RIYADH, 24 May 2004 — The Arab book market is characterized by an abundance of religious books and a relative paucity of books on anything else. Books published here make up no more than 1.1 percent of the world production although Arabs represent 5.5 percent of the world population.
These are two of the observations of the Arab Human Development Report. Its principal author, Dr. Maen Nsour, senior program adviser at Regional Bureau for Arab States at the UNDP, points out that religious books account for 17 percent of the total number of books published in Arab countries, compared to five percent in other parts of the world.
Nsour, who is now in Riyadh, will be one of the participants in the session on “International Experience in Training and Knowledge Development.” His report was instrumental in the launch of the US-led Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) with its controversial call for political and socio-economic reforms in the Arab world.
The report analyzes the status of knowledge in the Arab region and concludes that there is significant talent finding refuge in creativity from a restrictive social and political environment. Under favorable circumstances, that could provide a solid structural foundation for a knowledge renaissance in the region.
The report points out that in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, events, Arab students were further cut off from the sources of higher knowledge. As a result of US restrictions, the number of Arab students there dropped by an average of 30 percent between 1999 and 2002. An indirect fall-out of these measures, according to the report, was that the Arab countries as a group adopted an expanded definition of terrorism spelled out in the “Arab Charter” which, in the name of combating terrorism, allows censorship, restricts access to the Internet, and curtails printing and publishing.
Additional restrictions in the dissemination of knowledge, according to the report, stem from deep-seated social, institutional, economic and political barriers. “Notable among these are the meager resources available to individuals, families and institutions and the restrictions imposed upon them. As a result, these processes often falter and fall short of preparing the epistemological and social environment necessary for knowledge production.”
Citing studies, the report indicates that authoritarian child-rearing is predominant, “accompanied by the over-protective parents. This reduces children’s independence, self-confidence and social efficiency, and fosters a passive attitude and hesitant decision-making skills. Most of all, it affects how the child thinks by suppressing questioning, exploration and initiative.”
Some 50 percent of Arab women are illiterate, especially in less developed Arab countries, the report says, and many children still do not have access to basic education. “Higher education is characterized by decreasing enrolment, and public spending on education has actually declined since 1985. In all cases, nevertheless, the most important challenge facing Arab education is its declining quality.”
The negative impact has also been felt on the mass media. Arab countries have lower information media to population ratios - the number of newspapers, radio and television per 1,000 people - compared to the world average. There are fewer than 53 newspapers per 1,000 Arab citizens, compared to 285 papers per 1,000 people in developed countries.
In the IT and telecommunications sector, the report also paints a dismal picture. The number of telephone lines in the Arab countries is barely one-fifth of that in developed countries. “Access to digital media is also among the lowest in the world. There are just 18 computers per 1,000 people in the region, compared to the global average of 78.3 percent per 1,000 persons and only 1.6 percent of the population has Internet access. These indicators scarcely reflect a sufficient level of preparedness for applying information technology for knowledge diffusion.”
The report observes that translation is another area that leaves much to be desired. On average, only 4.4 translated books per million people were published in the first five years of the 1980s (less than one book per million people per year), while the corresponding rate in Hungary was 519 books per one million people and in Spain 920 books.
In terms of knowledge production, the report speaks of stagnation in certain areas of knowledge production, especially in the field of scientific research in Arab countries, which is held back by weak basic research and the almost total lack of advanced research in fields such as information technology and molecular biology.
The region, according to the report, “also suffers from miserly R&D expenditure (currently state spending on R&D does not exceed 0.2 percent of GNP, most of which pays only for salaries, poor institutional support and a political and social context inimical to the development and promotion of science). The corps of knowledge workers, it adds, is relatively small.
The number of scientists and engineers working in R&D in Arab countries is not more than 371 per million citizens. “This is much lower than the global rate of 979 per million. The number of students enrolling in scientific disciplines in higher education in all Arab countries is also generally low, compared to countries that have used knowledge to take off, such as Korea, although among Arab countries, Jordan, followed by Algeria, have distinguished themselves in this field.”
By contrast, says the report, Arab societies have a large number of publications in the humanities. “One reason is that while science and technology require substantial social and economic investment, Arab artists can, and usually do, produce high quality work without significant institutional or material support.”
Literary production faces other major challenges. These include the small number of readers owing to high rates of illiteracy and the weak purchasing power of the Arab world. The production of literary and artistic books in Arab countries is well below average. In 1996 it did not exceed 1,945 books, representing only 0.8 percent of world production, the report adds.