I recently read the following in the Economist (July 23rd, 2009 issue):
“The total manufacturing exports of the entire Arab world have recently been below those of the Philippines (with less than one-third the population) or Israel (with a population not much bigger than Riyadh’s). From 1980 to 2000 Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Syria and Jordan between them registered 367 patents in the United States. Over the same period South Korea alone registered 16,328 and Israel 7,652.”
Depressing as it may sound, so long as I can remember, there has been little if any achievement in the Arab world, whether economic, technological, political, social, or cultural (with the exception of a few isolated cases in the UAE). This is confirmed by similar reports that show very little progress in the last twenty years, while much of the developing world including India, China and Brazil took a big leap forward. So I started to question whether, as a people, we have what it takes.
Is it that we are inherently lazy? Is it due to certain aspects of our culture? Bad habits? To what extent is it a problem of leadership? Internal divisions? How much has foreign intervention and imperialism negatively affected our progress? Naturally each of these questions warrants extensive research beyond the scope of this article.