By Joseph El-Khoury The Failed States Index for 2008 is finally out. This Index has been compiled yearly since 2005 by an organisation called 'The Fund For peace’ and published in the reputable ‘Foreign Policy’. Before the authors credibility is put at stake lets say that as always the company is based in Washington DC, staffed by Americans, under the patronage of other Americans and supported by more Americans. But since no one else worthy of mention has compiled such an index; we will have to put aside our healthy dose of scepticism and accept their mission statement in the words of their president Pauline Baker that ‘it is a research and educational organization that works to prevent war and alleviate the conditions that cause war’ . The product is a table where countries are scored according to a number of criteria touching on a range of economic, social and political factors. Those who are in a real mess are colour-coded in Red for ‘Alert’ and this year 35 countries out of a total of 177 fell in that category. We will focus our attention on those countries which are members of the Arab league. At the top spot Somalia , a country only by name since the late 70s where warlords and religious fundamentalists fight it over with occasional international attention. It is followed closely at number 2 by the Sudan of Omar El Bashir, reputed modernist and democrat, with a special weakness for minorities. At number 5 we find the fascinating d ...
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