Transcript The Obstacles To Progress in the Arab World

The Obstacles To Progress in the
Arab World
Norvell B De Atkine
[email protected]
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
Chemistry
Mathematics
Greek Classics
Philosophy
Astronomy
Navigation
Medicine
Al-Kharazmi
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
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Economic output
Scientific achievement
Political progress
Education
Brain drain
The Arab image today
Why the Continuing Stagnation?
• The 12 Obstacles
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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 History
then…….
W
Arabia Now….
22 weak nations
2
Natural environment
Water
Arab Cultural Stagnation
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Paucity of good books
Research minimal
Literacy not high
Political constraints
Religious constraints
Western pop culture
Politicized Clergy
but 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
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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
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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
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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