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Frankly Amin, you would not know what evidence is if it slapped you in the faceReader comment on item: Arabist Snobs Submitted by Peter Hall (Australia), Jan 2, 2012 at 19:45 I cannot believe your ignorance to say I have provided no evidence Arabic is weak? ... You have provided no evidence your top 2 authors have large print runs, only your fantasies. I laughed at your comment that Arabic Publishing is weak when compared to English. It is compared to most languages. Do I have to repeat the same evidenced and referenced facts again and again? Spain translates more books from other languages into Spanish each year than the Arabic world has translated into Arabic in the last 1000 years. I also gave the example that France only translates10 to 20 Arabic books a year in spite of having a considerable Arabic speaking population, and these books only have small print runs. Also that the Top Arabic Author relied on a Government Job until his 60s and only had print runs of 10,000 copies. Have you forgotten this? I have shown that Arabic is the language used by the uneducated. Do you realize that your boast of 70% literacy for Arabic speakers means that 30% of Arabic speakers cannot read or write? That is really bad. However, did you realize that if 30% of Arabic speakers cannot read or write at all, this means that 60% of those that can read or write can do so only barely? Educators, as a rule of thumb, double the illiteracy rate to calculate the uneducated rate of less than 4 years of formal education as an estimate. So are you proud only 10% of Arabic speakers would be considered educated? Australia, for example, has 99% literacy, and therefore an estimated 2% of the population with less than 4 years of education. India with a literacy rate of 74.9% would therefore have an estimated 25% of its population with 4 years or more of formal education. Does this sound like a potential superpower or a sweatshop? You have provided no facts at all, NONE. None of you great Arabic writers have any books on any of the top print lists. If they did, with numbers, you would of provided them, a small Arabic publisher claiming 60 million copies is no evidence Amin, you know it, but if that is the best you can do, again, you prove me correct. You have proved without doubt that I am correct. Arabs are known to boast and exaggerate at every opportunity. History has a large number of examples of this. IE Saddam Hussein, Chemical Ali, Yasser Arrafat. How many times has Israel heard that the Arab armies would drive them into the sea, or Iraq had the 4th strongest army in the world. So if any Arabic author has printed millions of copies of anything, it would be shouted from the roof tops. Yet all that I can find are vague references to millions of copies, but always a bit vague. Yet if these people printed and sold so many copies, why do they rely on other jobs for income? Even a very ordinary writer in the west can survive professionally as a writer. Why is it easier to find facts on powdered milk production in the Arabic world than its literature? Why are peoples who speak Arabic so poor in the sciences and the arts? Why, in spite of funding ranked 37th in the world, the top Arabic university lagging around the 200 to 300 mark in world ratings? Why do Arabic readers read so little compared to other cultures and societies? India a superpower? By what are you judging this? So are you saying that the average Indian can lives to their mid 80s? NO! Are you saying that the average Indian will be earning $50,000 PA anytime soon? NO. What percentage of Indian families are 2 car families? Did you know militarily India has 1.2 strong military? Wow, Australia has only 50,000. Yet India's military budget is only 30% more than Australia's. India has 5,500 tanks, wow. 50% of which were designed in WW2 (the T55) and only 10% are considered deployable. India has a Aircraft carrier, wow? Its a WW2 Era ship with only 4 old original model harrier jump jets. Australia has retired, many decades ago, 2 aircraft carriers that were newer than the one India has operating now. Need I go on? India is rapidly growing, but doing so from a very, very low base line. I really doubt the average Indian will ever achieve 50% of the average standard of living a citizen of the US has. The same with China. The problem is that China and India are both low labour cost countries with low levels of natural resources compared to their large populations. This cheap labour means that China and India will continue to grow as long as their people stay poor and cheap. Why would a westerner want to build a factory and employ 1000s of people to glue 2 bits of wood together and have to pay them $20/hour, when you can pay an Indian or Chinese person $2 a day? Being a super power is more than just guns and bombs. However, the US has such a lead in that area maybe in 50 years time china may catch up. One US carrier Battle group has the equivalent fire power of the navies of the rest of the world combined. The US has 13 carrier battle group. India has struggled for the last 12 years to finish off a old 1990s Russian Aircraft carrier. The hull will be 30 years old by the time the Indian Navy has it operational. The facts are, China cannot afford to replicate even 5% of the existing US research infrastructure, can you name 2 inventions of the last 50 years you use every day that originate from China? Or India? Or Arabia? No, you will find most new inventions originate from the West or Japan. What would you rather own Amin, Microsoft or a shoe factory in China. Both would employ about the same number of people. India and China will never be Super powers in the true sense. The fundamental characteristic of a superpower is that the people have the highest standards of living, that the society leads in education and research, and their Military is the most advanced technology/organisation wise. The Greek and Roman Empires, the British Empire and now the US, all led in technology, education, and improving the standards that their citizens live under compared to the norm. India and China militaries are both equipped with huge numbers of low-tech equipment. The average Indian and Chinese worker earn less than 10% of their Western occupational counterparts. The Indian and Chinese educational and research infrastructures are tiny and under resourced compared to the West. As soon as the low labour cost advantage in India and China are lost to Africa, Asia and South America, neither have the educational or research base to upgrade their workforce with new skills. So your boasts of the super power status of China or India shows you lack of understanding and intellect. I see no more point in reading your mindless ramblings. You should follow Dhimmi's advice. Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments". Reader comments (272) on this item
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