Now it's time to Get Real.(information technology in Arab States)(Brief Article)(Column)

With globalization here to stay, Arab leaders are welcoming information technology. Afraid of being left behind, leaders in Egypt, Jordan and the gulf in particular rush to launch Web sites and embrace e-business without giving much thought to their countries' existing infrastructure or whether their people are equipped for cyberspace. The gulf region is running up a big tab organizing massive computer fairs, contracting topnotch computer companies and building Internet cities, but the benefit of such ventures is dubious.

Progress is more than importing technologies. There is an illusion that the adoption of IT--including the Internet, e-commerce and mobile phones--brings the Arab world closer to development: greater access to IT, apparently, will put people in touch with modernity. But this aggressive pursuit of high tech hardly meshes with the region's failure to introduce technology to the bedrock of society: libraries and schools.

Information technology is fashionable, but Arab leaders are not prepared to take other steps in social, political or economic development: none wants to disturb the existing social order, to share political power with the population or to give up the economic advantages that come with leadership. Despite the IT fanfare, only 10 percent of the Arab population uses the Internet, and those who do are typically ...