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Friday 9 December 2016

We Arabs are backward

5 comments:

Sam Vega said...

Call me an old cynic, but I'd like to know whether the subtitles are correct and not just plonked on an Arabic chat show by some Westerner with a grievance. But to be fair, the other bloke (interviewer/host?) did seem to express just the right amount of squirming recognition as the speaker made the points.

If genuine, what's to disagree with? I suppose it is inevitable that some more open-minded Arabs will start to think like that. Interesting to see where it goes from here.

The differences can't be genetic. They are from the same stock as Jews. They seem to have culturally conspired their own downfall. Yet Islam doesn't seem any more inimical to the scientific method than Christianity, and in Europe and America we did rather better.

One of those issues that is endlessly complex and intriguing.

A K Haart said...

Sam - I was concerned about the subtitles too, but they seem consistent with what Ibrahim Al-Buleihi is reported to say about the Arab world. Post it and see what people say seemed to be the best bet.

Yes you are right, it is endlessly complex and intriguing. Because of all the conflict and bloody violence it isn't easy to shape a perspective on these issues.

Demetrius said...

We forget that until recently, in terms of longer time, this was the Ottoman Empire. In the 19th Century, Britain and France had ambitions and some takeovers. After 1919 the European imperial powers carved it up completely. But this only lasted for around half a century, not very long at all. Also, they botched the job. It was not long enough to imprint and force them into another mould. In the meantime populations have grown substantially, so where are the surplus males all going?

wiggiatlarge said...

"And the oil came from Allah", it seems even in a discussion on how backward they are the man who is pushing this fact is as backward as the rest of them.

They do so little in the way of creating anything that I honestly believe that having to pray five times a day is just a way of filing in time, after all they do nothing else that is constructive

A K Haart said...

Demetrius - large numbers of surplus males are dying for pointless causes.

Wiggia - I get the impression that oil has been a mixed blessing. Creativity requires an impetus, an urge to create which they may not have, possibly for economic as well as cultural reasons. Unfortunately creativity is seeping away from us too.