Seven years have passed since I wrote my 4 May 2016 article entitled “The Future in 2030,” taking stock of the major global trends at the time and how the Arab world was responding to the challenges of the post-Arab Spring period through long-term comprehensive sustainable development plans. Egypt and Saudi Arabia had recently launched such plans which they both called “Vision 2023.” Much of what I had anticipated in the article has come to pass. The global population has increased by a billion. Humankind is still at a loss about how to deal with climate change.

The fusion between the third and fourth technological revolutions, ie digital technology armed with artificial intelligence, is affecting every facet of human life, at home and at work, in food and healthcare, travel and entertainment. The global middle class has grown, as predicted, while Hollywood keeps producing sci-fi films that fire the human imagination and inspire new dreams, now that many of the earlier generations’ visions have come true. Meanwhile, human nature has remained consistent. Despite all the progress, conflict and dispute have not let up and piety and sin remain intrinsic human traits.

While preparing for today’s article, I observed that the most discussed topics in the world at present were two. The more sensational of them is the latest chapter in the facedown between Russia and the West via Ukraine – when one day Evgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner PMC, denounces the failure of the Russian command, rises up and stages a march towards Moscow demanding a change in the leadership, and the next day all is resolved, with the Wagner soldiers returning to their camps and Prigozhin exiled to Belarus. The second topic is artificial intelligence.

Even as scientific and political agencies around the world are still debating its potential benefits and dangers, the general consensus is that AI is not just an awe-inspiring, luminous flash on the horizon but also a reality we can not ignore. The future has become the present and the present is characterised by technological leaps and bounds, on the one hand, and the unabated human propensity for strife and conflict, on the other. Both are manmade and, more troublingly, technological booms are one of the products of conflict and the search for new and ever more powerful weapons. 

In the Arab world, the Vision 2030 plans designed and implemented by several countries have made considerable strides towards their goals. What were once dreams and slogans are now concrete realities you can see, measure and use as a gauge of priorities. The parallels between the main global trends and the developments taking place in our region are interesting. They suggest that we should contemplate whether it might be possible to resolve the fundamental contradiction between simultaneous bents to wickedness and virtue in the human psyche and, if so, whether we can apply that to our region in order to overcome the current crises, end chronic instability and, if there is a future after 2030, eradicate poverty and want. 

The fact is that we cannot expect either the East or West to solve the eternal problems of humankind and the major problems of planet Earth until some progress is made in human thought and behaviour.

This can only be achieved through science. UNESCO was founded on the belief that the source of war and conflict is the human mind; if that can evolve, it should be possible to avoid war and achieve progress for humankind. That so many problems persist should inspire the Arab ambition to take them by their horns, and the best way to go about that is through an Arab academy. Situated at the midpoint between East and West, such an academy would be brilliantly placed to perform its dual mission.

One of its purposes would be to plunge straight into the fourth technological revolution and not only observe and take part in its development and applications, but also forge forward into the realm of the fifth technological revolution, which will probably unfold in space. Its second purpose would be to explore the horizons of thought and action in the disciplines of peacemaking, conflict resolution, crisis prevention and containment. If the first task brings the hard sciences to bear on the ambition to alter matter to make it useful or more effective, the second task aims to alter humankind. 

The main problem at present is that if those two realms of science are abandoned to the dynamics of the clash between nations, it exposes them to the predatory instincts of either a mercenary group or a terrorist group. The world cannot tolerate such a risk. But the starting point for addressing the stark contradiction between the huge progress made in the weapons of destruction, which whet mercenary and terrorist appetites, and the human need for security and happiness resides in the academic domain. The academy I envision should rise to the ranks of the great mega projects, of which we now see dozens unfolding across Arab countries, increasing the inhabited area of the Arab world and uniting its east and west at the Gulf of Aqaba, the crossroads between Africa, Asia and Europe. It is also where the Saudi and Egyptian development visions converge, one moving in a northwestern direction culminating in the AlUla and NEOM projects in order to shake hands with Egypt’s Sinai project, the northeastern extension of Egypt’s development trajectory out of the Nile Valley. 

Three decades ago, the Japanese proposed following through on the new Cairo Opera House that they had designed with a landmark peace and progress studies centre in Taba. Unfortunately, the proposal was not taken up, maybe because the Middle East at the time was too resistant to peace and stability. Today such a project is more essential than ever both for the region and for the world. 

* A version of this article appears in print in the 6 July, 2023 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly