What the Arab Spring Means for Science in the Arab World

9/01/2011
John Farrell, Contributor

“Significant change is unlikely soon,” writes Jordanian molecular biologist Rana Dajani in today’s Nature. “Six months on from the first events of the Arab Spring, there have been no concrete improvements for scientists here in Jordan, and I get the same impression from colleagues in Egypt and Tunisia.”

But that does not mean scientists in the Middle East are discouraged, she says. Indeed, she and many of her colleagues see reason to hope for the long term, though it will require rebuilding many institutions–in education and government–from the ground up.

And this will take at least a generation:

One positive thing that I do see and feel is the general attitude of the people, who are more optimistic that things will change for the better. And officials are more reluctant now to exploit and abuse their positions, as they are more likely to be held accountable for their actions. Although the outside world may see headlines about fancy projects such as the building of new institutions, the change to science required in Arab countries is not about bricks-and-mortar improvement but about building intellectual capacity.

Dajani is an assistant professor at the Hashemite University in Zarqa, Jordan. One of the things she loves most about her job is encouraging her students to think about science and what it means for themselves as well as for the broader Islamic culture.

“The day I got my students writing essays to express themselves was the day one student told me that he felt human,” she says, “that he was Someone with a capital S. These are the people who will build our communities and nations, who will make a difference, who will take us into the twenty-first century with confidence and progress.”

Apart from her job as a teacher and researcher, Dajani devotes a great deal of her time to the We Love Reading program, which she founded just a few years ago, which I wrote about in the Spring, and which is already expanding into countries all over the Middle East.

“I strongly believe that an essential first step towards freeing minds from the habits of the past is to plant the love of reading in our young children,” she says.

“In this way, they revisit other people’s experiences across time and space, learn that there are other ways of living, and develop respect for other perspectives. When children read, their horizons expand and they build the confidence to face challenges, create solutions and think without hindrance.”

Source: Forbes.
Link: http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnfarrell/2011/09/01/what-the-arab-spring-means-for-science-in-the-arab-world/.