The easiest article a man can write is one that talks about the future. The longer the time period in question is, the easier the article becomes. For example, if I write about the Arab world ten years from now, it is likely that I and the reader will still be alive in 2021, but it is also likely that I and the reader will have forgotten what I wrote. By contrast, if I write about the world a thousand years from now, I can probably say anything I want, and no one will hold me accountable. I had thought about writing a futuristic article with the end of last year but changed my mind. However, the idea came back to me as I read earlier this week in the prestigious newspaper The Observer, a lengthy article that included 20 predictions for the next 25 years. The average Arab journalist is a ‘jack of all trades', and writes about both what he knows and what he does not know, and may not hesitate to express an opinion on nuclear physics, even if he had failed arithmetic in primary school. Conversely, they in the West have the ability and experience to select the commentators best suited to tackle their subject of competence. As such, The Observer gathered the comments of university professors, doctors, scientists and journalists who each wrote about the subjects they are closely acquainted with, and what changes these will undergo in 25 years. For starters, American hegemony will be replaced by the rising powers in Asia, Latin America and Europe, and I read the names of countries such as Poland, Brazil and Turkey. I also read that Russia will become the world's breadbasket, that the revolt against banks and bankers will continue, and that technology will take astonishing strides and become totally different from what we know today, and will enter all facets of life up to designing ‘smart clothes'. There were also other predictions about advances in medicine, children's health, religion and automated cars. All these predictions were possible, reasonable and supported by correct information. However, they all may not materialize in the end, and the real expert is the one who tells you today what will happen tomorrow, and then tells you tomorrow why what he predicted did not happen. I will not discuss any of the predictions listed by The Observer, but will instead make my own contribution in this regard, as I predict what the Arab world will look like 25 years from now, encouraged by the fact that it will be impossible for me to be held accountable. I predict that there will be a united Arab state from the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf, which will include South Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea, Venezuela, and the Waq-Waq Islands. Or perhaps the opposite will happen, and the Arab League's 22 countries will become 44 countries, with each Arab country splitting into two or more countries. Naturally, the independent Palestinian state will be established on the land from the sea to the river. While the Palestinians will beseech the Khazari Jews to stay with them, those who stole Palestine will have their conscience awakened and will return to whence they came, in Eastern and Central Europe, America and other places. Specifically, Avigdor Lieberman will write his memoirs after he returns to Moldova and to his original career as a brothel bouncer. The reverse prediction is that Israel will extend in 25 years from the Nile to the Euphrates, and will annex the oil-producing Arab regions. Our men will work in their fields, and our women in their homes, God forbid. Since I write on the basis of facts, information and problems, I expect immigration to the North to stop and immigration to the South, to countries like Chad and Uganda, to start, and perhaps even to the South East, or Kenya, or West to Sierra Leon, and the reason is that the whole world will be better, wealthier and more democratic than us. Notwithstanding the above, I predict that in 25 years, education in Arab countries will be so advanced that delegations from China, South Korea, Germany and Canada will visit us to learn the best methods to teach young learners. The Arab countries will also send teachers to the backwards countries of Western Europe, which will compete over receiving Arab educational missions. Here, I fear that the opposite will be true, and that we will find after 25 years that many Arab countries have decided to teach only in the Arabic language, and to ban the teaching of foreign languages, and all other manifestations of ‘modernism' and Western technological debauchery. I also expect the United Nations in 25 years to send a request to the Iraqi Interior Ministry to reformulate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on the basis of the experience of democracy, religious freedom and equality in the new Iraq, and the Ministry in turn to request its Iranian political advisor to obtain the consent of the Wali Al Faqih [The Guardian Jurist] in Qom to the new human rights charter. In the end, if I am to write a personal wish of I want, not of what will happen, it would be for half of Arab leaders at least to be women. I am certain that if these women were not better than male leaders, they will definitely not be worse than them since that would be impossible. [email protected]
