The United Nation’s Arab Human Development Report is an interesting document. Ignoring, for the sake of this discussion, the obligatory anti-Israel/Palestinian repression boilerplate*, what do our more informed Arab issues posters think of its findings and its recommendations? How likely is it to accomplish its objectives?
I was surprised to hear, in the Press release section, that dire poverty and severe income discrepency is decreasing in Arab regions … although the PDF files were so tedious to download that I couldn’t find the data on income discrepency that it was rederencing. Still the criticism of freedom, woman’s rights, and education deficits frankly surprised me with their honest self appraisal. A large percentage of Arab youth would like to emigrate to the UK or to North America if given the chance.
Tamarlane and Coll (and others, no slights intended), will less income disparity and less dire poverty translate to an increase in educational opportunities, freedom, and women’s rights from internal demands? (Are these the forces that you have referenced before, **Tamarlane?) Will Arab governments respond to this call with meaningful reforms? Will international bodies try to exert the subtle pressure that would encourage such reforms?
*Although I would agree insofar as the Palestinian issue has been used as an excuse to avoid reforms.
DSeid: I’m having trouble downloading a clean copy of the full report myself ( stupid dial-up connection at home - I’m still waiting for my city to get its lower cost cable lines installed ).
I have perused the press packages - They seem to be reasonably balanced, though I’m sure there might be a quibble in a corner or two over small things like their view of the Israel/Palestine issue or their seemingly more eurocentric view of human rights development ( a few Americans of particular political persuasions might object to Sweden making #1 and the U.S. not charting in the top 10 ).
Very interesting stuff, all in all. Collounsbury is vastly more qualified than me to judge whether their take on comparative poverty rates and income disparity levels are accurate or not. But given what I can glean from the fragments of the full report I’ve perused, their conclusions seem solid enough. And quite grim in spots. The problem, naturally, is implementing the reforms they recommend ( which also seem reasonable, though I’m not sure that this concept of “pan-Arab development” in particular, might not be a little pie-in-the-sky, though once again perhaps Coll has a better take on that than I ).
My views on the region from afar is a mix of pessimism and optimism and tends to shift with the wind. I do see signs of hope in the recent baby-steps towards liberalization of governments, which even more than the women’s issues I think is the biggest problem ( democratize the governments and progress for women should naturally follow, at least to some limited extent ).
Not necessarily in terms of education, at least in this case - The report points out that while illiteracy is declining, so is the overall quality of education, resulting in a population that is more broadly but superficially educated. This is a recipe for revolution, frankly. Especially as educated oppressed people are a little more likely to organize effectively against their oppressors than the uneducated. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing of course, but it really depends on which direction it swings towards. The poorly educated are IMHO sometimes more amenable to extremism that either the well-educated or completely uneducated.
That caveat aside, I do think a decrease in income disparity can’t be anything but positive, if it is real. Similarily for less poverty - Again, if that shift is significant.
Heck, I don’t know :). I sure as hell hope so.
I think they already are. The question is whether this helps or hinders. I think it can be of help, depending how it is done, but Coll might disagree.
I guess I was struck by the paradoxical nature of the report. This report, written by Arab intellectuals, bemoans the lack of freedom in Arab countries, yet the fact that they are able to express this discontent is, in fact, a notable event, and is evidence that some small steps have been taken. Even the Palestinian bit exuded a certain chutzpah in the fact that it pointed out that repressive regiemes have used a continued Israel/Palestinian conflict as a distraction from addressing human rights in their own lands.
I have been trying to relate this to your past comments on how current extemist Islamic violence may be evidence that such extremism is in desperate throes as it becomes more marginalized. As Arab society actually prepares to move closer to joining the secular West on the common grounds of shared values regarding human rights, those threatened by secular values fight like cornered animals.
When you are worrying about survival you do not worry too much about your freedoms. Assure the populus that they’ll have food to eat, and be safe, and allow exposure to societies with greater freedoms, and then you’ll see people clamoring for freedom and rights, and with that education. Educate women as well as men and you tend to lower birth rates and reduce poverty.
Wouldn’t it be great to have a Palestine that had educational opportunities for boys and girls, men and women, and a secularized government with real freedoms? (Rather than either an occupied land or as Arafat’s personal feifdom) It would be hard to keep that concept from spreading across the Arab world, I think, if the exposure was another Arab country. (Hey, it’s late, and it’s the early AM of America’s Independence Day, I can dream a little about the power of real freedom to change the world, can’t I?)
I, too, am having trouble getting a copy of the report. Perhaps everyone getting a corrupt file is actually an ironic comment.
My first question is, what were they studying? Just what is an “Arab country?” I haven’t yet been able to dig out a complete list, but it appears that they are including Somalia.
Oh, and as for the OP’s questions,
**
I’m afraid we all know that answer to this one.
<< it pointed out that repressive regiemes have used a continued Israel/Palestinian conflict as a distraction from addressing human rights in their own lands. >>
I have not seen the report, but if it includes this sort of statement, I would be very pleased that there is recognition of this severe problem.
<< Will Arab governments respond to this call with meaningful reforms? >>
Alas, most of the governments are either military dictatorships or something very similar (like absolute monarchies.) Typically, the people at the head of such governments see increased education, development of an infrastructure, economic and social improvement … as threatening to their own power and control. (This tendency of dictators is not limited to the Arab world, alas.)
An update. I have read the report, and was a bit underwhelmed. Hardly as new as the Western Press has made out. One has run into, in Arabic, this kind of comment by Arab authors in the past. I shall try to find the time, when I get back to home base, for extended comment.
Lesson: Western press has a pretty piss poor idea of discourse in the Arab world. Piss poor.
From a UAE perspective I have to second Collounsbury on that. If more people even saw the English-language newspapers here they would quite probably be surprised at the progressiveness and honesty of a lot of Arab discourse.
MEMRI is absolutely not a good source of English langauge Arab news.
I will be very frank. Considering the amount of translation they do, the relative quality of the work (i.e. the translating), the skewed nature of the translations and the selection I have come to believe that MEMRI is a state-backed propaganda effort.
There are a number of English lang. newspapers in the region, e.g. Gulf News and an English lang. edition of al-Ahram, the semi-official and always officious paper of Egypt. Etc.
This is not the same as knowing the Arabic discourse, in Arabic.
That, I don’t know a good translation source. MEMRI gives you an idea of the fringes, the NY POST end of commentary – however the translations I have come to feel always take the worst possible spin. That sometimes is valid, but as noted, I now believe this site to not to be what it purports to be.
http://www.zawya.com as Collounsbury mentioned is a particularly good site because it syndicates copy from all over the Middle East. It focuses on Arab business news, but there is a lot of politics and other news there too. Papers it uses include the UAE’s Gulf News and Khaleej Times, Jordan Times, Lebnon Daily Star, major newswires such as AFP, and many many more.
What are you bloody motherfucking talking about? This isn’t Western Press, this is the goddamn UN report produced by Arab intellectuals. Data Coll Fuckin data!
Calm down, DSeid, and reread what Collounsbury said. He said that the report was unremarkable, making points that had been made before by other Arab commentators. It was nothing new.
His criticism was of the Western press for suggesting that critical commentary by Arabs about human rights standards in Arab countries was new and dramatic (thus implying that up to now Arab commentators have been reluctant, afraid or simply unable to engage with their own societies) when, in his experience, this is not the case.
UDS: Dseid was making fun of me, when I get on a roll on issues. All in good fun.
But yes, UDS is right in re my take, except I would like to be clear that the UNDP report is unusual for frankness, source (UN) etc. The critiques are not new nor unknown in the Arab world. Western reporting has severely exagerated that (caveat, some countries obviously are worse than others on this matter) aspect.
Arab commentators are reluctant to engage in this kind of criticism, sometimes they are afraid (country, e.g. Egypt and Said Eddine Ibrahim. BTW, I know him - he’s a bit of an asshole to be frank which has perhaps aggravated the situation. OTH, so is Mubarek, shrimp eating fatman that he is.), etc. However, it’s not virgin territory either as much commentary would have one believe. Cultural issues enter into this.
Report itself is not bad at all.
Now, I gots to work. And perhaps find time for comments on race and Israel later on.
(UDS, the winking smiley icon should have been a hint … ever since Coll implied that I have a fantasy of having intercourse with my Mom while she’s menstrating …)
Actually I’ve only seen/heard scant Western coverage of the report … a piece on NPR and an article in The Economist … and neither really took that slant (as I recall). Such a reaction (its paradoxical and hopeful nature) was my own, based on my read of the report itself and my own limited knowledge of the culture at baseline. The accuracy of that perception was what I had wanted input on from those with greater on the ground knowledge of the state of Arab societies.
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