The Arab World: Waking from its Sleep
The UN Development Program last week published the fifth in a series of hard-hitting reports on the state of
the Arab world.
Six Arab countries have an outright ban on political parties and the rest restrict them. Despite their oil, two out of five people in the Arab world live on $2 or less a day. Overpowerful internal security forces often turn Arab states into a menace to their own people.
In almost every Arab country, fertility is in decline, more people, especially women, are becoming educated, and businessmen want a bigger say in economies dominated by the state.
A revolution in satellite television has broken the spell of the state-run media and created a public that wants the rulers to explain and justify themselves as never before.
Taken together, these changes are creating great agitation under the surface. The old pattern of Arab government - corrupt, opaque and authoritarian - has failed on every level and does not deserve to survive.
(Economist-UK)
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The UN Development Program last week published the fifth in a series of hard-hitting reports on the state of
the Arab world.Six Arab countries have an outright ban on political parties and the rest restrict them. Despite their oil, two out of five people in the Arab world live on $2 or less a day. Overpowerful internal security forces often turn Arab states into a menace to their own people.
In almost every Arab country, fertility is in decline, more people, especially women, are becoming educated, and businessmen want a bigger say in economies dominated by the state.
A revolution in satellite television has broken the spell of the state-run media and created a public that wants the rulers to explain and justify themselves as never before.
Taken together, these changes are creating great agitation under the surface. The old pattern of Arab government - corrupt, opaque and authoritarian - has failed on every level and does not deserve to survive.
(Economist-UK)
*
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