The root cause for the myriad of different problems in the Middle East

That is a difficult question indeed.

We cannot attempt to answer this question, if we do not determine the problems in the Middle East. To do that, many aspects should be studied and, certainly, many people will not agree with whatever conclusion anyone puts forward.

To begin with, it should be stated that the level of education, at primary and high schooling, as well as at university levels, is one of the lowest in the world; no wonder we never hear of any studies, scientific or otherwise, or any research papers that come out from any of the numerous universities and so-called research centers in the countries of the Middle East. This is mainly caused by the huge influence of corruption from one side, and of religious leaders and religious thought from the other.

Whenever study books are mostly focusing on religion and Arabic literature and ancient poetry, while rejecting modern methods of education and refusing to teach scientific facts or International literature, and in the same time continuing to convince the youth that they are the best and the chosen ones. and that their history is the most wonderful, and that the world is always conspiring against them, the results will always be catastrophic.

Then there is the huge influence (mentioned above) of religion and religious leaders. Most people in the Middle East reached a point, where they do not do anything in their lives, and they do not take any step, without consulting a religious scholar first. Wedding, marriage, divorce, schooling, raising children, the way two married people should treat each other and deal with one another, what to drink and what to eat, how to have sex and when and in what position, which science facts to accept and which to reject, how to sleep, how the judiciary should function and according to which legal system; these are just examples of the power that religious people have over populations in the Middle East. And they have also a say in political matters, internal and external.

Another important factor, which is also caused by the two points mentioned earlier, is the absence of democracy. There cannot be a democracy, when religion is the state, and when there is no separation between the two. In most cases in the region, whenever there were elections, religious parties and groups won. And the conclusion was chaos; Egypt, Tunisia, Gaza, Kuwait, Mauritania, etc… are just some of the examples.

What’s more, when women are mostly sidelined and have half the rights of men in most countries in that region, the situation is bound to go worse each day. But as Christopher Hitchens put it, the only known cure for poverty “is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction.”