Building a Knowledge Society

What's wrong with the Arab world? This is a question typically asked by Orientalists like Bernard Lewis and Western apologists like Fouad Ajami, but it is also the question addressed in a new report by the UN Development Program, "Building a Knowledge Society."

Writing in Ha'aretz, Zvi Bar'el summarizes the report thusly:

This is the second report the UN has published on the Arab world, and this time focuses Arab knowledge society, or rather the failure of that society.

The list of figures presented in the report on the status of knowledge in Arab countries should arouse more than a little anxiety not only in the Arab countries, but also in the developed countries.

The figures indicate that only about 0.2 percent of the gross domestic product of Arab countries is dedicated to R&D, unlike 3 percent in Japan and 2.2 percent in Israel.

One of the implications of this figure is that the technology that is parachuted in from the West to Arab countries does not undergo an assimilation process, and there is no incentive for developing local science and technology.

In effect, the report continues, the Arab countries have no national and governmental infrastructure for the systematic promotion of science and research. The authors provide a few impressive statistics. The average level of computerization in the Arab countries is 18 computers per 1,000 persons, compared to a world average of about 78 computers per 1,000 persons; only 1.6 percent of the population of Arab countries is hooked to the Internet, compared to 35-40 percent in developed countries, and the number of telephone lines is only about a fifth of the accepted figure even in developing countries.

Bar'el has much more to say, so read on.

Deficiencies in the Arab world abound, like they do all over the globe, and it is important that indigenous leaders tackle them head on so that complex, multifaceted solutions can be formulated. It's also imperative that criticism is not left solely in the hands of polemicists who aim to tell us what is exactly "wrong" with the "Arab mind" for the sake of political demonization, not for cultural regeneration.

For these reasons, I hope this report from the UN is embraced by those looking to improve life throughout the Middle East, and not just those looking to champion the superiority of the West or, alas, Israel.