The Obstacles To Progress in the Arab World

Norvell B De Atkineyoustahz@aol.com

Why does a once great empire lag so far behind the rest of the

world?

The Great Arab/Islamic Empire

The Most Advanced in the World

Al-Kharazmi

ChemistryMathematicsGreek ClassicsPhilosophyAstronomyNavigationMedicine

Military Prowess Unmatched

These 7th century warriors conquered all before them

What Went Wrong

• Best to read the book of the same title by Bernard Lewis.– Self-Sufficiency/isolation– Trade route shift– Fragmentation– Mongol invasion– ossification

The Indicators

• Economic output

• Scientific achievement

• Political progress

• Education

• Brain drain

The Arab image today

Why the Continuing Stagnation?• The 12 Obstacles

– The burden of history– The austere natural environment– Cultural stagnation– Politicized Ulama– Politicized military– Stagnated economy– The language burden– The sclerotic education system– An irresponsible and/or bought media– Fragmented ethnic mosaic– Saladin versus a civil society

The Burden of Historythen…….

W

Arabia Now….

2

22 weak nations

Natural environment

Water

Arab Cultural Stagnation

• Paucity of good books• Research minimal• Literacy not high• Political constraints• Religious constraints• Western pop culture

Politicized Clergybut not Islam

Islamic Scholar Speaks

• KUWAIT CITY: Dr Hamed bin Hamad Al-Ali, professor of Sharia and Islamic Studies at the Kuwait University says it is legal for Muslims to kill the Danish caricaturist who abused Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). However, “as long as we do not abide by the application of the Islamic Sharia and Muslims are weak, we have to resort to public interests,” he said.

• Al-Ali also said from the religious point of view it is legal to kill the Jews in Palestine because they are the occupiers.

• Arab Times 8 Feb 2006

Politicized Military

Stagnated Economy

• Socialism• Wasta• Corruption• Bureaucracy but no institutions• Bakshish; wealth distribution system• Culture that hinders entrepreneurship• Educational barriers• Read Mullahs, Merchants and Militants; The

Economic Collapse of the Arab World. By Steve Glain

The Language of Creation; the power to galvanize…or inhibit

• The three levels and multiplicity of dialects– Classical– Modern standard– Street – Kayfa Hallukah– Zayak– Kayf Hallak– Kiifek– Shloonik

Arabic and Thought

• Hyperbole

• Bombast

• Imprecision

• Context not content

• The words of Dr Ali Al-Wardi. Famous Iraqi historian and social scientist. Translated from his book, The Character of the Iraqi Individual

Language and Thought

• In Iraq as in many other Arab countries, we’ve been cursed by that huge difference between the slang –Arabic and the classical Arabic.

• Iraqis use slang in their daily life while they use classical Arabic in their writings and while giving speeches.

• This has played an important role in forming the character of the Iraqi individual and has increasingly developed the dualism inside him.

• A wide number of scientists agree that language has a great impact on man’s way of thinking- according to them; thinking is a kind of a silent language.

Arabic and Thought• As Iraqis, we use two languages so, ,we actually use two kind

of thinking. In our daily life we speak slang but whenever we are in a middle of a big celebration, we shift to classical Arabic and the same goes for writing an article or a letter.

• By doing so, we are adopting two characters and thinking according to two different styles.

• Today, we listen to hundreds of speeches and read hundreds of articles filled with poetic rhymes and grammatical decoration, nevertheless those speeches and writings fail to touch the essence of our agonies and sufferings.

• What mostly concerns the speaker is to pick up unique synonyms instead of giving a brief but useful description to what he is tackling.

• Some listeners judge the speaker according to his grammar. They might underestimate him just because he did not use powerful words.

Education System

Education

• Learning by rote

• Gender inequalities

• Heavily Islamic

• Heavily politically oriented

• Not career oriented

MEDIA

Plays to emotions. Most is bought and paid for by the governments or political movements. Largely irresponsible, propagandistic. Very little true independence.

Ethnicity

Civil Society? Impediments

• The corruption of the intellectual class• The lack of a civic consciousness• The infection of extremist “religious” movements,

leading to the replacement of the utopian dream of Pan-Arabism by an even greater chimera, The restoration of the Caliphate.

• The habit of despotic or authoritarian rule.• “A thousand years of tyranny better than one

day of chaos”

CONCLUSION

So what is the future of the Arab world? Will it lead to some form of representative governments or simply more of the same death, destruction and repression? I see the glass half full.

The inked finger of Iraq

Suicide bombing in Israel