Stinging Critique from an Emirati Professor

This Gulf News article came out over a month and a half ago but I clipped it and have been eager to comment on it. It's an amazing article given the historical lack of freedom of the press and public criticism of the government here. Much progress has been made and perhaps this published interview is evidence despite his pessimism.

The professor, Dr. Jamal Al Suwaidi, is a Political Science teacher at UAE University in Al Ain and he got his PhD at the University of Wisconsin. Here are just a few of the excerpts from his interview.

On the first democratic elections of the Federal National Council in Abu Dhabi in December...

"...a setback... it showed a clear tendency toward tribalism. If the election process is to be expanded, it will become even more tribal and will take the UAE back at least 50 years"

On the recently formed Human Rights Society...

"It has done nothing since it's creation last year. It is just a name, a banner."

On the state of the media in the UAE...

"It suffers from self-censorship. Everybody talks about the freedom of expression but they never excercise it."

On the education system in the UAE...

"Our education system is a failure... The Ministry of Education talks too much but does nothing."

(ouch!)

On the percentage of expatriates in the UAE...

"foreigners now constitute almost 90% of the population" (this is in contrast to official government numbers which state that expats are 79%)

It's a fascinating article and you should read all that he says. I'd love to talk to him over coffee one day!

For his quotes on radical Islam in the UAE click below.


On Islamism in the UAE...

"the (Muslim) Brotherhood has a following... but they have yet to interfere in state policies. (But) they surely have a local leadership in this country, carry public activities and have their own institutions."

On Islamism and democracy...

"Religious currents like the (Muslim) Brotherhood carries a message that enjoys sympathy of the majority in the Arab world. But if they grabbed power they would send everybody to the gallows."

On the Middle Eastern governmental dilemma...

"Today we are stuck between two extremes: authoritarian regimes on the one hand and the Islamist totalitarian opposition."