UAE scholar urges Arabs to review their assessment of globalisation

Manama: Arabs need to review their assessment that globalisation is a negative development that needs to be confronted, a UAE scholar has said.

"Most Arab studies regard globalisation as a series of negative challenges that must be resisted. There is regretfully a total disregard for the positive points and benefits that are associated with globalisation," Saeed Hareb, the advisor to the President of the Emirates University, has said.

Failure to recognise the positive and negative attributes of globalisation has led to a limited meaningful address of new social and cultural issues, he said.

"Globalisation deeply affects the Gulf states, both positively and negatively. But while its economic and political effects are quite obvious, its social and cultural influences are not clear yet, which requires a wider and more open approach from those conducting studies in this field," Hareb said in Manama on Sunday at a conference on the culture of citizenship in the GCC states.

According to the scholar, the growing influence of globalisation warrants an urgent addressing of the concept of citizenship in the Gulf countries.

"Historically, the concept of citizenship is new and came into being with the emergence of the modern state, superseding the sense of tribalism that prevailed in the past. Today, citizenship is the main foundation to build societies and represents the ideal relationship between people and their country, reflecting a series of mutual commitments," he said.

But, UAE scholar Ebtisam Al Kitbi stressed that the sense of citizenship was co-related with the strength of the state.

"There is a strong relationship between a full development of the state and its institutions and the deepening of the sense of citizenship," said the professor of political science at the United Arab Emirates University.

"A state that comes close to the ideal model of the modern nation with a strong and cohesive society will certainly enjoy a deep sense of citizenship," she said.