarization and violence between our children and our society? Where are the government's plans to confront strange, deviant and out-of-the-context cultures?”. His eminence called on the ministries of culture, youth, sports, health, planning and other concerned ministries to announce clearly and transparently their programs so that media, political forces, religious institutions and civil society organizations take their real role in following-up, rectifying and even support, “It is not possible to talk about developing youth creativity while pillars of cultural interaction are limited, and we cannot talk about the development of talented youth while lacking development plans, data and statistics”.
His eminence called for real actions towards the development of youth and care of their talents in Iraq and The Arab World, most notably organizing statistics on youth problems and their pressing issues, and declaring them clearly and transparently through national media so it will act as a witness to the response and interaction of the government remedying and development actions, plus organizing quality workshops for youth talents and entrepreneurship, and empowering them at all levels. His eminence expressed the readiness of the Al-Hikma National Movement to cooperate in supporting these workshops at all levels, and called on all regulatory offices in all provinces to cooperate and open their doors to this kind of ambitious and innovative initiatives and to coordinate and follow up by virtue of their responsibility with local governments and their executive destinations concerned with this subject, and pointed out the importance of establishing and expanding schools, universities and clubs specialized in talented people and spreading the spirit of competition among the youth by providing appropriate opportunities for these talented people and investing them in favor of developing and building their country, pointed out that this will push the rest of the educational institutions to go in this creative-based direction, called for forming a specialized committee for talented and creative people working on discovering and supporting and providing the right environment for talented people to enable them complete their academic degrees, unlock their energies and invest their minds and potentials to serve their country in different positions of the state. Additionally, surveying successful global experiences in handling with talented people and applying them in Iraq, and making agreements with specialized entities in the field of development and care of talented, pointing out the existence of many living and advanced models in our "region" that “we can benefit from their expertise and efforts in building an Iraqi system specialized in this subject, and this is not difficult nor out of reach for the passionate patriotic Iraqi will”.
His eminence stressed advancement of the reality of Arab youth and give them an opportunity to keep up with the development and compete with peers in developed countries at the level knowledge and technology, and to promote the reality of women in Iraq and the Arab world, and enable them to reach leading positions, and highlight their creativity and energies, expressed regret for lack of women's representation in the ministerial cabinet within the current government structure, “despite the fact that the constitution in force imposed a quota in favor of women not less than 25% in the parliament, which is a valid gesture from our point of view”, called for establishing a wide scope knowledge oasis among youth in the Arab world to exchange experiences, knowledge and cultures and create solidity in relationship between peoples.
His eminence stressed that care starts from actions, not slogans and words, and this type conferences are qualitative and important and have an active role in the eyes of those concerned about the future of our youth and care for them, especially since it discuss issues that not only concern the Iraqi reality, but also consider many missed opportunities and wasted energies of our Arab youth, and indicated Iraq's need for all the successful international experiences in development and empowerment of youth, and hoped that conference organizers would provide related Iraqi institutions with the models of these experiments in order to benefit from and possibility generalizing them if they prove successful in accordance with the harmonious Iraqi environment, “countries have developed the theory of "experiment", It benefited greatly from the policy of experimenting and tests first in a narrow range and then generalized if successful, and added "We do not want this conference to be limited to demands and recommendations, but we want it to contribute to the provision of experiments and the possibility of applying them in accordance with the current Iraqi reality, wishes and dreams alone doesn't help to succeed, but we need actual remedying and actions”.
His Eminence pointed to the reality of the region and years of wars and conflicts that have exhausted its resources, displaced its competencies and thinkers and distracted them from development and investment in the field of creativity and innovation, stressed that solutions start from putting an end to these devastating wars and sitting on the dialogue table to solve all problems. His eminence stressed that “Israel dare in violating the sovereignty of many Arab countries such as Iraq, Syria and Lebanon and futile efforts to seize new Arab lands in the West Bank and Jordan Valley perusing the policy of expanding the occupation and consolidating the policy of fait accompli to grab more usurped areas, is denounced and condemned practice under an eerily international silence and disregard to all these violations and ongoing attacks.”
The head of the Al-Hikma Movement pointed to a democratic maturity in Iraq with the emergence of a constructive national political opposition that helps build democratic wings, the pro-government and opposition, to sort out approaches, uncover mistakes and correct deviations in the political process and provide a political alternative and devote a "strong governmental base with a strong political opposition" that is in line with the constitution and law, and expressed that “This step will enrich the political process and help develop both government and political performance".
