The Rise Of The Arab Fellah

Every dawn from the minarets of the Arab World comes the call to prayer: “Come to pray, come to your self-betterment.” Of late, the second part of the call, the appeal to self-betterment, is receiving a great response. People are not only praying to God, but are laboring to achieve what they have continued to pray for over generations. Only now do they realize the wisdom of what God revealed unto them many centuries ago: “God does not change you unless you change yourself.”

This movement of mass awakening, opening its eyes after a centuries-long slumber, goes on almost unnoticed. It captures no headlines. It does not evoke any dramatic response either from traditional policy makers within or the powers without. This force does not seem to count in the calculus of their politics for it is assumed that the fellah will be told. And when told he will respond readily to whatever he is told. Here I am most concerned with this unromantic, indifferent, little...