Abu Aardvark has an interesting post about the results of a (non-scientific) public opinion poll by Al-Arabiya:
More than 80% of participants said that the delayed development of the Arab world is the fault of the reluctance of their governments about changes and reforms. Since the other options on this question included "the Arab Israeli conflict" and "terrorism", this result seems significant. As for the reasons why people don't participate in political life in the Arab world, 61% said that lack of confidence in political parties was the main reason they abstained, while some 94% mentioned "fear" as a reason not to participate. I found it somewhat disheartening that only 23% saw freedom of expression as the fastest way to develop, although I wonder if the framing of the question mattered there. In a different part of the survey, 59% saw "the absence of democracy and freedom of opinion" was the most important challenge confronting political development.The (also non-scientific) Al Jazeera poll he posted about earlier was also pretty interesting. Abu comments:
Second, the 37%-35% net in favor of reform and democracy over Palestine/Israel as the highest priority issue should actually be the headline finding here. In past surveys of this kind, you were far more likely to find 60-70% choosing Palestine first, which crowded out all other issues. That Palestine is not now crowding out reform is encouraging and interesting.And later, in his comments section, he adds,
Reform and democracy and human rights are not alternatives to caring about Palestine. Posing them as such has been standard practice for Arab rulers for many years, and it's been all too effective as an excuse for refusing change. My sense of this is not that pushing for domestic reform comes at the expense of caring about the Palestinians, but that the two issues go together for a lot of Arabs today. Certainly that's the way it's been framed on al Jazeera for years now...