My naïve conclusion

I feel like I’m ten years younger writing this post, saying something that should be basic to any curious and intelligent being who is well into her thirties. But I justify it as delayed maturity caused by a late onset of teenagehood at the age of 21. So here goes.

I recently read an article by Adam Curtis about development of the concept of humanitarian intervention (obviously spurred by the highly debated western intervention in Libya). It goes without saying that this extensively researched piece is a must read. However, in summary, Curtis describes how a group of French philosophers, innately interested in helping victims of injustice, started a thought movement that justified intervention aimed at achieving this justice, by force. Needless to say, that journey was a bumpy ride that in my opinion can no longer be seriously defended, for two main reasons. One is that when you use violence, for whatever reason, you will attract the vilest people who would jump at the opportunity to take advantage. The second is that no matter how well you think you understand the situation on the ground, how many experts you consult with and how smart your weapons are, you can never predict the outcome of the intervention and ensure that more innocent lives will be saved than if you hadn’t lifted a finger. So humanitarian work reaches another dead end. Where do humans go from here?

In the wake of the quake

Less than a year ago, I started suffering from knee pains and was diagnosed with what is basically weak muscles in my legs. The doctor told me that all I had to do was strengthen those muscles by doing daily exercises. I went back home excited and determined that I shall overcome this and exercise myself into well-being. So I embarked on a regiment of a 5-minute muscle strengthening exercise that I would jot into my daily calendar to make sure that I am consistent in applying it. Within a week, I started noticing an improvement. However, two weeks later, I also noticed that I was skipping days and just over 2 months after my initial diagnosis, I had completely stopped. Currently, every now and again, when my knees pains become too much to handle, I do a couple of days of exercise and think to myself "This is silly. I need to go back to doing this on a daily basis. No need to ruin my already weak knees at such a young age." But I never do.

Now, replace every "knee pain" in this story with a problem the Arab population is facing, "doctor" with "group of experts (economists, scientists, or even doctors)", "exercise" with the solution they prescribed and tell me if this isn't exactly how almost every issue is handled in our countries: Identify a problem, find a solution, start implementing, and lose steam really really quickly. Anyone who has been involved in the public sector in Jordan or Lebanon will know exactly what I'm talking about.

When paternity leave and HDI meet

Has anyone heard about the study done by Lancaster University on 1,100 working fathers in the UK? Well get this. The interim results of this study is that fathers are happier when they, take a deep breath:
1. do more of the housework themselves.
2. spend longer times with their children.
3. have working partners who are in the office just as long as they are.

I love these findings! And I think they constitute a major step towards striking a balance between gender roles. What I don't love is the following. According to the 2010 Human Development Report prepared by the United Nations Development Programme, Arab states suffer a loss of 28% in the inequality-adjusted human development index. The comparison with sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, which were the only regions that had greater losses due to inequality, is sadder. What's worse is that "the Arab countries collectively had the highest overall loss of any region in the education dimension: 43%." This is largely attributed to gender inequality.

I say, we can talk about economic development, democracy and transparency all we like, but the bottom line is this: If we don't educate our girls properly and allow them to participate in world outside, we are gonna be stuck in the same loop. Almost half our population cannot contribute to our economy and the poor Arab man ends up less happy and more stressed out than his British peer.

So let's do this, if not for our women, then for our men.