This paper constitutes an attempt to show the large diversity of Arab culture and the various stages through which Arab political thought has developed since the reign of Muhammad Ali in Egypt in the early 19th century up to the present. This panorama of the various schools of political thought shows the impact of the constantly changing geopolitical environment on Arab thinkers. It also shows that essentialist attempts to analyze and grasp the ‘Arab mind’ through a single factor and, namely, through the structure of Muslim theology and laws ( sharia ) are not successful and lead to impoverishing the richness of both Arab culture and political thought.

The present article is a translation of the text of a conference given in Arabic by the author in Tunis at the Presidential Palace at the invitation of President Al Mazoukiin in May 2014. Its main argument is that the poor quality of economic growth in Arabic economies has produced high unemployment rates, inexistent productivity and the total lack of appropriation of science and technology, in addition to a high rate of concentration of wealth in the hands of a few, including ruling elites. This lack of virtuous growth is due to the development of neo-patrimonialism within the context of rent economies that cannot produce real democratic institutions. The author first makes an attempt through several indicators to identify and describe the main symptoms of this bad growth; and then he describes how to move from a rent-based and unproductive economy to a virtuous and inclusive growth model whereby human resources are all mobilized in a national effort to appropriate an adequate cluster of technologies.

This article deconstructs the West–East divide and relates it to the rise of ‘mega identities’ in the West and the rise of contradictory Islamic fundamentalisms. The trauma in the West relates to Israel, to the past history of conflicts and invasions, to terrorism and immigration. The article also analyses the complexities of Jewish trauma, the problem of diverging values between East and West, and considers addressing the issue of double standards as a way towards reducing the divide.