Egyptian Television Preacher Amr Khaled Criticizes Arab Society

June 2, 2004 Iqra TV

The popular Egyptian preacher, 'Amr Khaled, discussed the situation of education in the Arab and Muslim world during his weekly program on the religious channel, Iqra TV. Following is a verbatim translation of excerpts from his comments:

'Amr Khaled: We Muslims have a problem. What is our problem? Our problem is that we don't think, don't want to think, are too lazy to think, or we avoid thinking. We suffer from a disease, and I mean all of us. People have a sort of shyness. Actually, it is not shyness but revulsion and laziness. Thinking has become a difficult process. Everyone looks for someone else who will think in his stead.

Many youths tell you, "Thinking is for grownups; we are young and don't think." The result is that we do not produce anything. Tell me what we have created, oh Muslims? Tell me what we Muslims have contributed to humanity? Can any of you tell me what we have contributed in the past 200 years? For 200 years, we have contributed nothing.

Oh Muslims, not one thing came from our brains and contributed to humanity. Where are the Muslim inventions in the last 200 years? The important and brilliant inventions did not come from us. Where are the Nobel prizes in medicine and engineering? Don't tell me it is a conspiracy against us. It is not.

No one has created anything of value that is worthy of prizes. We have not produced such things. Where are the international theories in economics? We have nothing to do with them. All theories come from the West. Where do the political theories come from? In the past 200 years they?ve all come from the West. We haven?t produced anything. Where are the artistic inventions? We?ve produced nothing. We only imitate. We even copied the music videos from them, without knowing why they do what they do. The guy moves his head right and left, up and down. We took it as is and copied it, but where are the artistic inventions that suit our culture? No one knows.

Even in sports. Anyone who plays and understands something about soccer knows that we took the 4-2-4 or 4-3-3 playing strategies from abroad. There is nothing. Oh the shame? We have nothing.

We just take what the others think of. They invent the car and we drive it. They invent the camera and we use it. They invent the cellular phone and we use it. But what do we produce? We only produce what other brains thought of. Then we use it. We are mere consumers.