(^410) THE WEALTH AND POVERTY OF NATIONS
Middle East are either rich or poor depending on whether they have
oil and have few or many people. The richest have lots of oil and
few people (Saudia Arabia, Kuwait); the poorest have litde oil and lots
of people (Egypt); and in between are those that have oil but too many
people (Iraq, Iran). The poor call for solidarity, but the rich have more
immediate worries. They feel insecure, for wealth sleeps badly in a bed
of poverty. So they try to buy their safety by paying off potential rebels
or enemies; or they order cosdy arms from advanced industrial nations
in the hope of getting their protection.^22 (One wants to take care of the
customers.) Meanwhile the poor ones (such as Pakistan) make children
and, when possible, export them; or sell them to richer co-religionists
as servants, menial labor, or sources of pleasure.
No solution there; just first aid and crisis managment. Rich or poor,
these countries are without exception despotisms, where leaders are not
responsible, actions are unpredictable, loyalty is a ruse or a mirage of
propaganda, and everything, including the economy, is subordinated
to politics and can be turned around by an event. Instead of courting
legitimacy by appeals to material improvement—have I made you bet
ter off)—Arab leaders have boasted of victories over colonialism or
Zionism and waved the bloody shirt of jihad, promising to put history
right.^23 I recall a conversation in Amman back in 1968. A leading
American (Jewish) scientist was trying to persuade a group of local
notables of the advantages of peace: knowledge and collaboration, he
urged, could make the desert bloom. (This had long been a theme of
liberal Zionist discourse.) In vain; his Arab interlocutors told him they
had more pressing things to do—first of all, to defeat Israel. Prosper
ity could follow.
It is still following. Nor will it come, other than locally, even if the
"peace process" succeeds. For the ill is far more general than the Israeli-
Arab conflict.
It lies, I would argue, with the culture, which ( 1 ) does not generate
an informed and capable workforce; (2) continues to mistrust or reject
new techniques and ideas that come from the enemy West (Christen
dom);* and (3) does not respect such knowledge as members do man
age to achieve, whether by study abroad or by good fortune at home.
At the most elementary level, the rates of illiteracy are scandalously
- Thus Islam has long exercised a retardative influence on Arab intellectual and sci
entific activity. New knowledge and ideas have fallen under suspicion as bid'a or heresy.
The subtext is that they represent an unacceptable insult to timeless truth. Cf. Tibi,
Islam, p. 145.