Current events certainly did not stroke him tenderly: following a drug discovery in his parental home – he was interrogated and then also cleared – Amir Bachrouri received rain on his head. But he kept looking stoically ahead: 2022 was the year in which he turned 20, and as chairman of the Flemish Youth Council once more tried to move the cones for those who are young and want a future that shines at least a little.
At the time of the corona measures, the possible negative consequences for the mental well-being of young people were often pointed out. Did you get a clear view of those effects in 2022?
Amir Bachrouri: “The figures are not yet crystal clear, and that makes sense: evolutions in mental well-being only become visible over time. Moreover, it is not an exact science. For example, you cannot quantify exactly what distance learning has meant for mental well-being because it is just one stone in a complex domino game. In any case: never before have so many young people turned to a student psychologist, and the waiting lists in specialized crisis care only got longer. In any case, there is work to be done.
“What really struck me following the corona crisis: how voluntary engagement is under pressure. During the pandemic, the pleasant aspects of such engagement fell away – the coming together, the joy of friendship. Corona was a serious matter, wasn’t it, there was no room for playfulness. This has weighed heavily on the motivation of volunteers in youth work.
“In addition, you should not underestimate the magnitude of the impact on young people of the doom and gloom of recent years. First you had the terror crisis, then the virus came, then war broke out and energy prices shot up… That constant crisis atmosphere eats away at the mind.”
Does that mean that you are entering 2023 rather pessimistic?
Bachrouri: “No, I am still much too young to be fundamentally pessimistic. I’ve also seen a lot of things in the past year that made me hopeful. The human chains in Brussels and Antwerp at the World Cup matches in Morocco, for example. These were volunteers who took to the streets themselves to avoid riots in their neighbourhood. Wow, I thought, commitment has not died out at all, and there are still many people who care regarding their neighborhood, and by extension regarding society as a whole.”
But the reason was bitter: the riots following the games. What dominates you? The joy of the course of the Moroccan national team in Qatar or the disappointment regarding the violence in Brussels and Antwerp?
Bachrouri: “I don’t feel connected to the rioters anyway. I don’t have to answer to them, and I don’t allow those guys to rob me of my football luck. Because of course I enjoyed it: it made me dream. What I find important now is that following the riots, moral outrage does not stop there. That we also think regarding what we can do regarding it.”
But what is that then?
Bachrouri: “There are always loud calls for repression. A police officer on every street corner! But I think that’s a short-sighted solution. One: it is practically impossible to achieve. And two: then you only treat the symptoms. Because you are dealing here with young people who are de facto part of our society, but still visibly place themselves outside it. How do you get those young people back into society? That is the fundamental question for me.”
That’s what makes it all so discouraging: they’re attacking their own neighbourhood, their own city.
Bachrouri: “It is partly regarding young people from dysfunctional families. Families where there is partner abuse, neglect, extreme poverty. But indeed, it is also regarding young people who feel fundamentally spit out by society and no longer want a place in that society. That is a very persistent sentiment. And that feeling will be partly right, and partly wrong, but that it is there is the simple reality. Those guys enjoy the feeling of power, and the outrage they arouse: “Everyone is angry and everyone is talking regarding us.” In a big city, which is by definition cluttered, complex and anonymous, things immediately escalate. That’s why I always stress the importance of youth workers. Because they know the neighborhoods, they still have access to those young people.
“We also have to keep looking at the massive problems of the neighborhoods where these young people live. Not because they can serve as an excuse, because that simply doesn’t exist for that kind of behavior. It is because those problems must be addressed, otherwise the cocktail will only become more explosive. I miss a little consistency in the anger. It is good and logical that you are indignant regarding riots in Borgerhout, but I hope you are just as angry regarding the high youth unemployment there, regarding the many school-leavers, regarding the poverty, regarding the lack of encounter between the different cultures and socio-economic worlds. And regarding the drug mafia that rages through those neighborhoods.”
You’ve been warning regarding that for a long time, and ironically you came into contact with it yourself this year. The police found a suitcase with 20 kilograms of cocaine in your parental home that had been hidden there by a family member. How’s the case going?
Bachrouri: “I don’t know that myself, because I don’t have access to the criminal file. I was questioned once, as a witness, and then not charged. That makes sense, because I have nothing to do with it.
“It is true: I have seen and said for a long time that the drug world is not a small enclave, but is so intertwined in all sections of society. No matter how hard you try to keep yourself far from that world, it sometimes comes very close. A Dutch study shows that in underprivileged neighborhoods such as Borgerhout, one in eight young people is at risk of being absorbed by the drug world. Then I think: as a society you have to offer a counter-story. Show: Here’s the road that leads you to something else. But it’s hard, yes. There are young people who earn five times more in the drug world than their math teacher at school. You have to combat that, and there is only one way to do that: by emancipating those young people. Which brings us to my eternal hobbyhorse: education.”
That groaned in 2022 under the teacher shortage.
Bachrouri: “When I hear how much time students spent in their studies last year because no teacher was available… I sometimes fear that we are flushing a whole generation of young people down the drain.
“Now, that teacher shortage is only one aspect of the fundamental problem: the declining quality of education. The PISA studies show: Flanders is heating backwards year following year. I think that knowledge transfer should be revalued. That is the essence of education: teaching young people things, arming them with a critical sense, training teenagers to become independent, resilient citizens. We’re kind of losing that, and if we don’t do something regarding it soon, we’ll create a generation that can’t tell real news from fake news, and genuinely believes that cryptocurrencies are the way to get rich quick.
“I think it all starts with language. Last semester I started reading in schools. That was very nice and shocking at the same time: so many students never come into contact with a book at home. These are often underprivileged children from deprived neighbourhoods. Their cultural capital is small: they don’t know the VRT, they read There not. Now, the encouraging thing is that as soon as you put those kids in touch with books, they’re all hooked: they go to the library, they pull their brothers and sisters with them. Again: knowledge leads to emancipation, and emancipation leads to social mobility.”
Back to that drug discovery in your parental home one more time: your process was then made extensive on social media, often not in a subtle way. But you seem very resistant to that.
Bachrouri: “Because there was also a lot of support and the next day there were young people on the line once more who were in trouble and wanted my advice – and therefore did not judge me on the basis of a newspaper headline. Still, I’m very concerned regarding this total escalation on social media. I am now entering my last year as chairman of the Flemish Youth Council. If my successor has a strong opinion in 2024, dredge will follow. Because that is now the reality: whoever speaks out, gets dung all over them. That worries me, because I often meet young people who really want to get involved in the big debate, but hesitate for fear of those flashing knives.”
But 2023 will be a good year?
Bachrouri: “I hope so. But don’t ask me regarding predictions. At the end of 2019 I didn’t think that a devastating pandemic would become our new reality, at the end of 2020 I didn’t think that the volunteers in the vaccination villages would be the great heroes, and at the end of 2021 I didn’t think that we would celebrate the Ukrainians as the new heroes a year later. Unpredictability reigns, and unpredictability never gets used to.”
© There
