An Arab world full of hopelessness

ByL Hassan Al-Haifi
Published:11-10-2010
Yemen Times 1406 (http://www.yementimes.com/defaultdet.aspx?SUB_ID=34862)
Perhaps the situation in the Arab World has never been been as bleak as it is now and for sure never so hopeless. Here are 22 nations sitting atop the world’s largest sea of oil and gas, but apparently this wealth was to not meant in any way to improve the lot of the inhabitants of the region or further thier causes. One cannot help but feel distressed that we are at a loss for leadership in the Arab World just when the interests of the nation are falling out of the control of the inhabitants of the region and literally used to benefit either the enemies of this nation from within or the neocolonialist powers and international cartels that have found an easily exploitable nation, as its leaders find themselves too busy to even forsake their primary duty as leaders of the Arab World to protect the resources of the land and channel them to the overall benefit of the people of the region. We have 22 Arab nations that cannot come up with a strategy to face up to all the challenges that have befallen the nation, which can be summarized as follows:

An enemy that has literally made fools of our leadership as it continues to plunder the Holy Land and prevent its indigenous population from enjoying peace and tranquility in their own territory or hope of ever being able to hold on to what still remains in their hand, as the enemy’s Caterpillar’s continue to unleash their destructive power on the homes and history of the Palestinians. Even as this enemy seeks to convince the world that it is opting for peace, all the Arab leaders can do is hope that America can come to their rescue and convince their Israeli puppet to «talk peace».

A nation that has fallen behind considerably in development, with most of the countries not showing any positive directions in terms of providing a venue of culture and progress, which will uplift the standards of living of the people of the region and create substantial opportunities that show our leaders have a knack for the sagacious use of our abundant resources. This use should go beyond filling up their private coffers and depriving their constituencies of even the most basic of returns as called for under the social contract they have snatched from their peoples.

The inability of the region to keep pace with the onset of globalization, as regional groupings replace the rigid sovereign status of individual states, while in the Arab World we talk of building wire fences and security walls along the boundaries between the different Arab States, whereas one could still remember when the movement of capital and people was so easy and without effort or even legal documents from one end of the Arab World to the other, north or south.

A cultural void that is creeping into the mindset of the nation, as the educational systems under the custodianship of the current impotent Arab leadership fails to produce the desired educational output that efficiently harnesses the nation’s productive capacity and manages its natural and economic resources to ensure their equitable distribution for all the inhabitants of the region.

Needless to say, governance in the Arab World remains our weakest attribute as dictatorships and archaic monarchies continue to limit the ability of their constituents to have a say in the management of their affairs and resources and continue to insist that we must perpetually remain under their corrupt and or inefficient government apparatus until the end of time. This also has created a big social fragmentation, and a large gap that allows a few of the population to harvest all the benefits of the economy to just a few of the privileged, who are either related to the rulers or serve to ensure the latters’ perpetual stranglehold on their constituents’ lives and sometimes on their necks.

The Arab leaders meeting in Libya are not showing that they have indeed grasped the pitiful situation they have put their nation under and the strong distaste that their ‘subjects’ have developed for them.

If the Arab leaders expect President Barack Obama to bail them out of the predicament that Netanyahu and Lieberman have set up for them, then they are still living under an aura of wishful thinking that only emphasizes their impotence and lack of self esteem and dignity.

It is really pathetic that we have tens of leaders but all that they can produce is dead meat leadership. We are falling behind rapidly and it appears that the Zionist enemy will continue to make fools out of the worst slate of leadership the Arab World has ever known, and will eventually gobble up the remains of Palestine, while they put their stakes on the only thing that Barack Obama can deliver, whether for us or his own nation – frustration and hopelessness, as he succumbs to the military industrial complex that shapes policy in the United States and to AIPAC, which ensures that the United States does not veer off its Zionist track.