In my opinion the modern society based on (Western or European) civilization or cultural history might explain the huge imbalance in the Great Middle East.The
core reason for the imbalance between societies in the great Middle
East might be from my point of view in the role of religion in different
societies – in the lines between religion and secularism , between
state and religion, between theocracy and democracy.Why are Muslims so backward and powerless?
All
the world's Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College,
Cambridge. They did great things in the Middle Ages, though.(Richard Dawkins)
Why
Arabic Spring transformed itself Islamic winter and why also after that
it is so difficult to establish some kind of constititional democracy
in any Arab country even if the majority of population demands the
change of regime. A quite good answer I found from article Why are Muslims so backward and powerless? written by Dr.Farrukh Saleem, the Pakistani Executive Director of the Centre for Research and Security Studies, a think tank established in 2007 and an Islamabad-based freelance columnist. Some highlights from his article describing not only Arab states but Muslim world in general:- There are an estimated 1,476,233,470 Muslims on the face of the planet: one billion in Asia, 400 million in Africa, 44 million in Europe and six million in the Americas . Every fifth human being is a Muslim; for every single Hindu there are two Muslims, for every Buddhist there are two Muslims and for every Jew there are one hundred Muslims. There are 57 member-countries of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), and all of them put together have around 500 universities; one university for every three million Muslims. The United States has 5,758 universities and India has 8,407. In 2004, Shanghai Jiao Tong University compiled an 'Academic Ranking of World Universities' , and intriguingly, not one university from Muslim-majority states was in the top-500.
- As per data collected by the UNDP, literacy in the Christian world stands at nearly 90 per cent and 15 Christian-majority states have a literacy rate of 100 per cent. A Muslim-majority state, as a sharp contrast, has an average literacy rate of around 40 per cent and there is no Muslim-majority state with a literacy rate of 100 per cent.
- Some 98 per cent of the 'literates' in the Christian world had completed primary school, while less than 50 per cent of the 'literates' in the Muslim world did the same.
- Around 40 per cent of the 'literates' in the Christian world attended university while no more than two per cent of the 'literates' in the Muslim world did the same.
- Muslim-majority countries have 230 scientists per one million Muslims. The US has 4,000 scientists per million and Japan has 5,000 per million. In the entire Arab world, the total number of full-time researchers is 35,000 and there are only 50 technicians per one million Arabs. (in the Christian world there are up to 1,000 technicians per one million).
- Furthermore,
the Muslim world spends 0.2 per cent of its GDP on research and
development, while the Christian world spends around five per cent of
its GDP.
- Daily newspapers per 1,000 people and number of book titles per million are two indicators of whether knowledge is being diffused in a society.
- In Pakistan, there are 23 daily newspapers per 1,000 Pakistanis while the same ratio in Singapore is 360. In the UK , the number of book titles per million stands at 2,000 while the same in Egypt is 20.
Why are Muslims powerless? Dr. Farrukh Saleem's final conclusion: Because they aren't producing, diffusing and applying knowledge. And, the future belongs to knowledge-based societies.
| Country | Literacy rate (all) | Male Literacy | Female Literacy |
|---|---|---|---|
 World Israel Egypt Iran Iraq Lebanon Jordan Morocco Libya Tunisia Syria Saudi Arabia | 84.1%97.1% 72% 85% 78.2% 87.4% 93.4% 56.1% 89.2% 74.3% 79.6% 86.6% | 88.6%98.5% 80.3% 89.3% 86% 93.1% 96.6% 68.9% 95.6% 83.4% 86% 90.4% | 79.7%95.9% 63.5% 80.7% 70.6% 82.2% 90.2% 43.9% 82.7% 65.3% 73.6% 81.3% |
Quite the contrary in Israel
For comparison Israel, the 100th smallest country, with less than 1/1000th of the world's population, can lay claim to the following:
- Israel has the highest ratio of university degrees to the population in the world. Three Israeli universities are ranked within the top 100 universities in the world. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem has risen 4 points from number 57 in 2011 to 53 in 2012, according to the Shanghai Academic Ranking. The Technion (Israel Institute of Technology) was ranked 78th, and the Weizmann Institute of Science was ranked 93rd. The Tel Aviv University ranked in the top 150 while the Bar Ilan University and the Ben Gurion University were both ranked in the top 400. When ranked according to specific fields, Israel fares even better. In Mathematics, three universities made it to the top 100; The Hebrew University in 16th place, Tel Aviv in 30th and the Technion in the top 74. In Computer Science, four Israeli schools were ranked in the top 100. The Weizmann Institute was ranked 12th, the Technion came in 15th, the Hebrew University 27th, and Tel Aviv University – 29th.
- Israel produces more scientific papers per capita than any other nation by a large margin - 109 per 10,000 people - as well as one of the highest per capita rates of patents filed. Twenty-four percent of Israel's workforce holds university degrees - ranking third in the industrialized world, after the United States and Holland - and 12 percent hold advanced degrees.
- Israel leads the world in the number of scientists and technicians in the workforce, with 145 per 10,000, as opposed to 85 in the U. S., over 70 in Japan, and less than 60 in Germany. With over 25% of its work force employed in technical professions. Israel places first in this category as well.
- In proportion to its population, Israel has the largest number of startup companies in the world. In absolute terms, Israel has the largest number of startup companies than any other country in the world, except the US (3,500 companies mostly in hi-tech). On a per capita basis, Israel has the largest number of biotech start-ups. Israel is ranked #2 in the world for venture capital funds right behind the US and outside the United States and Canada, Israel has the largest number of NASDAQ listed companies. Israel has the third highest rate of entrepreneurship - and the highest rate among women and among people over 55 - in the world.
- Israel has the highest average living standards in the Middle East. The per capita income in 2000 was over $17,500, exceeding that of the UK.
- Israel's $100 billion economy is larger than all of its immediate neighbors combined.
- Relative to its population, Israel is the largest immigrant-absorbing nation on earth. Immigrants come in search of democracy, religious freedom, and economic opportunity.
- Israel has the highest percentage in the world of home computers per capita as well Israel has the world's second highest per capita of new books and has more museums per capita than any other country. Israel has the highest percentage in the world of home computers per capita.
Non-Muslim Countries Lead in Islamic Values!
“We must emphasize that many countries that profess Islam and are called Islamic are unjust, corrupt, and underdeveloped and are in fact not ‘Islamic’ by any stretch of the imagination.”( Hossein Askari)In a BBC interview, Hossein Askari, an Iranian-born academic, Professor of International Business and International Affairs at George Washington University said a study by himself and colleague Dr Scheherazde S Rehman, also rates Israel (27) as being more compliant with the ideals of the Koran than any predominantly Muslim country. Not a single majority Muslim country made the top 25 and no Arab country is in the top 50. In doing the study they applied the ideals of Islam in the areas of a society’s economic achievements, governance, human and political rights, and international relations, he said. On that index “Muslim countries do very badly,” he said and accused them of using religion as an instrument of power.
“Looking at an index of Economic Islamicity, or how closely the policies and achievements of countries reflect Islamic economic teachings - Ireland, Denmark, Luxembourg, Sweden, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Singapore, Finland, Norway, and Belgium round up the first 10”. In their ‘Overall Islamicity Index’, a measure that encompasses laws and governance, human and political rights, international relations, and economic factors, “the rankings are much the same: New Zealand, Luxembourg, Ireland, Iceland, Finland, Denmark, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the Netherlands; and again only Malaysia (38) and Kuwait (48) make it into the top 50 from Muslim countries,” he said.
“If
a country, society, or community displays characteristics such as
unelected, corrupt, oppressive, and unjust rulers, inequality before the
law, unequal opportunities for human development, absence of freedom of
choice (including that of religion), opulence alongside poverty, force,
and aggression as the instruments of conflict resolution as opposed to
dialogue and reconciliation, and, above all, the prevalence of injustice
of any kind, it is prima facie evidence that it is not an Islamic community,” he said.Source and more in An Economic IslamicityIndex by Scheherazade S. Rehman and Hossein Askari and in BBC interview .
My conclusions
So, why are Muslims so powerless? Answer: Lack of education. All we do is shouting to Allah the whole day and blame everyone else for our multiple failures! ( Dr. Farrukh Saleem)
In my opinion the core obstacle to democracy in Arab countries is that a big share of population does not have access to many-sided information sources nor they don't have means to make a critical analysis even about that limited information which they can reach. When biased (ruling regime) tv-broadcasts, rumours and fanatic provocatours lay the basis to ones personal decisions the public opinion easily reflects the will of others.
The cause for the huge imbalance between societies in the Great Middle East might be in the role of religion in different societies. In Israel there is a clear line between religion and state, and in overall European or Western countries have embraced secularism. In Arab or Muslim dominated countries Islam is more than a religion and it is primarily a political system controlling all aspects of the life of the believer. The main difference of approaches is that in democracy, laws are made by people but in Islam the laws made by people are not recognized as the laws are made by God and the ruler, as the executioner of divine law, is not accountable to the people. In a strict theocratic system with Allah alone at its head and where allah’s law is interpreted by a ruling body of clerics is absolutely incompatible with democracy as there is no room for a secular political system in which all people are treated as equals.
The progress and the political and economic reforms that spread across the world during the 20th Century largely skipped the Arab world and much of the Muslim world. Come the 21st Century, with all the new technological power and information, not only with Al-Jazeera, through the internet and social networks that we are familiar with; and it hits these societies with a harsh blow; it exposed the citizens of these countries to what they had been missing. This caused a huge turmoil as these changes did not occur gradually, allowing for economic and political liberalism. The irony of the Arab Spring was that in opening the door for popular discontent, it demonstrated that while the discontent was real, it was neither decisive nor clearly inclined toward constitutional democracy.
Different paths of development – or lack of that – in Israel vs Arab countries are creating in my opinion basic obstacle to solve Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As democratic constitutional state Israel must deal with more or less undemocratic regimes, tyrannies,dictatorships. At best the peace treaties can gain time for some period, at worst the treaty is immediately forgot after ceremonies and photo-opportunity. From my perspective peace process can be successful only if it sprouts from the grassroots of society – otherwise it is both pointless and useless.
