Re-thinking Life !

In European antiquity, philosophers largely wrote in Greek. Even after the Roman conquest of the Mediterranean and the demise of paganism, philosophy was strongly associated with Hellenic culture. The leading thinkers of the Roman world, such as Cicero and Seneca, were steeped in Greek literature; Cicero even went to Athens to pay homage to the home of his philosophical heroes. Tellingly, the emperor Marcus Aurelius went so far as to write his Meditations in Greek. Cicero, and later Boethius, did attempt to initiate a philosophical tradition in Latin. But during the early Middle Ages, most of Greek thought was accessible in Latin only partially and indirectly. Elsewhere, the situation was better. In the eastern part of the Roman Empire, the Greek-speaking Byzantines could continue to read Plato and Aristotle in the original. And philosophers in the Islamic world enjoyed an extraordinary degree of access to the Hellenic intellectual heritage. In 10th-century Baghdad, readers of Ara...

Modern cities in the 21st century are defined by “individual empowerment”, “social inclusion”, “economic development”. “cultural prosperity”, and “sustainable development”. The rapid urbanization around the world ( see here ), makes it imperative for cities, as they grow in population, to meet the societal, economic, and cultural needs of its citizens who are growing increasingly diverse. But  you do not have to scrutinize the Arab cities’ ecologies to know that they are conceptually and pragmatically nothing near a modern city as illustrated above. A typical Arab city, let’s say my city Tripoli in northern Lebanon, is underdeveloped, lacks social mobility, individuals are undervalued, has marginalized groups, and the city development is temporal. The marginalization or assimilation of groups in the city is only growing by the day. I have seen this in every Arab city I have visited, with the exception of a few in the GCC. A key ingredient for continuous development is life-long lea...

Around noon yesterday, at the zenith of the sweltering summer sun and the desiccated weather of the Lebanon’s in-land s, my 9-year-old son’s bicycle was stolen from my in-laws’ house garage where he invariably sets all his outdoor miniatures. As reported by a 10-year-old witness who lives next doors, an 11-year-old limping Syrian boy, let’s call him Kamel, darted into the garage, grabbed the bicycle, and wheeled down to the next village “Al-Nabaa” located on the outskirts of Majjdel Anjar, which is adjacent to my in-laws’ village Al-Sawiri in the Bekaa of Lebanon. Instantly, after we discovered the incident, I queried the Syrian tenants above my in-laws’ house who told us of the young culprit’s physical features. Later my wife’s grandfather told us the he asked a Syrian refugee framer,who works on my in-laws’ land, to seize limping Kamel as soon as they see him, as they claimed they encounter him passing by their two-room house everyday. My mother-in-law told me that my father-in-...

In the last 15 years, the education sector has shown a full blown exponential growth in terms of enrollment rates , governmental expenditures, investments, (and of course tuition fees, notably in the private education). This gaining of exponential momentum is remarkably evident in the  MENA education sector more than anywhere in the world. Perhaps this is Partly due to the Arab Spring, most governments in the region have taken serious steps and announced large spends toward improving social infrastructure (education and healthcare). However, Despite high spending on education by respective MENA governments, the quality of education in the region has remained below global standards , an issue that parents and the job market have been pointing towards. Employers in the region always preferred foreigners rather than nationals to fill vacant/new positions as the locals were always perceived as not having the requisite skills required for some jobs. Public resentment always existed; h...

  We live in a the heightened world of consumer economics where the consumer is the center of attention for corporations and media. If you search the origin of the word “consumer” you will be stunned to find out that it means “squanderer”. And this is what we are now, mere prodigals, squanderers. We have changed the world into an unbearable “hollow place” where we roam like shadows of men. And that is why we do not realize it. We are but “reminiscence of men”, only memories of men who do not reflect and rethink to make the world a better place. Men should live to serve others, not to consume and exhaust the planet with all its abundant resources. And so, now we are to pay for our mischiefs. The repercussions are great, and they will haunt us for the years to come. Let’s start with the term consumer economy , and how we have affected ourselves and the world due to the doings of the corporations and media (that is to say that we are partially responsible for  what is happeni...

Two indicators that can be used to measure a nation’s ability not only to survive but also to thrive are the nation’s top interests and the nation’s literacy rate . This does not preclude that there are other indicators as well, but in an age where knowledge is king, a nation will be definitely doomed if its people lack knowledge or are not interested in obtaining knowledge. Our Arab nations in particular have been underdeveloped although they have the top oil and energy reserves in the world. But, why is that the case? Internet Search Trends To explore what issues Arabs are interested in, what better way than to look at top search internet trends data. Google Trends in particular track the “key word” search that every country has used for the whole year. Google Trends however does not include all countries in its tracking. Nonetheless, for the sake of comparison, I have explored what people in United States of Emirate, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon have search for the whole ye...