Emirati professor: Arab world is "a big prison"

[qatarperegrine]

A political science professor from the UAE made some scathing comments about the Arab world at a conference on democracy and development held here yesterday. "We have a surplus of violence," he said, citing the (somewhat perplexing) statistic that Arab world contains 4% of the world's population but 36% of its violence.

He also said, in the words of the newspaper, that "the region is full of tyrants and notorious for large-scale violation of human rights" and likened the Arab world to "a big prison." Meanwhile, a former Bahraini minister said that "We have corrupt political and financial systems and weak and backward societies."

Gosh.

Coincidentally, we're learning about the Arab world in Arabic class this week, too. On Sunday we learned that the Arab world has tharawaat kathira wa quwwa kabira, much wealth and great strength. The next lesson explains that the Arab civilization is responsible for the spread of science and literature, and that its libraries 'aghnat al'alam kullah, enriched the whole world.

Somehow, these things are all true.

Comments

The % of violence.

[(Anonymous)]

and 62% of it is in occupied Palestine.
lwtc247.blog.co.uk

Re: The % of violence.

[qatar.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure where you get that statistic, but assuming it is true, that would mean that the Arab world would still be 4 times more violent than the rest of the world, even leaving Palestine out.