Arab Knowledge Society Will Need Civil Rights

The debate on education and human rights initiated by the Arab Human Development Report is continuing. The Middle East countries need reforms if they do not want to miss the boat on globalisation. Germany is regarded as a trustworthy partner.

The debate on education and human rights initiated by the Arab Human Development Report is continuing. The Middle East countries need reforms if they do not want to miss the boat on globalisation. Germany is regarded as a trustworthy partner – particularly after the US led invasion of Iraq. By Hans Dembowski

photo: AP
Syrian President Bashar Assad gestures during his visit to the 9th exhibition of information technology and communication in Damascus

​​"Our problem is not simply a knowledge gap – we are suffering from a thinking gap." Sari Nusseibeh, President of Al-Quds University in Jerusalem, regrets that Arab students usually show hardly any scientific curiosity. He says they attend universities only because they hope to obtain highly-paid jobs.

Young people are accustomed to memorizing and are scarcely able to question academic paradigms critically or solve new problems creatively. Both skills, however, are necessary for academic achievement.

Nusseibeh’s gloomy judgment is shared by many experts. The Second Arab Human Development Report has sparked a lively debate on education in the region from the Atlantic to the Gulf. The study appeared late last year. Published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Arab Fund for Social and Economic Development (AFSED), it gave the entire region bad marks.

It said that all Arab countries were at risk of seeing the knowledge gap between their societies and those of the advanced world widening – with serious economic consequences.

The report’s message has been heard – for instance by the Syrian government. Abdallah Al-Dardari, head of the State Planning Commission in Damascus, confirms that Syria’s dwindling oil reserves can no longer secure his country's economic future. He says Syria must integrate with globalisation and use modern information technologies such as the Internet. Only by doing so, can the "huge potential of the Syrian individual be unleashed", says Al-Dardari.

Free development of individuals, however, is not one of the issues with which the authoritarian Ba'ath government party in Syria has made its mark in recent decades. Indeed, supposedly harmless education policy is replete with political dynamite.

That was reaffirmed once again at a conference on the prospects for knowledge societies in Arab countries, which InWEnt, the German Development Ministry (BMZ) and UNDP organised in Berlin last month. For instance, the thesis in the UNDP report that there could be no critical and creative thinking in the Arab region without civil rights and freedom of speech caused alarm.

Repression paralyses academic work

Most universities in Arab societies really do not provide any academic freedom that might protect scholars and students from secret service observation. Many governments regard universities as dangerous because "this is where young people express their aspirations or even anger", says Rima Khalaf Hunaidi, Director of the UNDP office for Arab States. Tough state control also results frequently in teachers censoring themselves in advance.

That is why the path to a knowledge society does not run via partial reforms. Egyptian Professor Nader Fergany, who led the Arab Human Development Report team, says: "The entire societal formation is at stake."

The assertion of civil rights is as conflict-prone as it is indispensable. Civil society organisations, which in many Arab countries are strictly regimented, must be allowed to act without hindrance according to Fergany. They contribute to the dissemination and processing of information and can, for instance, prove useful in literacy campaigns.

Besides such highly-charged matters, there are many tasks that touch less on political sensitivities. Members of the local elites are quick to agree that these include better teacher training, updating of syllabuses and systematic fostering of High Arabic. Moreover, female experts stress that all girls must attend school to learn reading, writing and arithmetic.

These fields offer German development policy scope for bilateral cooperation. The founding of the German University in Cairo, for instance, is seen as promising.

Its intellectual father, Ashraf Mansur, is living proof that not all foreign graduates of the German education system remain excluded from the academic networks, as a current prejudice would have. The German universities of Stuttgart and Ulm are playing a decisive role in the project of the German University in Cairo, which is organised under private law.

However, where NGOs may not accept donations from abroad – as in many countries of the region – international donors cannot support civil society institutions. Michael Hofmann, a high ranking BMZ officer, therefore calls on Arab governments to amend such laws.

Meanwhile, Arab intellectuals are also asking donor countries to change their policies. Assia Ben Salah-Alaoui, for example, mentions the issue of migration.

The Moroccan law professor complains that the EU should not poach engineers from poor countries while at the same time keeping their borders closed to unskilled workers. She says that this cannot but result in tensions which, in the long run, will also harm Europe, and it also contradicts the ageing EU societies' need for immigration.

The law professor also rejects focusing completely on basic education as the World Bank does. Arab states need academic ability, she argues: "Mass literacy is good enough for imitation societies. Innovation societies need higher studies."

Ben Salah-Alaoui believes in high-skill services. For instance, she suggests, North African countries might set up surgical centres as the demand for plastic surgery exceeds supply in Europe. In any case, it would be developmentally valuable to offer high-quality service to customers in the rich world.

Democratic transformation

The Arab Human Development Report is a document whose reform agenda was drafted by Arabs. UNDP Director Hunaidi emphasises that the concept was not imposed from outside. Rather, it shows that multilateral policy can take up controversial domestic issues where bilateral cooperation is powerless.

Left to its own, no Arab government would have put the matter on its agenda. However, the international response to the report, whose first edition of 2002 was downloaded from the Internet more than one million times, now makes the debate on education, human rights and civil society inevitable in Arab capitals.

Hunaidi stress that Arab countries are under pressure. Since September 11, 2001, Arabs in the USA and other countries have been under generalised suspicion of terrorism. The escalation of violence in the Palestinian territories heightens tension. In addition, the second edition of the Arab Human Development Report was written during the run-up to the war in Iraq.

The democratic transformation of the Middle East is indeed a matter of world politics. US President George W. Bush is attempting to force change by military means in Iraq. At the annual NATO Security Conference in Munich, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer recently told the US government that its objective was right.

But the Green politician also reiterated that the reasons the Americans gave for going to war last spring had not been convincing. In the German view, security is not a goal which could be achieved by weapons alone. It must be addressed in a more holistic way.

At the InWEnt workshop in Berlin it was clear that Arab experts place great hopes in Germany. Syrian diplomat Imad Moustapha said dialogue with the USA was impossible. All Washington ever did was to lecture on everything that should change. By contrast, he said, the Syrian people were glad when EU politicians demanded that Damascus observe human rights.

A guest from Egypt said that politicians such as German Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, who openly criticises Israel for offences, could make credible demands on Arab countries. The rhetoric from the White House and Pentagon, however, only triggered fear and anger – especially after the invasion of Iraq.

Hans Dembowski

© Magazine for Development and Cooperation 3/2004

Further reading: UNDP/AFSED: Arab Human Development Report 2003 – Building a Knowledge Society, click here