Arab world lags behind

PAT JOHNSON

The world tends to view the Middle East as a volatile region, where political cultures are in flux and conflicts undermine stability. Not so, says Cameron Brown, an Israeli commentator who was in Vancouver last week. The region is actually one of the most politically stable on earth, where virtually unchallenged dictatorships are as entrenched as any governments anywhere.

The instability of the region was one of a raft of accepted ideas Brown attacked in a wide-ranging briefing to local media Feb. 8. Brown, who is deputy director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Centre, of Herzliya, Israel, is an expert in Israeli foreign policy and anti-Americanism in the Middle East, among other topics.

"The Middle East is the most stable region on earth, because nothing changes," said Brown. With notable exceptions like Israel and Turkey, which are the only states with anything resembling western-style democracy, and Iran, where Islamic extremists rule, every country in the Middle East is governed by a dictatorship whose main opposition comes from Islamist extremists. Even in Jordan and Morocco, where relatively free elections occur, ultimate power is controlled by an unelected and unrepresentative dictator, Brown said. (Iraq, since the American invasion, is an obvious exception to all previous rules.)

The political culture of the Arab Middle East is the root cause of the current conflict, Brown argued, refuting the broadly held idea that Israeli policies and American cultural and military intervention are to blame for Arab extremism.

Much of the Arab world's problem is rooted in demographic changes, argued Brown, who was touring North America and was brought to Vancouver by the Canada-Israel Committee.

Since 1965, the region has seen a massive rise in life expectancy and live birth rates. This has created a population explosion across the Arab world which, in itself, does not necessitate radical policies. However, the policies of Arab states have created a mass of young people who are taught in education systems that emphasize rote learning over critical thinking, distrust of the outside world, opposition to any non-Islamic influences and a sort of racial and religious superiority that views a vast range of international circumstances as humiliating affronts to Islam.

What should have happened over the past 40 years, Brown contended, is a massive expansion of public education across the Arab world and increased opportunities for women. Expanded education would have directed the energies of massive young populations into constructive arenas. Opportunities for women, in addition to the intrinsic value of female self-realization, would have helped control the massive population boom by expanding women's roles beyond that of procreation and child-rearing. The failure of most Arab countries to take these steps has resulted in millions of young Arabs with an inability to express themselves critically – which is a not-coincidental benefit to the dictators who govern them. A properly educated public would, by now, have reacted to the oppressive and anti-intellectual regimes under which they chafe, Brown suggested, but the perpetuation of uncritical rote learning, combined with repetitious anti-Jewish and anti-American diatribes, has resulted in a mass of Arab youth incapable of directing their officially nurtured rage inwardly at the regimes that continue to oppress them, directing it instead outward at American and Israeli targets.

To illustrate his points, Brown provided charts indicating that the Arab world translates almost no books from other languages – indicating an insularity the repercussions of which are vast but immeasurable. The Arab world also is responsible for almost no patents – one of the few quantifiable indicators that original thought and scientific inquiry are lagging in the region.

The steadfast refusal to encourage free-thinking and intellectual inquiry has created an environment ripe for simplistic answers and scapegoating, a scenario that Brown said allows identity politics to trump material interest. That is, instead of focusing on the internal political situation that impoverishes Arab bodies and minds, Arab policies have encouraged a fanatical loyalty to group identity that places blame for all ills on external forces.

Brown was careful to preface his remarks by saying that there is nothing intrinsic in Arab or Muslim cultures that predetermines the anti-intellectual and insular attitudes now prevalent across the region. History proves otherwise, he said. Arab and Islamic societies once led the world in learning. The current situation is a result of political influences, not inherently cultural ones, he said.

What can Canadians do?

Brown said Canada can play a very specific constructive role in Middle East peace.

Canadians were among the world communities who pressured Israel over the past few years to recognize and accommodate the right of Palestinians to self-determination. That imperative is now widely accepted by Israeli leaders and the country's body politic. It is time for Canadians to pressure the Palestinian (and larger Arab) community to acknowledge that a literal "right of return" for Palestinian refugees is an untenable and impossible demand. Canadians could help sensitize Palestinians that some form of compensation – probably from the world community rather than only from Israel – will have to suffice.

"You can't have your cake and eat your neighbor's too," Brown said of the "right of return."

Canada could immediately begin calling on all Arab states to cease funding terrorist organizations. Canada still has reservoirs of goodwill in the Arab world, Brown said, and that could be used to help convince Arab governments and private donors that giving funds to groups like Hamas – which are often defended by claims that some of their work is humanitarian – is primarily hostile and destructive, rather than constructive.

Canada could convince some Arab states to re-engage with Israel, Brown added. Though Egypt and Jordan have announced they will restore diplomatic relations in the near future, Brown said the normalization should take place immediately and involve a wider swath of the Arab world.

On trade issues, Canada could encourage Israeli and Arab co-operation by broadening existing free-trade agreements to include products with components created in so-called Qualified Industrial Zones.

Finally, Canada has much advice to offer Palestinians and others, Brown argued, on creating sound infrastructures of good governance, such as helping new states build the infrastructures of a judiciary, constitution-framing and other rudiments of civil societies. While some Arab societies might shy away from American or some other models of governance, Canada's system may not have the same stigma, he said.

Pat Johnson is a B.C. journalist and commentator.

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