Beyond Super Tuesday

THE biggest voting day ahead of the Nov 4 US presidential elections brought results and sentiments that were ironically part predicted, part surprising as the Democratic camp saw a draw of sorts while McCain emerged clearly best on the Republican side. And since all participants succeeded in winning at least five states, final nomination battles will be long drawn, implying a mixed ride ahead. Before the dust settles the respective contests will become much more intense. The politics will become sharp amid mud-slinging and heightened bitterness, deepening inter-party divisions. Candidates’ sentiments from the 24-state vote notwithstanding, a somewhat cold analysis predicts the Republican race thinning further as the remainder of the contest unfolds and results fail to keep up with campaign costs. McCain’s sternest test will come from within the party as his views on immigration, tax cuts and campaign finance reform have not exactly broken ice with conservatives. Strangely, significant pockets of street Republican opinion have betrayed desire for change despite conservative leanings. So, the self-made Vietnam War veteran Senator currently enjoying the Republican lead is probably right in counting on momentum to carry him on from here.
The Democratic race, despite fewer candidates, is more complex. Obama’s change promising charm has displayed few signs of running out of steam. Even with losing critical states, he notched up a bigger final number, falling only marginally behind Clinton in terms of delegates captured, owing to the Democrats’ ‘proportional distribution’ system. And if the former first lady gained political capital by bolstering her New York and California wins in the traditionally Republican ‘red states’, Obama too graduated from his core African-American vote bank to attracting a wider ethnic mix. It is important to note that though super Tuesday failed to deliver any decisive blows, the road ahead will be markedly different. Contestants have already adjusted their rhetoric to incorporate the sagging economy as the chief concern, but new stats are pointing at a sharper decline in the world’s biggest economy’s fortunes, meaning if not already at hand, recession cannot be too far away. This means that as Iraq becomes more distant, campaign slogans boasting experience and change will need to make way for more serious and technical analyses and proposed remedies. And judging from political and economic changes sweeping through America, the great bastion of democracy is likely in need of both experience and change to chart its way to safer waters. That, in turn, means the contestants will have to learn as much from each other as they wish to appear distant.
 

A disturbing picture

THE World Bank’s Middle East and North Africa (MENA) report on education deserves close study. Even though the majority of the statistics gathered date from no later than 2004, the picture it paints of the way young people are being educated in the Arab world rings certain alarm bells, which are well characterized in the 399-page report’s doleful title “The Road Not Traveled”. One of the principal findings is that Arab education is falling behind the rest of the world, particularly the former laggard regions in Latin America and Asia. In one key area, math scores, Arab children, says World Bank, fall below the world average. Unfortunately Saudi Arabia, along with Morocco is among the worst performers. When it comes to higher education, throughout the region 70 percent of students are opting to study humanities rather than sciences and in the Kingdom the figure is actually 76 percent. This poses a real challenge for young people preparing themselves for careers in an increasingly technology-driven world. The report notes that Saudi Arabia, in 2004 devoted fully 20 percent of its budget to education. However, it continues that similar high levels of investment in education in leading Arab countries during the last four decades have not been matched by higher economic growth. It suggests that too many graduates are finding nontechnical jobs in the public services, a trend, which it argues, is unsustainable. It also finds that in the Kingdom there is a higher proportion of female than male university undergraduates and though the ratio of higher education teachers to students is good, in secondary education shortages of well-qualified staff are in the offing. The government will doubtless feel that its most recent educational initiatives, not least the new SR10 billion King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), address many of these issues.
However, the challenges ahead in Saudi Arabia, as in the rest of the Arab world, are not simply the responsibility of the authorities. Young people clearly need to take a realistic view of their future and work out in what subjects they will need to train to become useful members of society. The sciences are often wrongly discarded as being harder work than the humanities. For those MENA countries such as Morocco that are still struggling, for largely economic reasons, to provide a comprehensive and effective education system for their young people, the need to address shortcomings goes beyond equipping the younger generation for an ever-more demanding high-tech world. Poor education breeds unemployment and dissatisfaction. A combination of ignorance and anger among young people creates a fertile breeding ground for the bigots of Al-Qaeda. Ill-equipped to understand the depravity and nihilism of the siren voices of fanatics, such youths can be all too easily duped into believing that all their problems will be solved by terror. Education is the solemn duty of governments, families and young people themselves. The World Bank report, despite data shortcomings delivers in many ways a disturbing situation that must not be ignored.

—Arab News