LONDON: In trying to understand the forces that produced Al Qaeda and other violent manifestations of anti-western fundamentalism in the Arab world, many western commentators quickly arrived at the same conclusion after September 11.

It was that a basic disconnection had occurred that was to a considerable extent the west’s own fault. It had failed to understand the resentment caused by western political and military dominance and by the disruptive impact of western culture and materialism on conservative Arab societies. Many Arabs felt that not only their national independence, but Islam itself, was under threat. Arabs’ resulting anger at enforced impotence and imposed weakness was thus directed outwards against the west.

The Arab human development report, sponsored by the UN and Arab League, written by Arab scholars, and published this week, provides a radically different perspective on the Arab world. It reveals 22 nations in which democracy and political freedoms, free speech, civil liberties and government accountability are often wholly lacking.

It lays bare a region which is abysmally failing to educate or employ women (50 per cent are illiterate), at disastrously self-destructive cost. It exposes resource-rich societies in which per capita income growth is now on a par with sub-Saharan Africa, birth rates are soaring, and unemployment is a world-beating 15 per cent; in which investment in research and development is a mere 0.5 per cent of GDP (against 2.9 per cent in Japan); and in which intellectual life is increasingly isolated from the rest of the world.

Internet use is low and the “brain drain” to non-Arab countries is high, it notes. In the past 1,000 years, Arab countries have translated as many books as Spain translates in one year. Nor does the report dodge some uncomfortable political questions. Israel’s continuing occupation of Palestine has provided “a cause and an excuse for distorting the development agenda, disrupting national priorities and retarding political development”.

While also recording some positive trends, as in poverty reduction, this remarkable report’s underlying message is clear. The fundamental threat to Arab societies does not emanate from the west. It arises from the ignorance, discrimination and wasted opportunities that are the consequence of autocratic governance and corrupt or incompetent leadership. If there is anger, and there should be, let it first be directed within.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.