Issue No. 597
Opinion
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1 - 7 August 2002 Issue No. 597 Opinion |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Recommend this page | ||
Storms on the horizon
A detailed review of the UN Arab Development Report for 2002 reveals little that is reassuring. Neither the regimes nor the peoples of the Arab world have much cause for rejoicing with respect to the foreseeable future.
Some have seen in the Report an exaggerated picture of demise while yet others have reached their own, obscure conclusions. Some, irritated by the wide-ranging attention the report has received and the complacent, well-we-told- you-so comments with which the foreign media greeted its findings, have tried to brush it under the carpet, which strategy hardly helps in redressing the major failures that have occurred hampering the progress of the Arab peoples by comparison with almost all other developing nations.
I was asked, in relation to comments made in previous columns, how I could perceive, in the middle of so much darkness, a light at the end of the tunnel. That light will become visible only when we confront reality: admitting to failures and errors is the first step to correcting them. In short, we must face the facts.
The Arab region is at a major crossroads as it enters the 21st century. Some progress has been made, in terms of income, wealth and public health, it is true, and there have been positive hints regarding education. Economic and political reforms are also taking place, but slowly. As yet these tend to be scattered, contradictory initiatives and, if only because, as they attempt to effect change, reformers are in no position to alter the infrastructure or mode of operation that caused the present crisis, they are likely to prove self- defeating.
The atmosphere of tension that has persisted due to the continuing Arab- Israeli conflict has perhaps contributed to hampering progress, clouding horizons and generally negating the necessary strides towards development goals. Inter-Arab conflicts simply serve to reinforce this pattern. Yet the conflict has not taken the same toll on Israeli society. Arab parties are obliged to make difficult choices, undertaking a many-sided renaissance through which to generate a powerful and abiding developmental dynamic for the future.
We must expand our horizons to provide for interaction and alliances among the various aspects of development: economic, social and political. A programme capable of utilising and employing all our capabilities should be integrated with a new social contract to guarantee individual freedoms and revitalise political life.
But as long as Arab regimes function without benefit of an institutional system to unify their efforts, it will not be easy to sustain such a renaissance. The region can then be marginalised, weakened and ravaged. When Arabs fully register the fact that unity will give them strength they will have already achieved half of their aims. But if they choose to continue on their present course, taking a step forward only to take several steps back, shying away from confronting the facts and conditions of the times, Arab countries will remain forever on the margins of a world that progresses faster and faster. They will be unable to escape the present crisis. The fate of the Arabs will be in the hands of outside powers that will manipulate them whichever way they please. They will be excluded from shaping the new world. Indeed, they will not even be a part of it.
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