Arab And Pakistani Cultures Remain Self-Congratulatory Even Eight Centuries After Islam’s Golden Age Ended
By
Pervez Hoodbhoy
19 Sep 2020
PETRO-GIANT
countries of the Arab world may not be terribly well known for perspicacious
scholarship or prowess in scientific research but their one-upmanship knows no
limits.
The United
Arab Emirates is presently stealing the show: the Emirates Mars Mission’s
successful July 2020 launch means it will rendezvous with the Red Planet in six
months; UAE cities have spectacular skylines premiering the worlds’ tallest and
most stunning buildings; and the world’s top airline is called Emirates.
There’s every kind of futuristic gimmickry: the world’s first minister of
artificial intelligence, 27-year-old Sultan Al Olama, was just appointed under
UAE’s Centennial 2071 plan.
Close on
UAE’s heels are other GCC countries with Saudi Arabia having started the
construction of Neom, a futuristic megacity deep in the desert bordering the
Red Sea. Costing $500 billion upward, it will feature artificial rain, a fake
moon, robotic maids, flying taxis, and holographic teachers. Qatar plans to
spend over $220bn while hosting the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Twelve solar-cooled
super-stadiums holding around 50,000 spectators each are nearing completion.
Private
scorn accompanies these humongous public spectacles. What’s Arab about all
this? Expats flown in from around the globe run the show. They range from
domestic servants to truck drivers and from famous architects to
top-of-the-line space-travel engineers. The relationship is purely
transactional: petrodollars buy brains, brawn and gadgets.
But,
knowing the oil will eventually dry out, some GCC Arab rulers are realising
that theirs is a road to nowhere. Beating the drum of past glories and
education of the usual religious kind will doom them to remain consumers and
supplicants. And so, at least at first glance, they seem to be doing everything
right and are throwing tons of money at it.
Education
from the primary class to university is free in all state institutions. New
Arab universities are aplenty with several US universities having Arab campuses
to which famous foreign professors are lured with incredible pay packages.
Laboratories are stuffed with scientific equipment and every kind of
infrastructure is there for the asking.
Is it
working? Has a culture of learning and scholarship developed? Nature, a highly
respected science journal, has effusive praise. A recent article in its Middle
Eastern edition, ‘The Rise of Saudi Arabia as a Science Powerhouse’ describes
Saudi Arabia as “West Asia’s second most scientifically productive country
after Israel”. Other GCC countries have shot up in world rankings as well. The
sole criterion used is the number of research papers published from
universities.
But with 20
different ways of getting your name onto a paper in the internet age, and with
foreign visitors flown in just for lending their prestigious names to a paper,
making large claims based upon small evidence is unwise. Nature’s normal
objectivity was likely influenced by political and financial considerations.
The astonishing conclusion of “science powerhouse” is unsupported by other
evidence.
Unesco’s
Science Report, for example, was far more cautious. It observed that in most
Arab countries, “the education system is still not turning out graduates who
are motivated to contribute to a healthier economy”. University professors
returning from teaching stints in GCC countries agree. They complain about the
indifference, apathy, poor work ethic, and lack of curiosity among their
students. Reading habits are undeveloped. Most students opt for ‘soft’ areas
like marketing, banking and management with few going for more intellectually
demanding and rigorous disciplines.
At the
heart of this is Arab attitudes towards knowledge and learning. Centuries after
the end of Islam’s Golden Age (9th to 13th centuries), Arab culture is
self-absorbed and centred on self-congratulation. Convinced that it possesses
the only true religion and that Arabic is the most perfect language, it claims
eternal monopoly over truth. That’s narcissism on a civilisational scale.
Narcissus,
as the reader knows, is a Greek legendary figure who fell deliriously in love
with himself and disdained all around him. In anger the goddess Nemesis
punished him by obsessing him with his reflection in the stream. So lovely was
the bloom of his youth that he could not walk away from himself. And so
Narcissus wasted away and died.
A similar
tragedy befalls cultures lost in self-love. They lose vitality because there is
little desire to interact and mingle with other peoples or to move with the
times. Many young Arabs today take this lazy route. They disdain intellectual
pursuits, thinking that modern accomplishments are only a pale reflection of
the foundational works of their Muslim ancestors.
This is
delusionary. Science and learning came from all humankind and existed in
civilisations long preceding Islam. Ancient Babylonian and Egyptian science
started 3,000 to 4,000 years ago and the Chinese, Indian and Greek
civilisations were extremely fertile as well. Relatively speaking, science in
Islam was a latecomer that began with the translation of Greek works about 150
years after the death of the Holy Prophet (PBUH). Muslims added many new and
brilliant ideas but their science is just one part of pre-modern science.
Some signs
of hope are finally emerging in the Arab world. The abject failure to modernise
— except very superficially — is making GCC countries realise that insularity
won’t work. Several are moving up the learning curve and absorbing universal
values by allowing wider media access and more personal freedoms for citizens,
particularly for women. While the trend towards recognising Netanyahu’s Israel
smacks of defeatism and sells out Palestinian interests, the decrease in
anti-Semitic propaganda augurs well for all.
Bucking
progressive trends in the Arab world, Pakistan is busy manufacturing new
narcissistic illusions. Lacking the will to address urban chaos (as in Karachi)
or to generate significant employment, it seeks solace through concocting a
Turkic-Islamic past and heaping adoration upon the fictionalised Ertugrul drama
series. Now watched daily by millions, it is a new form of escapism.
Evidence
for a further closing of the Pakistani mind is starkly visible. Absent from our
school curriculum is the study of world history, philosophy, epistemology, or
comparative religions. In PTI’s Single National Curriculum, rote learning has
massively increased, as has religious content. The brains of our schoolchildren
are being programmed for a world other than the one they live in.
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Pervez
Hoodbhoy is an Islamabad-based physicist and writer.
Original
Headline: Arab cultural narcissism
Source: The Dawn, Pakistan
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