A great fuss is being made these days about the reforms needed in the Arabic and Islamic worlds. What is noticeable in all the proposed solutions for the alleged ills of these two worlds is that most are solutions based on Western systems of politics and economics.
Those among our intellectuals who favor these solutions deny that there exist any special conditions for Arabs and Muslims and ignore their rich historical heritage and culture. They do this under the pretext of benefiting from the experience of others and of saving time.
In my opinion this is merely intellectual laziness and also reveals a deep lack of self-confidence.
Western political and economic systems developed to deal with problems unique to those people and within the context of their own historical experience and culture.
For us to adopt these systems wholesale, and without fully understanding their impact and influence upon our societies, smacks of rank recklessness.
Let me give some examples.
Western countries faced, during the Industrial Revolution, the problem of converting their agrarian societies to industrial ones capable of meeting the demand of the new industries. This meant that the elites of these societies had to find ways of breaking the bonds of their people to their land and to their communities and to convert them into groups of rootless individuals that can be easily moved to the industrial sites and placed at the service of the machines.
Naturally this caused an enormous amount of dislocation and led to many social and psychological problems, which in turn lead to solutions like the “welfare state” to address the resultant lack of communal feelings and the collapse of the old family system.
The state would now take the place of the family or clan and provide individuals with jobs, homes and medical benefits. It would also care for individuals when they grew old and can no longer work.
It was also at this time that the glorification of the individual began to become serious, with a view to providing an intellectual underpinning and justification for the dislocation Western societies experienced during the Industrial Revolution. This ideology served another useful purpose in that it helped develop the consumer society which became necessary to absorb the massive production of the new machines.
Western people were now obliged to consume everything the machines churned out whether they wanted to or not.
The ideology of individualism and freedom of choice thus developed essentially to help transform Western societies into docile and efficient elements of economic production. It also helped in programming them to be “good consumers”.
Notice a funny thing; all American presidents when talking about their vision for humanity always start with free markets even before they mention human rights.
It is therefore incumbent upon our intellectuals to come up with solutions for our ills based on our own needs and derived from our own rich intellectual and cultural heritage.
It is important to note here that there can be no one solution that can be imposed on all mankind.
What our intellectuals need to do is cast off their laziness and lethargy and be creative and inventive. They must above all fight their fear of failure and their horror of making mistakes.
There is no shame, dear readers, in making mistakes. Rather, it is a shame to adopt ready-made solutions simply because we can’t be bothered to think for ourselves.
