No Freedom, No Prosperity

The roots of Middle Eastern rage lie in their closed societies

There's been much talk that the roots of Islamic terrorism are buried in Middle Eastern and North African poverty. This might seem odd to those who don't pay attention to the region when its sons aren't flying passenger planes into buildings. After all, fuel prices often come close to $2.00 a gallon. We know how much gas our SUVs guzzle, and Middle Eastern countries sell a lot of oil. But poor is exactly what millions of people in the region are, with per capita incomes ranging from $18,000 in the United Arab Emirates to less than $400 in Yemen. Even the residents of relatively wealthy states have seen their lots decline, as population surges and oil revenues recede.

Yet if the root causes of terrorism are open to debate, the root causes of this poverty is no mystery: That's what countries get when they combine socialist economists with totalitarian politics.

Every year, Freedom House publishes "Freedom in the World," a report which, among other things, details how North Africa and the Middle East have managed to buck a global trend toward democracy and civil liberties. Also annually, The Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation team up to produce an Index of Economic Freedom. Here again, North Africa and the Middle East fare consistently poorly.

Lack of freedom has consequences. Saudi Arabia, our supposed ally, rates poorly both in civil and economic liberties, and has experienced a relative economic decline in recent years. Its 7,000 princes aren't hurting, but the same can't be said of its quickly growing non-royal population, which has seen per capita income fall from $28,000 in the early 1980s to less than $7,000 today. This slide has destabilized the Saudi social contract, in which the subjects refrain from political agitation and the government refrains from asking them to work. Saudi leaders are currently trying to create productive jobs, which isn't easy in a country only partly open to outside capital and totally closed to outside ideas.

Similarly, Egypt, which pulls in nearly 10 percent of its budget in American foreign aid, is rated not free by Freedom House and mostly unfree in the economic index. Like anyone who's been sentient during the last 30 years, both regimes must understand the relationship between freedom and prosperity. And indeed, Saudi Arabia has recently opened some sectors of its economy to foreign investment, albeit with many strings attached. Egypt, meanwhile, has gradually moved away from complete socialism -- every university graduate, for example, is no longer guaranteed a government job.

But there's a critical relationship between economic freedom and political freedom, and neither government is willing to budge on the latter. With the possible exception of Lebanon, no country in the Arab world tolerates a free press. In Saudi Arabia and Egypt, the government controls the airwaves and hires and fires the editors of the print press. In Saudi Arabia, according to Freedom House, "Freedom of expression is severely restricted by prohibitions on criticism of the government, Islam, and the ruling family." In Egypt, those who criticize the government can wind up in jail.

While no one is allowed to criticize the regimes, the regimes are free to criticize whomever they want. To distract from their horrible political practices and economic shortcomings, they scapegoat. Muslims are poor because Jews are rich; the United States, which fought for Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo, is actually an Allah-hating Great Satan. In this unreal world, the September 11 attacks were committed not by Islamic radicals, but by Israeli agents.

The lack of freedom can't completely account for the September 11 attacks and the others that are sure to follow. Nothing can. Bin Laden himself is wealthy, not poor, and many of the hit men were educated members of the middle class. The larger burden falls on a strain of Islam that dehumanizes the infidel.

But these factors aren't mutually exclusive. The religious radicalism is certainly fueled by the pathetic performance of many closed Middle Eastern societies in the modern world. In a worldview that holds Muslims superior to infidels, it's difficult to accept it if you're not measuring up in any visible way. If we're so great, many an angry young Muslim must ask, why are we so miserable?

The popular answer is that foreign powers are screwing you. The correct answer is that your own political powers are screwing you. And that things won't get better until that's fixed.