Arab Knowledge Report 2009: Towards Productive

and the distribution of the benefits ofknowledge. Translation contributes to thedevelopment of indigenised intellectualproduction and opens it to the possibilityof looking at phenomena and reality fromnew angles.Indigenisation is not, therefore, simplytransfer. It is a composite operationthat combines transfer, translation,education, training, and all activitiesthat transform what is transferred froman imported action into a well rootedaction. New environments give this actionother features that make it conformwith and appropriate to existing needs.Indigenisation, without exaggeration, is away of qualifying ourselves to reproduce,and also to engage with, the circles inwhich innovation occurs, for innovationis contingent on indigenisation, andindigenisation is contingent on the enablingenvironment. Equally, reform of therules of language, reform of educationalsystems, and synthesis of the gains of ICTall represent key mechanisms on the axisof indigenisation. All of the foregoingis to come into being within a definedvision and as a result of a defined action,a vision that seeks to make knowledge acontributor to human development.Indigenisation is a very complex processthat calls for the establishment of newstructures in the social milieu and massivematerial resources, in addition to new skillsand new patterns of labor. All of thesemandate the nurturing of new mentalitiescapable of adapting to new mechanismsof labor and production. It followsthat in the medium and long term, thebreaking of frozen patterns of labor andtheir replacement with new rhythms ofintercommunication and achievement areguaranteed. This implies that the subjectshould not be viewed from a perspectivefrom which transfer is seen as sufficient andwhich ignores the importance of tailoringwhat is being transferred to its new milieu.The process of adaptation can occur onlyif means are found that keep pace withand are responsive to the requirements andplatforms of the knowledge society.THE THIRD AXIS:DEPLOYMENT OF KNOWLEDGEThis axis follows the realisation ofenablement and indigenisation. It is relatedto the deployment of knowledge and itstechnologies in society, the economy, andthe various areas of life. It means linkingthe new knowledge gained with the arenasof production and progress in society,for new forms of knowledge enable usto build the new economies, which havealready begun to form spaces for variouskinds of labor and production and toaccumulate innumerable material andmoral goods. Deployment is reflectedin societal development and contributesto the participation by different societalgroups, particularly youth, in the advantagesoffered by the expansion and innovationgenerated by the mechanisms of the newknowledge technologies in the field oflabor and production. When deploymentof these knowledge mechanisms begins inthe economies that now dominate today’sworld, it becomes possible for our ownsocieties, through their economic actors,to engage with, for example, the economicnetworks, electronic markets, and methodsof financial intercourse required by today’snew global economy. By this means, weshall become able to join the transnationaleconomic cycle through the media madeavailable by ICT, with all their advantagesand disadvantages.AXES AND BASES:INTERSECTION ANDINTERACTIONThe axes that we have listed as separateentities should be considered as interrelatedand interactive, and not as discrete areas.Rather, these axes intersect as they formand coalesce. As between enablement,indigenisation, and deployment, enablementcommunicates, indigenisation consolidates,and deployment expands. The outcomesof all these processes is that the peopleof the knowledge society are nurtured andnew entrepreneurship and commoditiesIndigenisation is notsimply transfer. It is acomposite operationthat combinestransfer, translation,education, training,and all activities thattransform what istransferred from animported action intoan implanted actionIndigenisation is away of qualifyingourselves toreproduce, and alsoto engage with,the circles in whichinnovation occurs,for innovation iscontingent onindigenisation, andindigenisation iscontingent on theenabling environmentBUILDING THE KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY IN THE ARAB WORLD: A VISION AND A PLAN229