Perpetuating their own darkness

By Amnon Rubinstein



Close to 25 percent of university graduates in 22
Arab states emigrated from their countries during
the period 1995-1996. In 1998-2000, over 15,000
Arab doctors left their home countries. In 2001,
the average distribution of a book in all the Arab
countries, whose populations total 284 million
residents, was 1,000-3,000 copies. Some 17 percent
of the books published deal with religion.




Five times as many books are
translated into Greek, which
is spoken by 11 million
people, than are translated
into Arabic in all the Arab
countries combined. In the
past 1,000 years, no more
than 10,000 books have been
translated into Arabic - the
same number that are
translated into Spanish

annually.

In 2001, there were 18 computers per 1,000
residents in Arab countries, compared with the
world average of 78. Despite a 60-percent
increase in the number of Internet connections
between 2000 and 2001, only 1.6 percent of the
Arab population was connected in 2001.

These statistics appear in the United Nations
Development Program´s (UNDP) second report on
the Arab world that was published last week and
was compiled, as was the first report, by Arab
experts. The report focuses on communications
and science topics and despite certain
improvements - such as non-government owned
satellite television - the general picture is
of a deep and deepening lag. Censorship is
still practiced in all 22 Arab countries.

The authors repeat the fact that according to
the main indices, the Arab states are only one
rung above the African countries. The
explanations from the first report are also
repeated - the lack of freedom, the lack of
knowledge and the inferior status of women.

The report barely mentions Israel. It does
mention the fact that for every 1 million
residents, close to 500 books per year are
translated and that this puts Israel just below
Spain and Hungary, and way above the Arab
world.

Israel is criticized, of course, for its attacks
on the Palestinians, while the report contains
not one word about the terror attacks on Jews -
and is thus similar to the censorship that it
criticizes. Beyond that, however, this is a
courageous report that dares to criticize the
radical Islamic movements and to speak out
against the authoritarian regimes that rule the
Arab world.

The previous report had many repercussions
around the world and over a million copies were
downloaded from the Internet - but not in the
Arab world. Neither the first report nor the
present one arouse public and political debate
in the Arab world - despite the fact that it is
written by Arabs, most of whom are graduates of
Arab universities.

Instead, the Egyptian newspapers are busy at the
moment with a vitriolic attack against David
Walsh, the American ambassador in Cairo, for
his disagreement with the support expressed by
the widely distributed Cairo daily,
Al-Jumhuriyya, for the suicide bombing attack
on the Maxim restaurant in Haifa. All the trade
unions hastened to denounce Walsh, and the
newspapers - including the government
publications - are verbally abusing him in a
style that is familiar from the past.

This is a gloomy picture of a society that is
not developing free media and curiosity. Here
and there in the Arab newspapers published in
London, one can see the beginnings of thought
concerning the true distresses, but these are
isolated lights in enormous darkness.

What, then, maintains these dark Arab regimes
that encourage backwardness and are responsible
for the destruction of an ancient culture?
Apparently, it is mainly their hatred toward
Israel - and more recently, toward Jews. Even
many Arab intellectuals (although not this
report) state that until the "Zionist
occupation" is destroyed, there can be no talk
of reforms.

Thus, a vicious cycle has been created: Israel
serves as a convenient target for fierce and
intensifying hatred, due to which the reforms
demanded by the report are being delayed; but
that selfsame hatred also delays the
establishment of real peace that can make these
reforms possible.