Human Development in the Arab World: Islam is Blocking Progress

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The report conveys some alarming statistics. In Arab countries, the quality of higher education is declining and enrollment is down. Public spending on education has declined since 1985. Expenditure on research and development is a tiny 0.2 percent of GNP, and there is a "political and social context inimical to the development of science." The number of scientists and engineers per capita is a third of the world average. The number of computers per capita is a quarter of the global average. The number of newspapers published per capita is a fifth of that of developed countries, and the little news that is disseminated is controlled and restricted. The few books that are published are censored, and the proportion of religious books produced is three times the world average. The number of books translated into Spanish each year is one thousand times the number translated into Arabic.

On the subject of religion, the authors suggest that oppressive regimes and conservative religious scholars have colluded to produce "certain interpretations of Islam" that represent "serious impediments to human development, particularly when it comes to freedom of thought, accountability of the ruling authorities, and women's participation in public life." Blaming tyrants and extremists may be a convenient option; unfortunately, the problem runs much deeper than that, as the authors may realize. In their call to "reclaim Arab knowledge," a reference to the preeminence that Arabs enjoyed in scientific knowledge from the seventh to the fourteenth centuries, the authors define a quest to build a knowledge-based society where "knowledge diffusion, production and application become the organizing principle in all aspects of human activity: culture, society, the economy, politics and private life."

This seemingly mundane aspiration is in fact a profoundly subversive concept in Muslim Arabic society. This is because Islam, rather than knowledge, is currently fervently held to be the "organizing principle" in all the aspects of human activity mentioned. Implicit but unstated in this aspiration is the need, at least in part, to replace Islam with knowledge. The authors are no doubt unwilling or unable to state such a message explicitly for fear of adopting a position that may be said to be "anti-Islam." Rather, they suggest that the quest for knowledge is compatible with Islam and can no doubt refer to a Qur'anic text for apparent support in this.

That earlier report similarly identified dire statistics regarding the Arab world's economic and social performance. Over the last twenty years, per capita income growth has been the lowest in the world except for sub-Saharan Africa. If this continues, despite its oil wealth, the Arab world will soon be left behind, not just by the developed world but by most of the developing world as well. Labor productivity is low and declining. The authors computed an index measuring various aspects of the political process, civil liberties, political rights, and independence of the media. The Arab region scored lowest of the seven regions of the world for which the index was computed.



http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/perkins_24_3.htm

Are you saying that our culture is superior and therefore justifies the mayhem we have inflicted on Iraq over the past year?

kidding.

You post your message without comment. You post a message detailing the inadequacies associated with followers of the Islam faith - inadequacies that just happen to dove-tail with "strengths" of American capitalist society. Are you offering a suggestion as to how to help these religiously challenged people of the Middle East? Are you suggesting that we all go over and introduce ourselves and explain to them the superiority of our secular culture? Are you suggesting that we point out to them that the current control of our military by the "Christian Moralists" is an aberration that will end when Democrats regain control of the political process?

Everything you post is from happy losers.

John perkins real international loser.

What I do know is that socialism is a failed idea. I find your name sickening.

Your guess is incredibly dangerous itself. If you need to feel that your assumption is somehow better, then feel free, but that neither proves your superstition true nor others as false.

Please stop starting so many threads; it's anti-social on a board with this many participants.

:shrug:

not much as of yet, but with bush in the white house, i shouldnt speak so soon. He blocked stem cell research, which is critically important. beacause of soulism. the believe that cells have souls

take a look around you

This 15th century mentality has got to be gotten over. We aren't primitives, we should be beyond looking for some god to explain away our fears. Religion is nothing more than mind control for those at the head of each particular faction to get rich off of. It's been that way throughout history. Written by man and re-written a thousand times to suit the needs of those in charge. The base message of each religion is good but all the superstitious clap trap that goes with it allows the masses to be manipulated easily. I prefer the multi-god pantheon system myself if you have to go with divinity. One god is boring.

Some of the greatest visionaries in the world were religious, just open to knew interpretations. For instance DaVinci, Copernicus (who was a priest), Michelangelo, Ghandi, Bach, Martin Luther King, Jr., Jimmy Carter just to name a few.

Religion in and of itself does not impede intellectual progress. It's fundamentalism - as we are currently seeing in some sects of Islam and Christianity, which clashes with scientific knowledge.

I consider myself deeply spiritual (don't like the label religious - because mine is a devotion to God rather than a devotion to a religion), but knowledge is vitally important to me. In my belief system, the Bible does not conflict with science, because it was written by those who did not have our scientific understanding. One of the most intellectual people I have ever been honored enough to befriend is in fact a Muslim originally from Iraq. He is observant in his religious beliefs, but also one of the greatest scientific minds I have ever met.

it can be a good thing. But dogma is dangerous, the very fact that churches have antional councils etc is disgusting, Church should be a meetup place, i don't know what the hell it has become. I think the unitarian universalists have a good program going on.

Islam doesn´t buy that sick lying, torturing, killing, which is the moral of the current U.S.Government?
Maybe I should convert to Islam.

The problem isn't Islam, the problem is religion. Set the action back by a couple of centuries, replace Islam with Christianity and you'll get the same picture - religious dogma as useful tool to perpetuate a status quo benefitting a small minority.

Call it Islam, call it Wicca, it all becomes just another bullshit ideology once it enters the political domain.

be dishonest to intellectual progress. BUt he chose that title

Just trying to pre-empt some likely attacks on the article's perceived cultural insensitivity.

I think we can all see that the population in the Muslim world is exploding, and therefore, so is poverty. Poverty breeds extremism, in this case fundamentalism Islam, and this impacts progress.

While I welcome people of all major relgions, I feel that they should join our secularist society, not live in some religious and ethnic enclave. If Muslims are interested in a fundametalist lifestyle, they should reconsider moving to western countries. For those who are born in western, secularized countries, it is a different matter of course. That said, religious extremism of any kind (including Christianity, Islam, Hunduism and Judaism) has adverse effects on our society.