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Karima Farid spoke to Sheikh Khalfan Al Esry, known to be one of the most inspirational public speakers in Oman, about histhoughts and suggestions on the events that occurred last week. Sheikh Khalfan graciously spoke over the phone, and hiswords, as always, were mesmerising. This is his message to the youth of Oman:This country has been developed to where it is now underthe wise leadership of His Majesty, with security andstability in mind. And the only way we have been ableto develop the country to where it is now is because wehave enjoyed the luxury of security and stability, and weneed to maintain that. The only way to maintain this is toestablish a dialogue and to have a responsible approachin communicating our issues, as well as identifyingsolutions.Extremism of all sorts is totally rejected. We are a nationof moderation, and as such, everything we have to do wehave to do it in moderation. His Majesty has establishedmany channels where every single national can raisean issue and the law allows the people to demonstratepeacefully. His Majesty and his government have beenlistening and have been reacting to whatever neededto happen. The youth need to understand that creatingchaos through violence, destroying people’s property,instilling fear into innocent people, is not the civilisedway of establishing dialogue or raising concerns. Andwhat we are suggesting to the youth is basically: Weneed to include them in the dialogue, and their voicesneed to be heard, but before we do that we need toidentify the identity of the youth. The youth of today aredifferent from the youth of yesterday. The youth of todayview us differently. The youth of today has a differentstyle. So, the first thing I think as responsible people,government leaders or family members, we need tounderstand the youth of today. The youth of today havea lot of energy and we need to identify their identity aswell as their values to try to educate them on how theycan participate in developing the country to the nextlevel.Here we need to tell the youth to shift from one set ofmindsets to another – and I would like you to writethese words – shifting from what to what. We need toget the youth to shift from (being) ‘problem focused’ to‘solution focused’. Don’t tell us about your problems; tellus about the solutions. We need to get the youth to shiftfrom shouting slogans and violence to peaceful dialogue.We need to shift them from being driven by emotion,to being driven by logic and rational. We need to getthe youth to shift from the ‘us-against-them’ divide to aparticipant approach. We are all in this together, as thisis our country. It is not us against the ministers, or usagainst the government, or us against people – no, weare all in this together.We need the youth to shift from relying on rumours tobeing factual on whatever they say. We need to shiftthem from being subjective, to being objective, in the waythey put their issues, complaints in whatever manner.And then we need to get them from thinking (about) anisolated incident, to thinking in a holistic approach. Letus not resolve small issues at a time, let us not only focuson unemployment, or marriage, or the raise in price ofliving, but let us work on a holistic approach, and finallylet us move from being destructive to being constructive.It took many years to get the country to where it is today,and we can easily destroy everything in one day, andthat will be a big loss. Our prime objective and priorityshould be to maintain stability and security, and to avoidextremism in all its facets.My suggestion would be: There is a dire need to have ayouth conference where representatives of youth fromdifferent regions come together in a conference that isfacilitated by professionals. Present at this conferenceshould be different sectors, participating from the public,private and governmental sectors, from the State Counciland Majlis al Shurra, educational establishments anddecision makers.Basically, in this conference, the youth can come forwardand express how they would like to be included indeveloping the country further. Basically, they can tell ushow we can benefit from their talent, energy and passionfor this country.The final message to the youth is: Don’t ask what thecountry can give you, ask yourself what you can give yourcountry. Don’t ask what the country can do for you, butwhat YOU can do for the country.24