“Lebanese thinker Radwan al-Sayed: explains his forecasts for the election. Can any side win an outright majority?.....” Elaph, May 6.

I see the term “thinker” often used in Arab media referring to a person they interview. Always it is someone they agree with. It is quite common: so and so is the renowned thinker, or so and so is the famous unknown thinker. Like saying this is Doctor Heebie, or Professor Jeebie. Since I have never seen anyone with a job title of “thinker” anywhere else in the world except in the Arab world, I decided to look the term up. I went to various websites of corporations, government agencies, even “think tanks” searching for their thinkers and the job descriptions. I could not find any: even the “think tanks” did not have any listed. I called one think tank and told the operator I wanted to talk to a thinker, she told me there is no such position, and when I persisted she apologized and hung up on me. I tried the yellow pages online and offline, but found nada.

So what the hell does a thinker, an Arab thinker, do? And what does he think with: his head or his head? Does it mean that other Arabs don’t think and that thinking activity is restricted to professional “thinkers”? Is that why there is a need for professional thinkers?

I looked up universities: UC, UW, Haavad, MIT, Cambridge, Wellesley, and Boone’s Lick State Agricultural and Mechanical College. No cigar: not a single one had a major, or a minor, listed as “thinking”.  And no classes as “Thinking 101” or “Advanced Thinking” or ‘Thinking for Social Studies Majors”. Not even the basics of “Thinking Theory”. They had classes in logic, though, which I decided did not fit an Arab thinker.

I have heard the term mentioned in other places, in the West, but never as a career. It is only a description of a certain cerebral activity.

But then again, it might make some sense, this need for professional thinkers. We are not all thinkers, we can’t really think for ourselves. So we need thinkers just as some Americans need DR. Phil, Dr. Laura, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, or JTP to think for them, or to help them think for themselves.

Then I had another epiphany: that is why Arabs have the kind of leaders they have. The correct term would be ‘blessed with’ the leaders they have. Blessed not blighted as some troublemakers might say.

Is the End near?

Arab media (I think it was Elaph) report that an Iraqi astronomy (or is it astrology) study claims that a new planet has appeared in the vicinity which will destroy Earth in the year 2012. While some Iraqi Shi’as have believed the predictions of the study, and tied it to religious beliefs in the appearance of the Imam Mahdi, the Saudi Astrology (astronomy?) Society predictably rejected the study and its conclusions. Neither the Saudi mufti Shaikh al-Shaikh nor Imam of the Mecca mosque Shaikh Adle al-Kalban have commented yet.

I am not sure what to make of all this.

Cheers

mhg