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A Century of Arab Development
(Daily Star-Lebanon) Rami G. Khouri - Arab countries have spent nearly a century developing themselves and have so little to show for it. Not a single credible Arab democracy. Not a single Arab land where the consent of the governed actually matters. Not a single Arab society where individual men and women are allowed to use all their God-given human faculties of creativity, ingenuity, individuality, debate, free expression, autonomous analysis and full productivity. Not a single Arab society that can claim to have achieved a reasonably sustainable level of social and economic development, let alone anything approaching equitable development or social justice. And not a single Arab country that has developed an education system that harnesses and honors the power of millions of its own young Arab minds, rather than corralling those minds into intellectual sheep pens where life only comprises following orders. We have endured this for over four generations now, unsurprisingly bringing us to the point today where every single Arab country, without exception, experiences open revolt of its citizens for freedom, dignity and democracy. There is not much to be proud of in the modern era of Arab statehood, and much to fix and rebuild along more rational, humane lines.