October 11, 2006 – 11:31 am
(This article was originally published in Jordan’s Living Well magazine)
I came, I saw, and oh my God, Jordan is changing fast. Good or bad depends from where you’re looking.
Personally, I’m not going to ride the wave of positive dreaming to the tune of merry singalongs. That’s not my job. If you want to feel good, go have a joint, or read the editorials of the oldest twin Arabic dailies. Or do both at the same time, if you want to begin to believe the latter. I describe things as I see them and call them by their names. Cup half full or half empty is not my business as long as what’s in it is drinkable – and available to all.
So apart from being blessed with the best weather in the world (that’s almost as flattering as you’re likely to squeeze out of me), I will not rewrite one of my pathetic schooldays composition pieces and paint a childish rosy picture. Back then, they used to ask us in English exams to write what we did in the summer vacation, and almost all submitted pieces across the Kingdom went like this: “I went to Aqaba. Aqaba was nice. It was sunny. The sun is good. We played in the sand because the sand is nice. The sea was also nice… etc.”. You know the ones I’m talking about. Read More »
I was quite happy the other days to have received a call from a long time friend whose news I had not had for at least a year. After the usual exchanges, he switched to a slightly more ironic tone and said: “The main reason for my call is to shake you out of your pessimism about the evolution of world poverty. According to the latest figures from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the world poverty rate has fallen dramatically. You should rejoice.”
Indeed, there is nothing that I would have liked better but for my suspicion about how international institutions, dominated by ideologues, interpret data; although the IMF is not the worst of the lot.
The first questions that came to me were: How was “poverty” defined, by how much had the rate fallen, were the numerous pockets of poverty in rich countries included, etc. Of course, the need for answers drove me straight to the figures to which my friend referred.
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The international community has grown accustomed to the fact that economic growth between countries and regions will always be unequal, yet it is more and more uneasy with the “gap” in average incomes between rich and poor countries. That gap also bodes only embarrassment for the proponents of globalization.
So, they would rather stress a diminution of the “proportion” of the world poor. Indeed, they remind us at every opportunity that, contrary to the claims of the alter-globalizers, the world economic situation has never been so good, because world poverty is retreating. The issue as to whether or not world poverty is decreasing or increasing must now be put in the proper perspective, if we do not want to see it buried in linguistic conundrums. Read More »
January 1, 2000 – 4:40 am
Call me old fashioned, but I believe in Arab unity. Yes, I know all the counter-arguments that are the norm these days in every dinner party in every corner of the Arab world. Arab unity, many “pragmatist” Arabs love to proclaim, is just a dream that was shattered by the failure of the Pan-Arab project in the 1950′s and 1960′s, culminating in the defeat of 1967, and, more recently, by the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. here are a multitude of responses that can be made to such claims. I can point out that Arab unity is not some fancy idea that blows in the direction of every passing political event; it is an issue of identity rooted in language and history, two of the most important constituents of nationhood. But, more importantly, the pitch for Arab Unity in the 21st century must be economic. Read More »
