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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bilow who wrote (18715)	2/12/2002 8:35:59 PM
From: 49thMIMOMander	Respond to of 281500

Btw, King Arthur, Sir Gawain has already returned to England. Wales, Scotland with their own parliament, none of them 2-party bastards, two sides of isle, but multiparty, round table, consensus things, even toleration of local languages and dialects. (And Tony Blair has not yet arranged the election!!) Ilmarinen It only took some 600-700 years, or whatever the regular joke is on London. There was even some debate on picking up the old viking parliamentary tradition of having local members of opposite parties sitting beside each other, within arms reach, don't know how it worked out (PB??) Only applicable for London and US for Lords and Senators, obviously, as it is kind of surrealistic for winner-takes-all local districts. (obviously some of the reasons why I enjoy blessed CSPAN, and their weekly airing from the London green seated parliament, beats both "we are the Monkeys" and Beatles, kind of)

To: Bilow who wrote (18715)	2/13/2002 5:12:35 AM
From: frankw1900	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Carl I shouldn't write when I'm grumpy. The rhetorical flow sweeps me past mundane things like facts. Education in Saudi Arabia. Acording to the CIA fact book literacy figures are Literacy: definition: age 15 and over can read and write total population: 62.8% male: 71.5% female: 50.2% (1995 est.) The country has 7 major universities of which two are basicly devoted to theology. according to lexicorient.com there are There " are about 165,000 students at the universities and colleges, while there are 16,000 teacher students, and 36,000 students attending technical and vocational studies. About 130,000 students are enrolled annually, but a good number are studying abroad." These figures may be a bit low.. I bashed my way about some very unfriendly web pages to find that, (and these are guestimates but probably not too far off), university enrollment is split about 60/40 MF. That arts enrollment is about 40/60 MF and science enrollmnet is the converse. Women are not allowed in engineering and science subjects where in their career they might come into contact with men. Pure sciences the enrollmnet is closer to 50/50. The Saudis have apparently made huge gains the last twenty years in education. But schooling is not compulsory and the literacy rate is appallingly low given the amount of money and resources thrown at it. There is also a Science City (collection of research institutes) which has been heavily financed. I noticed however research grants to one university have been declining since the mid '90s. The vast majority of the U enrollment seems to be in arts and soft sciences with big enrollment in social work and stuff like that. The govenment has established some schools for training technical workers but where they might find employment is mysterious to me, given they may have to compete with several million foreign workers. The vast number of mullahs cranked out by the theological places won't find employment in Saudi so I expect they'll form part of the agitating class and be sent abroad to do that. There is also a large extension enrollment at the major universities. The majority of internet users in SA are women - has to do with their restrictions, I assume. lcweb2.loc.gov [1992] :http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/country_profiles/newsid_791000/791936.stm lexicorient.com Apart from my flippancy and factual errors, though, I don't take back the thrust of my post. There is a reification or theorization of attitude there which has to lead in an uncomfortable direction. These people as a collection are not tuned into reality. I spent quite a bit of time in educational institutions and plenty of time in the working world and travelled a good deal and met lots of Arab academics who were better than competent, The US doesn't have a monopoly on science, I know. But nonetheless, my observation is education, or lack of it, doesn't seem to have a large effect on the reality quotient. My suspicion is Saudi science majors have a clearer idea of what's going on than the arts or social science majors. Saudi Arabia is vulnerable. Unlike the US, it really is isolationist. Too much of everything has been bought and not enough achieved through human effort. And yes, ultimately, it is a medieval place vulnerable to threats both from the modern world and the past.