The Arab World Takes a Hard Look at Itself

[Eli]

Unbelievable. 30 posts and only one man blamed Israel.

[Az]

A step in the right direction.

I've read about this report around 2 weeks ago in the papers.

Of course ,everyone will forget , and nothing will be implemented.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Eli
Unbelievable. 30 posts and only one man blamed Israel.

It's all Israel's fault!!!!

[Adam Smith]

When I started this thread I was mainly thinking of the points Roland raised. There have been plenty of areas such as East Asia and Latin America with US or other intervention. Most of these may have received more development aid than the Arab world, but none has come close to the foreign exchange earnings the Arab world has from its oil. And yet the Arab world compares very unfavorably with these areas in human development. Does this suggest that giving more aid in the hope of improving human development and reducing terrorism is pushing a rope?

There are places where the US has provided aid or impetus for reform in the Arab world. We gave Egypt a fair amount of aid for going out on a limb and signing a peace treaty with Israel. And Sadat got assassinated for his trouble. We pushed the Kuwaitis to enact political reforms after the Gulf War, and supported libralization groups there. At present these groups constitute a 40 percent minority bloc in their parliament which supports reform, but they are getting stiffed by the majority.

Che
I dont think I buy the argument that fear of nationalization is suppressing democratic reforms. Most (all?) Arab oil companies have been nationalized since the 1970's. For example,

In 1973 (1392/93 AH), the Saudi Arabian government took a 25% stake in Aramco. In 1974 (1393/94 AH), this share was increased to 60% and in 1980 (1400/01 AH) it was amicably agreed that Aramco should become 100% Saudi-owned, with the date of ownership back-dated to 1976 (1396/97 AH).

HERE is the source.

edit: wording change

[Kropotkin]

Cybergnu: I'm from the western traders area too so it's not my fault either.

[CyberGnu]

Oh, I thought you were from Norrland :-)

Now who can we blame?


Eli, Israel has been used as a scapegoat for most arab leaders. There is no question that without Israel, the arab leaders would most likely face a lot more internal pressue for change. But even so, it is those leaders fault... No one is forcing them to use the scapegoat.

[Kropotkin]

I just live here...

[CyberGnu]

Gnu is stupid.... Completely missed your signature...

[Sirotnikov]

Gnu realised that Israel is usualyl a scapegoat?

Wow....

Messiah? Is that you?

[CyberGnu]

Nah, I'm just rational.

[Faeelin]

It's cheap to blame the west for this.

The Arab world has had, on the whole, almost the LEAST amount of intervention by the West, compared to the rest of the world. China was maimed, robbed, occupied, carved up, and so forth, and today is a world power.

Eastern Europe was occupied for 50 years by the Russians.

And you're going to compare the support of a few dictators to those two?

Hmm. This brings up an interesting question. Why has the arabic world alone failed to produce any success stories? Most other regions have at least one successful nation which is pretty modern.

To put it another way, Who broke islam?

[Dinner]

I agree it is to easy to blame the west. Why is it that Asian countries suffured longer under Impirialism yet today they are still so much further ahead of Arabs economically, democratically, and via human rights? The fault for this failure must rest squarely upon the sholders of Arabs themselves.

They must first take responsibility for their past failure then take action to correct it. Anyone want to bet they don't do this?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Hmm. This brings up an interesting question. Why has the arabic world alone failed to produce any success stories? Most other regions have at least one successful nation which is pretty modern.

That WAS Iraq... unfortunetly after the Gulf War they became very much less modern. It was amazing, in the 80 they were on their way to becoming an economic power.

[The Vagabond]

Wow, the combined population of the Arab World is 280 million. [I don't know why, but I thought it was just about 100 million]. If united they would make a formidable power.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by The Vagabond
If united they would make a formidable power.

China would crush them.