The Arab Brain Drain: Who Is Responsible?

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

Academics, in a number of courses taught at universities, address the question of Arab brain drain, which we call “brain drain,” and media figures do the same in their outlets, emphasizing the push and pull factors that greatly affect Arab development in all its fields.

Academics usually focus on political factors as the most important push factor for these minds, saying that the repression of ruling political regimes and their hatred for people of knowledge and learning drives them to take repressive measures against intellectuals, scientists, thinkers, and academics, in order to expel them under the guise of voluntary emigration.

It is important for these regimes that people of intellect not feel safe and reassured, so that they decide to leave the country, heading to Western countries that embrace and care for them, facilitating a calm, secure life for them.

Of course there are many factors that push Arab minds abroad, including the social pressure accompanying the Arab social structure, the pressure of certain religious factors, and the pressure of difficult economic conditions. There are also pull factors, foremost among them the relative financial comfort enjoyed by many Westerners, and the liberal character that distinguishes the Western social structure.

But an important factor emerges that academics almost overlook entirely: the suppression of intellectuals by other intellectuals. The academics and intellectuals who speak with disgust about the phenomenon of brain drain often contribute, directly, to intensifying that very drain and pushing many talented people out of the country.

The Social Environment

The social, political, and economic environment imposes itself, and it is what forms a person’s culture, ways of behaving, and methods of handling problems and concerns, and so on. All the philosophers and thinkers the earth has known throughout history — Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, al-Farabi, Ibn Sina — were influenced by their environments and the culture of their peoples and their social structures, and mostly reflected what they learned in childhood in their writings, opinions, and theories.

It is not easy for anyone to say they have freed themselves from their upbringing’s roots and that it no longer bears on their various life activities. This means the Arab is no different from his counterparts among the world’s thinkers, intellectuals, and academics — he is influenced by his surroundings and environment, and nature, in many cases, overpowers nurture.

The Arab grew up in a repressive, authoritarian political and social environment, and has no escape from being influenced by what he learned in childhood. The Arab social structure remains tribal to this day — a fanatical, insular, exclusionary structure that favors the interest of the tribe or the party over the general interest, just as the political structure is repressive and authoritarian, always prepared to sacrifice the general interest and take shelter with relatives and friends rather than with the people.

Many Arab intellectuals have come to control non-governmental organizations in their countries, because the funders — mostly Westerners — have placed money at their disposal in exchange for managing these organizations in a manner consistent with the funders’ policies. Many intellectuals have accepted this task for various reasons, including financial temptations. A number of intellectuals have also come to manage websites, controlling what is fit for publication and what is not, according to their own judgment — intellectuals who manage sites belonging to governments or parties in exchange for money, selecting the topics that appear on the site according to pre-set criteria.

Typically, the intellectual understands the funder’s policy, whether foreign or Arab, and works according to a particular viewpoint as though it were the absolute truth that everyone attempting to take the platform of the site or the NGO must adhere to.

Excluding Intellectuals

Looking into non-governmental organizations or websites, we notice that there are Arab intellectuals and thinkers who never appear on them or in their activities. These are sites and organizations that have their own loyalists and writers, and they remain their exclusive preserve. As for the sites where those who have no luck with certain other sites and organizations do appear, they deprive the other side of appearing. In other words, blocking certain opinions from appearing is not the exclusive practice of one side rather than another.

Everyone does the same things for the same reasons, and the goal is to give one opinion precedence over another for private reasons that concern neither the nation nor help its progress.

It is certainly important for the holder of an opinion to promote it, but it is shameful to prevent the other opinion from appearing. We see this often on Arab television screens, which bring on certain people rather than others, and adopt the opinion of one government rather than another. And if the screen hosts someone who does not share that same opinion or orientation, the host interrupts them repeatedly so they cannot clearly state their view to the people.

This is a policy of suppressing opinions and hiding other viewpoints — an ugly, shameful policy that has negatively affected the Arab atmosphere, opened the doors to hatred and animosity, and ultimately led to bloody internal Arab conflicts.

It is unfortunate that intellectuals are the tools of this repressive, exclusionary policy — they are the ones who practice this suppression against their colleagues without holding back from talking about democracy and pluralism. They support a certain position theoretically, and practice its opposite on the ground.

Perhaps this is due, in large part, to an opportunistic upbringing that holds to no principle, always prepared to abandon principle for the sake of private interests. This upbringing affects the intellectual who is prepared to sell himself to Arab regimes and foreign powers even if it leads to the ruin of the Arabs. Such an intellectual is prepared to betray his nation for a few crumbs of money.

And if we now look at the activities of many non-governmental organizations, we find that most of their policies and scientific research are directed toward Westerners, who benefit from this work in political planning and political practices aimed at tightening control over the political will of Arabs.

Brokers of Knowledge

Unfortunately, Arab intellectuals, researchers, and scholars have made themselves available to Western states that have money and are interested in studying Arab society and Arab culture in order to develop their planning and applied capabilities. Several European and American states have found that educational colonialism is more effective than economic or traditional colonialism, because it makes the targeted person Western by upbringing, and leads him to abandon his homeland and people out of admiration for someone else’s civilization.

These states used intellectual and educational colonialism to turn people away from their cultures, and away from belonging to their homelands and peoples, in favor of Western states that always emphasize their own interests. Arab intellectuals, writers, and academics were the means or the vehicle used to achieve this goal. People are wary of Western researchers and academics and do not cooperate with them to the degree required for scientific studies, so seeking out Arab brokers of knowledge proved more worthwhile than spending money on Westerners who cannot gather the facts about Arab society.

The Arab researcher is a son of the society and enjoys a degree of trust, and can easily infiltrate the ranks of his fellow citizens or arouse suspicion, and in this he surpasses his Western counterpart. Western states have found many intellectuals and academics willing to cooperate with them as brokers of knowledge. The Western states provide the money, and the Arab provides the information, and thus the Arab becomes a source of valuable information that can yield the master profits far greater than the money he spends on non-governmental organizations.

To my knowledge, there are Islamists belonging to Islamic factions who did not hold themselves back from conducting scientific research on Islamic movements, and their research certainly helped Western politicians pursue clearer policies grounded in knowledge from its original source.

Democratic Action Organizations

Associations or non-governmental organizations have been established across the Arab arena to promote democracy, and there are large numbers of intellectuals who see in democracy a way out of the political impasses Arabs live through, and they found no shame in working to promote democracy, even though they are among the least democratic people in practical reality and in the hiring process.

These intellectuals practice favoritism and nepotism in hiring those who work with them, and do not hesitate to suppress workers who might protest the quality of instruction offered to the public. They are also selective in the research they commission, and you will not find any of them accepting research that addresses the shortcomings of the democratic system. The accepted research is that which ultimately concludes that the democratic system is the best political system and must be embraced.

From my own experience, an academic may write research or an article of the utmost precision, logic, and scholarship, yet his research is not published because of a single line that does not fit the vision of the site’s or organization’s owner. A research association once refused to publish a book of mine on Sheikh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam because of a single sentence stating that Hajj Amin al-Husseini did not cooperate with Sheikh al-Qassam in igniting the Palestinian revolt of 1935. Another site refused to publish an article because of its title, before even reading the article, even though a title may sometimes be ironic. Yet another site rejected an article because it said most Muslim terrorists are not Shiite. And so on.

In sum, we say that intellectuals who hold to no principle and scramble after money are prepared to oppress and pressure other intellectuals, which constitutes a powerful reason for driving Arab minds away. There is a major problem among media figures who make themselves available only to serve the owner of the media outlet, and among intellectuals who work with Arab intelligence agencies.

Arab regimes are not the only criminal driving minds away — there are also people of intellect who work continually to persecute and expel Arab minds. This is a matter that requires treatment and confrontation.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “هجرة العقول العربية.. من المسؤول؟” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.