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Creating Knowledge Societies in the Arab World - Arab Knowledge Report 2009
By Farwin Fousdeen
Freelance Writer - Sri Lanka
The induction of knowledge concepts constitutes the cornerstone of any effective process of human development and as such makes a critical contribution to the escape from the vicious circles of poverty, unemployment, ignorance, and fear. It follows that the right to acquire, indigenize, and develop knowledge is beyond dispute.
* The Arab Knowledge Report 2009: Towards Productive Intercommunication for Knowledge
Knowledge is a coveted currency. There is little doubt about this, yet the length and breadth of knowledge in the Arab World, if anything, are deplorable. There is little doubt about this, too. The sheer number of relevant reports published over the last five years is a testimony of the "knowledge deficit" in the region and the exigency of the attention needed to revive that deficit. 2009 alone saw the birth of three reports, and had some dubbing it the "year of knowledge" in the Arab region. It was the Beirut-based Arab Thought Foundation which produced the report in January 2009, which was then followed by the Washington-based Brookings Institute which released the Arab Cultural Development Report. This latest Arab Knowledge Report 2009 is also foreshadowed by several arab human development reports — issued by the United Nations Development Programme (UNPD) — "which addressed the subject of knowledge as one of the most important of the three challenges facing the Arab region in addition to protection of freedoms and women empowerment."
So, what makes this report any different?
Public discussion about the report is scarce. The report itself alludes to this outcome somewhat ominously with references to the "lack of extensive public debate in Arab countries" in one instance, lamenting the absence of "Arab civil society … in the global debate on fostering knowledge and development." As for those who bothered to engage the report in debate, some of them have hailed it as a gold mine due largely to its "wise realism" and "abundant data." This wise realism must be ascribed to the fact that the Arab Knowledge Report — unlike its predecessors — has had a very real and significant input from Arab academia — an insiders-looking-in perspective. First, the report is a "fruit of the shared efforts" of the UAE-based Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation (an initiative spearheaded by Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, vice-president and prime minister of the UAE, and ruler of Dubai) and the United Nations Development Program, UNDP. Second, even a cursory glance at the "Report Team" reveals a great many Arab names, indicating that opinion and significant input, both Arab in origin.
Resting on One's Laurels
It is not uncommon to come face to face with the opinion hinged on glorifying the illustrious history of the region; its contribution to every branch of knowledge, from algebra to zoology. Outdated, defensive, and escapist, this argument refuses to confront the present deplorable state of knowledge in the Arab region. While there is no denying that Arabs have made a compelling contribution to human civilization, now the region stands in desperate need of a revival. This resting-on-laurels approach finds no expression in the report. Instead, the authors are insistent on not confronting "the knowledge gap by complacently repeating suggestions for self-reliance or dependence on the past and our existing knowledge reserves;" and affirm that "the knowledge revolution requires us to transcend such reactions."
Alternatively, the authors suggest a hybrid approach, one that would support the "old epistemological reserve and general popular culture with that built up by the contemporary revolutions in knowledge." They warn that failure to do so will result in an "intellectual reserve that preoccupies itself fruitlessly in dealing with facts that the passage of time may have caused to lose their relevance and that fall into the category of antiquarian knowledge. While this may provide sustenance for the memory and the soul, it may not enable us to understand what is happening in the world and to absorb innovations in knowledge, or help us to achieve comprehensive human development."
Indigenization of Knowledge
In sync with this hybrid approach, the authors make a call for the "indigenization" of knowledge. By all means, this is just what the region needs — a revival that borrows just enough from those more advanced, but continues to firmly hold on to what it can rightfully claim as its own. At the outset, the report affirms that the "right to acquire, indigenize, and develop knowledge is beyond dispute," and proposes an action plan based on three axes one of which is "the transfer, indigenization, and implantation of knowledge." The report defines indigenization as the "principle of inscribing local, specific, and intrinsic character … so that transferred information becomes part of the structure of the society to which it has been transferred."
It logically follows that the authors also propose means of indigenizing knowledge in the region. Translation, increase in the application of Arabic, and formulation of Arab indices are a few areas pinpointed in the report. Translation, according to the report, "gives Arab thought the opportunity for cultural cross-pollination through which to reformulate itself in light of the gains and achievements of modern knowledge." It also "contributes to the development of indigenized intellectual production, and opens it to the possibility of looking at phenomena and reality from new angles."
The authors lament the application of the Arabic language as having "one of the lowest penetration rates among the top-ten group of world languages on the net." Even the little that is put to use online is limited to areas "most of which are disconnected from the reality and needs of Arab societies."
One of the strongest and most relevant suggestions to emerge from the report is the urgent need for Arab indices:
“The Arab world lacks a pan-national monitor that could prepare quantitative and qualitative indices for the Arab region and guarantee the credibility of data on research and the dissemination of science and innovation within it”.
In addition, the dangers of using externally produced indices — it’s past, present and future implications on the region's social fabric — is extensively deliberated on:
“The evident contradiction among the data produced mostly by western international institutions forcefully indicates the need for careful deliberation before issuing judgments based on them. This points to the pressing need for Arab society to become more deeply involved in the relevant global discourses and the production of relevant data and reliable indicators. The absence in the Arab sphere of institutions capable of producing and publishing authenticated indicators leaves the Arab researcher and planner before a particular selection of information and indicators which may contradict each other — or lack the legitimacy and authority which accuracy would confer. This is a powerful indication of the urgent need to draft Arab indices for knowledge environments and their antecedents, indices that should spring from the actuality of the Arab world. This would lend them credibility and respect, and as a result, authority, whether on the front of Arab society, in both its formal and civil sectors, or amongst specialized bodies at the local, regional, and international levels”.
Intercommunication, Intolerance, etc.
As the title Towards Productive Intercommunication for Knowledge suggests, intercommunication is central to the ideas promoted in the report. Arab countries are castigated for their absence from global dialogues, and "intercommunication" is stressed upon as the single most important factor in propelling the region toward a knowledge society:
Intercommunication with the rest of the world must be an inherent feature of all aspects of knowledge in the Arab world, including education, technology, and general culture. It must be stressed that the defense of intercommunication means neither dependence nor selectivity. Equally it does not mean borrowing. At its most basic, it is a desire and aspiration to prepare the means to bring into being a knowledge-enabling environment and the indigenization and creation of knowledge. This must occur through the assimilation of contemporary knowledge values and their development in the interests of the Arab individual, in order to support his dignity and realize his well-being.
It seems only natural that intercommunication in matters that are good and useful should be featured with such prominence, for this is the only way that the region stands to benefit from the global knowledge revolution.
In all fairness, however, it remains to be said that intercommunication is actually taking place, even at a minimal level. How else can one explain the number of western universities mushrooming in the Arab region? Or the expatriate-backed research projects making entry into Arab countries? The report criticizes this as a mere "transfer" of knowledge, quite unlike the "transfer and indigenization" that the authors vehemently promote:
Although Arab countries have public and private scientific research institutions and centers, they are heavily informed by the notion of technology transfer and do not work to indigenize existing knowledge so as to allow for innovation and local knowledge production. As a result, these institutions have not succeeded in determining societal needs.
True to its promotion of relevant internal dialogue, the authors gently remind Arabs to start cooperating among themselves:
Surprisingly, joint research projects among Arab scientific research institutions working in similar fields remain extremely rare even within the same country. The joint projects currently being implemented focus on partnerships with Western industrial states … This situation results in [a] persistently weak impact.
Surprisingly, religious radicalism and intolerance are also mentioned in the report. Such mention is inevitable. After all, radicalism and intolerance and the atmospheric knowledge environment are interconnected at some points. Unlike much of the report, the assessment in this section (by far the harshest one finds in the report) has hardly been substantiated:
This cultural heritage constitutes the general framework of society and determines its trajectories in a way that makes emancipation from its influence difficult (al-Tahir Labib, background paper for the Report, in Arabic). These constants reflect, in many instances, an intellectual inertia which dominates the culture, resulting in a society that lives and thinks with a one-dimensional vision that rejects change, creativity, and innovation, believing in and preferring to submit to restrictions. As a result, society often takes a preconceived stance vis-à-vis 'the other,' one of rejection and condemnation that forecloses dialogue. All of this leads to the drawing up of civilizational battle lines, to reciprocal bouts of cultural mudslinging, and to an enmity that may reach the point of symbolic and even armed violence.
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