• The Dream of the Arab Society of Knowledge

The Dream of the Arab Society of Knowledge: Either its Achievement or the Abyss

In my last Talk of the Month, for December 2003, I made a quick tour of the Arab Human Development Report for 2003, and jumped directly to Part Two of it entitled To Build the Society of Knowledge, three chapters of it (from Chapter Six to Chapter Eight).

In this Talk, I complete my tour of this report and its most important aspects on which I wish to concentrate. In my view this report requires lengthy discussion, seminars and meetings at all levels and by all classes in the various Arab countries, involving everyone who is concerned with the public affairs of their nation, in order to benefit from the information and visions of the future that it contains, and the conceptions of how to treat the disease of backwardness that is endemic in the basic elements of our Arab states.

In the industrial age human beings succeeded in manufacturing machines to perform the function of their muscles, and to replace their beasts of burden, to carry out many tasks with greater skill, more quickly, and with less effort. There was the steam engine, then the car, then the aircraft, then the vessel for exploring distant outer space, to say nothing of machines for sowing seeds, harvesters, machines for spinning and weaving, and so many that they are hard to list and count in this article. In all that, we - Arabs and non-Muslim Arabs together have only been consumers for many decades, followers, passing through life behind the producers. While we have lost a great deal of wealth and opportunities, which we have not invested as partners of the producers in the industrial age. We have spent it as purchasers from the markets of the West, and the East as well.

As the industrial age enters the age of precision technology, since the invention of the transistor in the 1950s, industrial products have tended to become smaller, to extreme miniaturization. Silicon crystals can be compared to a very dense forest of transistor units. As Dr. Nabil Ali says in his book on The Challenges of the Information Age, The computer was the fastest, which did not stop getting faster and more precise until at the end of the 1980s it came to be the size of the palm of one’s hand! With the technological development of this machine, in terms of speed, precision and efficiency, its performance developed so that it was no longer a massive calculating machine to crunch numbers and deal with data, nor even to store information and retrieve it. Rather this machine the computer thanks to the achievements of artificial intelligence, has now become a knowledge processing machine, a machine which represents knowledge and searches for it in the mines of data, an intelligent machine which reads, hears and differentiates between forms, a machine which understands and solves problems, proves theories and makes decisions, indeed writes texts and creates forms. Since this machine has not stopped developing, indeed there are amazing leaps forward awaiting it which will multiply its capabilities with the harbingers of the exciting encounter with biotechnology and the discovery of the gene map, a knowledge explosion is coming about, and its flood is increasing with the technical achievements of the Internet, space communications and other things. In brief, there is a flood of information, an information overload, and there is a massive effort to control this flood, in order to qualify humanity for another kind of challenge of knowledge. So where are the Arabs and the Muslims in all this?

We, as Arabs, live and go along in the procession, a little bit as participants or as spectators, but a great deal as consumers. This is no longer as it was in the industrial age enough for us to continue, because there is a gap forming, namely the "digital gap", which indicates the difference between those who possess information and those who lack it. This is naturally widening with regard to those who do not produce information or do not participate in producing it, thus threatening to turn this field into a waste land that produces no crops or grass and becomes a burden on those who live on it, as they are a burden on it today.

The Wealth of the Near Future

The production and possession of information, and its exploitation and application as knowledge, have become the new wealth in the world today. The most developed and richest societies will be referred to as knowledge societies, not advanced industrial societies this means that we will be two whole ages behind in terms of the ages of development of modern societies, if we do not organize ourselves and catch up with the society of knowledge. (We have missed the opportunity to catch up with advanced industrial society). To delay this time will be lethal. Natural resources are being eroded and disappearing rapidly, beginning with water and ending with oil. The wealth of knowledge will make those who possess it use the resources they have well, however scarce they may be, indeed knowledge will provide capabilities to discover new materials which do not exhaust the little capacity that remains. And those who are remote from the society of knowledge will be in the opposite situation to that, poor in resources, exhausting these resources to a wasteful degree, and thus becoming increasingly poor and wretched.

Since knowledge is no longer restricted to the data of science, in all its spectrum of human and applied sciences, the barriers between which are now dissolving, indeed knowledge in the society of knowledge has become an arrangement of disclosing information to everybody as one of the rights of citizenship on everything concerned with the political and social life of society. This means more transparency and wider control over corruption and deviation. It is a painful paradox between the "society of knowledge and the society of "absence of knowledge or "poverty of knowledge". Whereas the society of knowledge is richer, more abundant and less corrupt politically and economically, the opposite in the society of the absence of knowledge is deeply rooted in political and social corruption.

Thus the achievement of the "Arab Society of Knowledge is no longer merely a cultural luxury or "intellectuals' talk". Indeed it has become a dream that we must urgently and constantly strive to fulfill, however impossible that may seem. And it is not impossible, in spite of everything.

We have foundations and we have good potentials, even if they are scattered here and there. But fulfilling the dream, which would not bring us close to drowning in the near future, requires that the conditions should be present for its fulfillment and its existence.

I spoke in the previous editorial (Al-Arabi, December 2003) about the impediments to the society of knowledge in our Arab world, from the reading in The Second Arab Human Development Report of 2003 . Here I continue that reading, about what the report calls To Build the Society of Knowledge a Strategic Vision. This means that the report is speaking about future conditions, even if it does not define what time span is available for these conditions. Is it the near future, the medium future or the distant future? Nevertheless, this definition is necessary, as the time element plays a distinctive and decisive role in a race in which knowledge explodes and multiplies enormously at an accelerating pace. This means that the knowledge gap is also multiplying enormously and at an accelerating pace. Perhaps the report grasped that from the beginning of this section concerned with the strategic vision, and revealed its modesty by mentioning that its vision is merely an endeavor to formulate a conception for the establishment of a society of knowledge in the Arab countries, as a contribution to stimulating the Arab elites to play an effective part in creating a genuine Arab vision to build a human renaissance in the Arab world.

Outlawed Knowledge

The report, in attempting to discuss what it calls the five basic elements of the society of knowledge, was unable to avoid sounding the alarm about the situation of knowledge in the Arab countries and the consequences of this situation continuing as it is. Knowledge seems to be outlawed in the Arab countries, with all that this involves in the continued deterioration of human welfare in most countries of the Arab world. This reduces the opportunities for human development in its territories. This is while the advanced world is turning into knowledge-intensive societies, in terms of producing this knowledge and consuming it.

This apprehensive situation, as we start looking towards the conditions for the establishment of the society of knowledge, reflects real fears. The logical result of the continued absence of knowledge from the Arab world is certainly not less than catastrophic. The expected result of the absence or banishing of knowledge is that the Arabs will continue in a marginal position in future human history. It is a position that may be a logical consequence of a decay that has lasted for seven centuries or more, while the advanced sectors of humanity advance in uninterrupted ascent in the production of knowledge and human welfare. This deteriorating situation is not adequate to bear the legitimate aspirations of the Arab people for a dignified and strong existence in the third millennium. Here we must pause and object to this context which absolves peoples from responsibility for the deterioration, as if they are always passive objects, or have never reached the stage of being weaned to bear responsibility for what is happening in their societies. The peoples are fully and doubly responsible, for themselves and for the performance of those whom they choose, or ought to choose, to organize their efforts and direct their activities.

We must stop this free absolution, because it sanctifies the continuation of lack of responsibility of the peoples, who must be the first quarter responsible for the backwardness or progress of their societies.

If the Arab peoples have endeavors and aspirations for a dignified and strong existence in the third millennium, this involves that they have effective roles and insist on the best, from now on for as long as God wills.

How will an Arab society of knowledge arise? The Second Arab Human Development Report has the answer to this question, in stating that success on the road of knowledge comes about through firm Arab co-operation aimed at unity in terms of a region of free Arab citizenship. This Arab co-operation will lead to the strengthening of the negotiating power of all the Arabs in the international battleground, in a way that will facilitate them benefiting from the opportunities of globalization to gain knowledge, and help to guard against the risks of knowledge being monopolized by those who produce it.

The report was correct to start with when it spoke about Arab society. It thereby avoided evoking sorrows and memories of political sufferings and disappointments related to talk about political unity, or rather unities imposed from above! The formulation of the conception of the hoped-for Arab grouping to achieve the society of knowledge as a region of free Arab citizenship is an eloquent summary which hints at the form of the hoped-for Arab grouping to promote the society of knowledge. It is an expression that reveals the logic of the economic groupings that have become a feature of our modern world. It refers to the condition of freedom in association with citizenship, but it remains an expression lacking in clarification and definition. Perhaps that is one of the things the report postponed to the part in which it speaks about building the Arab society of knowledge by adopting knowledge as a principle to organize human life, with the aim of developing the human renaissance in the whole of the Arab countries through the production and efficient employment of knowledge. That is, a comprehensive structure of knowledge should be established, and hence there was no other way but to define the basic elements on which this structure would stand.

Five Basic Elements for the Dream

The report summarizes the conditions for the existence of the Arab society of knowledge as five basic elements, which are:

1.  Allowing freedom of opinion, expression and organization, and ensuring them through good government.

2.  Full propagation of high quality education, devoting particular attention to the two sides of the educational contact, namely teachers and students, and continuing education for life.

3.  Making learning indigenous and building up self-created ability for research and proficient development in all activities related to society.

4.  shifting urgently to the mode of production of knowledge in the Arab social and economic structure.

5.  Establishing an authentic general Arab knowledge pattern which is open-minded and enlightened.

Five articles, or principles, the report has presented to reform the social context to gain knowledge, and strengthen the system itself for acquiring knowledge in the Arab world, in order to achieve the aim of establishing the Arab society of knowledge.

While much of this is self-evident, sensed and demanded by Arab individuals from the situation in which they are living, not on the strength of what they dream about. Some of these articles, or parts of them, are in need of illumination which will convey them correctly to the general Arab reader of the report, or the reader about it.

In the first article (freedom of opinion, expression and organization), Arabs have become used to this being an appeal for political reform, and this is understood. As for the relationship of freedom with knowledge, this is precise and decisive, especially since there is an historic ambiguity which has given an impression that the achievement of progress in knowledge in the fields of proficiency for the benefit of economic production occurred under enlightened dictatorships, as happened in South Korea before democracy became stabilized there, or Indonesia under military rule led by Suharto. Or for the benefit of the war and defense apparatus under ideologically closed dictatorships, as in North Korea, or even China s experiment under Mao Tse-tung and his successors. However that does not extend the achievement of knowledge to basic fields like the human and social  sciences, the arts and literature. These are a basis for any progress and renaissance of knowledge just as knowledge remains mere isolated spots in the fabric of society. This threatens this fabric with disintegration. It is a situation which we have seen clearly, and which we see today in locations which have achieved leaps forward in knowledge in aspects of armament, but they have left broad sectors of their peoples suffering from ignorance, poverty and disease.

Thus freedom is a basic condition, indeed it is a condition of life or death for true progress in knowledge which is able to continue and spread through the fabric of a homogeneous, healthy society. The clearest example is the vitality of scientific research, technical development and artistic and literary expression. This comprehensive package of knowledge is not strong and does not develop without freedom.

Here we must contain the condition of freedom with specific and protective fences, so the condition of respect for the law is emphasized, as the legal foundation is the only basis to discipline human behavior in general. The establishment of an honest, sound, efficient and unquestionably independent judiciary which implements the provisions of the law without selectivity or exceptions. Hence resort to law achieves an unquestionably safe environment for creativity in knowledge.

With the expansion of the scope of freedoms guarded by law, a great effort is required, not from political administrations alone, nor from economic activities, but from the prime beneficiaries of this freedom, namely the intellectuals and producers of knowledge themselves. There is no idea that intellectuals and producers of knowledge should remain crouching in cocoons closed in on themselves, while freedom is descending around them and the law is flourishing, without them working for the interest of this freedom maintained by justice, from whose womb is born good government which strengthens the demand for knowledge in all sectors of society and pushes forward the processes of producing knowledge. This good government is a guarantee of the reasonableness of decision-making, which in turn must be based on rich and clear foundations of knowledge. Thus it becomes clear how close the link is between things which used to seem far apart to us. But in the context of striving for the advancement of knowledge, they are revealed as moving points in an integrated circle.

Knowledge and Making it Home Grown

I have preferred to combine the second and third articles of the basic elements for the existence of a society of knowledge, because in my opinion they are indivisible. Indeed, they are mutually complementary and each one sustains the other. If human beings are the criterion for everything, as the Greeks said, this applies most of all to the perspective of human development, since human beings are its foundation and its desired goal. It is self-evident that education is at the core of the process of developing human beings. Knowledge is the instrument of the hoped-for education, and both of them education and knowledge are not commodities that are imported and used, like cars, clothes or foodstuffs. Indeed, they are organically linked with culture, institutional structures and activities that must be implanted in the situation of a specific human society. They are watered and cared for so that they grow appropriate to this situation, and become capable of giving what is acceptable and welcomed by the people in this situation.

Hence I precede the words about knowledge with the words about making it home grown. It is more difficult to make it home grown because this first requires radical reform of education in general, and higher education in particular, in the Arab countries. Secondly, it requires an Arab pattern of inventiveness that is concentrated in each country, permeating the social fabric completely, interconnected with strong Arab and international extensions. These two demands, which are contained in a few lines, are two huge tasks, because they involve carrying out essential reforms inside each Arab country, and then deepening co-operation between the Arab countries, and between them and the advanced world, in a healthy and efficient manner. Let us begin now, sincerely and seriously, as happened in Malaysia when Mahathir Muhammad (who has left his political position absolutely voluntarily) announced a program to enter the information age, as soon as he took charge of affairs in his country, when Malaysia was almost forgotten and when the information age was quietly rising in the West. After fifteen years of persistent effort and involving the whole fabric of Malaysian society in the process of renaissance, Malaysia became one of the most outstanding Asian tigers economically, and in essence scientifically, in terms of knowledge and technology, and still is.

Since the knowledge gap will continue to exist between us and the advanced West, even if it narrows, for the process of making knowledge home grown we must define distinctive aims, which will get away from the savagery of unequal competition with those who are several stages and decades ahead of us, and be suitable for the environment, culture and resources of the Arab situation. An example of that with regard to the difficulty of technological development is to concentrate on advanced oil industries, and improve the environment surrounding these industries, plunge into the world of information and communication skills, and penetrate deeply into the industry of renewable energy sources, like wind energy, solar energy and desalination of water. This is not only because of the Arab region s extreme need to exploit these energies, but also because they are available. This allows for a more plentiful portion for experimentation, research and development in their fields.

The condition to achieve this and the way to it will not come about except through a frank recognition of our need for Western science, and that there is no way to have access to it except through co-operation and co-ordination with the countries which have this science, in terms of all our joint interests, so that we may be able to make a start in transferring knowledge and making it native to our countries. But an attitude of hostility and constant rejection towards the states and possessors of knowledge, while we are in our present historic impasse, will only bring us to more ignorance, backwardness and isolation from the world around us.

After this digression, I return to emphasize that this direction of making science home grown in Arab society can no longer be borne on the shoulders of governments by themselves, even if they are good. Indeed, it must not be placed on their shoulders alone, so that knowledge may avoid the tyranny of one single opinion, and the likelihood of a bureaucracy emerging. This is absent from the report where it speaks without explanation about the obligation to involve civil society, particularly the organizations of those working with knowledge, in consolidating science in Arab societies.

The reform and development of learning itself do not need a great deal of clarification. The malady which has afflicted Arab education is obvious, and the simplest and clearest means to cure it is to establish the antithesis of the reasons for the malady, that is, to acquire the reasons for health. These include: the ending of all forms of deprivation of basic education, getting rid of the disgrace of widespread illiteracy which societies poorer than the Arab societies have got rid of - and promoting quality in education to gain new abilities that are given by self-education and the talents of analysis and criticism that lay the foundations for creativity, inventiveness and adventurousness. Independent institutions must be established to assess programs and institutions of higher education, and they must be used to guarantee excellence. In this aspect, the establishment of an independent Arab institution can represent a guarantee of excellence of higher education throughout all the Arab countries. The element of flattery or corruption would disappear in the education sector in all countries.

Concentration on higher education in the system of educational reform is not treating the tree from its farthest branches. This is something that the report has not made clear, in spite of the need to clarify it. Rather it is reform that is directed towards the roots, since the fruits of good higher education are rapidly transformed into good teachers and leaders of learning of a high standard who are proficient at caring for and developing new seeds and roots in the first and early stages of education.

Hence the aim of higher education in the Arab countries must be transformed, from merely graduating people who have been taught, bearing a quantity of information which rapidly disappears, to preparing efficient citizens for a society of knowledge, capable of further, continuous self-education, and suited to taking well from the developments of knowledge, and giving well to them.

While we have paused briefly to consider the Arabic language in all this, I would like to deal with it in future editorials in this space (and it deserves a great deal of treatment). I say with the report, and briefly, yes, the Arabic language can become one of the most important formative elements in the Arab information edifice. This rare element has not been available even to unified Europe, or to the ASEAN countries, or Latin America. The Arabic language is an abundant mine of knowledge if we were skilled at developing it and modernizing the instruments to extract its treasures, and at dealing with these treasures in a way that is appropriate to the hoped-for society of the near future, the society of knowledge.

From Economics to Human Cultures

Knowledge is no longer a few basic books and miscellaneous additions, as it was a few decades ago. There is a real knowledge explosion, which in turn is giving birth to additional knowledge explosions every day and hour. This is not merely work of the human intellect, it is a superstructure that feeds on other structures below it and around it, political (primarily), economic and social structures. In the field of economics which accompanies the society of knowledge, the Arabs need to develop a stronger presence in economics, and push forward the new investment the investment of knowledge where the value added is higher and faster in growth.

If we leave the matters of this world for a little and turn to the broad horizons of religion, we have to praise the enlightened explanations of the religion of truth, and those which follow the course of independent thinking and have in mind the benefit of human beings. It may be that in the independence of religious establishments, as stated in the report, that the original role of these establishments will be recovered, the true aspect of religion can be made stronger, and the benefits ordained for people maintained

I may add here something of what Mahathir Muhammad said at the opening session of the last meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference which was held in Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital. His recommendation was that we Muslims must balance between our studies of religious sciences and modern sciences and mathematics. This perspicacious appeal by Mahathir Muhammad was not only for the sake of the world, but also part of the spirit of the religion of truth, as it will not be in any way acceptable in religion for Muslims to remain the most backward and poorest peoples of the Earth. True religion, and Islam specifically, is a definite incentive and motivation for the acquisition and advancement in life. This will not come about for the Muslims except through a revolution of religious reform that removes everything that has stuck to the Islam and the Musli ms from the ages of backwardness and humiliation that have dominated the Islamic world for hundreds of years. The ignorance, superstition and nonsensical talk that were stuck to it when it the Islamic world was subjugated to the rule of foreign countries and attacks by barbarians from all directions, like the Mongols, Crusaders and others.

If the Arabs, in their effort to establish the society of knowledge, must reform themselves, put their own house in order and restructure inter-Arab relations, there is also another dimension that not be forgotten or taken lightly. This is the restructuring of Arab relations with the whole world, East and West, in a manner that is useful and brings benefit. The Arabs are in urgent need of strengthening the links of interaction and mutual understanding with all human cultures, on a firm basis of deep understanding and mutual respect.

Sulaiman Al-Askary

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