Impoverished youth in the Middle East turn to cheap — sometimes deadly — alcohol · Global Voices
Photo of alcohol with inscription in Arabic. Photo by <PERSON> on Flickr used under Licence CC-BY-NC-SA-2.0.
In May, young Tunisians looking for a buzz by drinking homemade alcohol ended in tragedy.
At least seven youth died and 56 were hospitalized for alcohol poisoning in Kairouan, an ancient Islamic center about 130 kilometers from Tunis, the capital, and one of the poorest governorates of Tunisia, where nearly 40 percent live below the poverty line.
A neighbor of one of the young people who died in a video uploaded on Facebook said:
Young people want to forget their situation. They don’t care about dying. In fact, they say sometimes they want to die. Look at their environment, at the poverty. We don’t even have roads; the water is dirty. We are not stupid, but we don’t have the means. We are forgotten by the authorities.
The parents of three brothers who died from the poisoning added :
My sons were unemployed. One of them was 37 and unable to get married and start his own life. We don’t even have toilets at home.
This is not the first time toxic homemade alcohol has killed young people in the Middle East. 235
Alcohol and drug use is on the rise in the region, where young people who can’t afford locally produced or foreign imports opt to drink homemade, methanol brews — strong concoctions mixed up by illicit dealers.
Methanol — used for industrial and automotive purposes — is a highly toxic and potentially deadly substance that can cause blindness, kidney failure and seizures and death if consumed in high quantities.
Islam prohibits the consumption of alcohol and many Arab countries ban or enforces strict regulations on its sale, but it’s still widely available, whether obtained underground or on shelves.
#SputnikAnalyse | En Tunisie, le décès de sept personnes après la consommation d’alcool frelaté a provoqué beaucoup d’émoi. Hormis la tragédie, c’est la précarité de la population et l’indifférence de l’État qui sont pointées du doigt. @HanZbiss analysehttps://t.co/431FrwCdqa pic.twitter.com/izybyqM35q
— Sputnik France (@sputnik_fr) May 29, 2020
In Tunisia, the death of seven people after consuming adulterated alcohol caused turmoil. Beyond the tragedy, it is the precariousness of the population and the indifference of the state that are pointed out.
The thirst for cheap booze
The Middle East region has the largest youth population in the world, with more than half under the age of 25, but it also accounts for the highest unemployment rates reaching 27 percent in 2019 . In 2011, youth-led protests — known as the “ Arabic Spring ” — erupted after years of frustration over social, economic, and political exclusion.
A 2019 report by the Brookings Institution argues that this delayed transition to the work market affects “other pathways to adulthood, including marriage, homeownership, and civic participation.”
Young men, traditionally seen as breadwinners for their families, are unable to fulfill their social obligations.
Within patriarchal societies in Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, and Palestine, men “face tremendous stress to be providers. Men are ashamed to face their families due to lack of money,” according to a BBC report on patriarchy in the Middle East.
Alcohol flows freely in restaurants, bars and shops in the Middle East — for those who can afford it. In Libya, for example, a bottle of Chivas Regal in 2014 was available for US$100 whereas a homemade Libyan brew was only US$15 a liter.
But in these conservative countries — where drinking is expensive and also a social taboo — it can turn into a grim and risky endeavor. <PERSON>, a Tunisian activist, told Global Voices:
Homemade alcohol is widespread among idle young people, especially in poor remote areas. But it only makes the news when it ends in tragedy.
The Alexandria Faculty of Medicine in Egypt reported that 5 percent of monthly poisonings are related to alcohol, a figure likely lower than the true scale. Due to social stigma, shame and fear, many methanol consumers do not go to hospitals for treatment unless they are in critical condition.
Taboo: Caught between tradition and modernity
Alcohol is widely available in the Middle East, but it remains a taboo with negative associations and connotations. Young people in these countries often struggle to balance traditional Islamic values with the desire to live a liberal, globalized lifestyle. 244