The Arab world: Time for a reset?

We need a far-reaching public conversation about an urgent overhaul of national governance and regional relations.

In the Arab world today, there is a treacherous tendency to pigeonhole people into a one-dimensional identity, whether it is religion, sect, ethnicity or nationality. We often hear voices claiming that there is no such thing as the Arab world and that the Palestinian peoples’ persecution is not our concern or that our Muslim faith is our sole identity. This troubling uncertainty regarding our identity is a reaction to and a result of decades of botched management of our fortunes by inept authoritarian rulers who often engaged in power struggles, holding the public hostage to their personal aggrandisement. This degenerative and lethal trend has contributed to the fraying of societal cohesion and the fragmentation of the Arab world. It has also plunged many parts of the region into violence and misery.