Tuesday, July 20, 2004

Why tyrants rule Arabs

Gwynne Dyer writes
"It was just a random statistic, but a telling one: Only 300 books were translated into Arabic last year. That is about one foreign title per million Arabs. For comparison's sake, Greece translated 1,500 foreign-language books, or about 150 titles per million Greeks. Why is the Arab world so far behind, not only in this but in practically all the arts and sciences?"
This is an interesting statistic on its own. Dyer goes on to blame it on the west for supporting Arab dictatorships. I think that's a bit too much of playing the victim.

Dyer does seem to have intersting things to say, though. I quoted her once before: It's not always about you. In both cases, I saw her stuff in Radio Free USA.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

you had better get used to the reality that gwynne dyer is a member of the male gender