PSU Magazine Winter 2003

artcr the eptember 11 attacks, author Fareed Zakaria states, "For all their energy these regimes chose bad ideas and implemented them in worse ways. Socialism produced bureaucracy and stagnation. Rather than adjusting to Lhe failures of central planning, the economies never really moved on. The republics calcined into dictatorship .. Arab unity cracked and crumbled as countries discovered their own national interests and opportunities." Zakaria goes on to say that Nassers dream has turned into a quiet night– mare in today's Egypt. "The government is efficient in only one area: squashing dissent and strangling civil society," he wrote, adding that almost every Arab country today is less free than it was 30 years ago--"an almost unthinkable reversal of a global pattern." I emocracies are built on r I foundations that include :...J a healthy civil society, a strong middle class, and a certain amount of trust among competing interests, most of which is lacking in the Middle East, according to John Damis, a PSU political science prores– sor. A strong foundation also includes money. Damis says democracies are most likely Lo flourish in countries where the per capita income is $6,000 or higher. Most Middle Eastern coun– tries fall below that mark: Lebanon, about $5,000 per capita; Syria, lraq, and lran are all about $2,500; Egypt, about $1,200. Oil revenue has done little to improve the lives of the average citizen in the Middle East; it has primarily made the rich richer. This class or oil– rich Arabs "travel the globe in luxury and are despised by the rest of the Arab world," Zakaria writes. In those countries where oil is not produced, the main export is labor. In other words, people move out or their home countries to find work. Apart from the oil industry, the region is The people of Iraq cast their votes October 15, 2002, and elected sole candidate Saddam Hussein (portrait) to another seven years as president. © AFP/Corbis largely undeveloped. Lt remains a net importer of most commodities, including food. dding to this economic dis– parity is the feeling among much or the population that the ruling classes in the oil-producing countries are pro-West-the same West that has enabled lsrael to become a nuclear power. At the same time, the region has undergone a population explosion during the past three decades. Out or 17 countries from Morocco to Iran, all but three have populations in which people under the age or 25 make up the majority. This is a group that is increasingly resemrul and will put even more burden on the area's undeveloped economies and nonrepresentative governments. In fact, this combination of eco– nomic and social factors is a reason for the rise of radical Islam. "Fundamen– talism gave Arabs who were dissatis– fied with their lot a powerful language of opposition," writes Zakaria. "If there is one great cause of the rise or Islamic fundamentalism, it is the total failure