I've been there, part of it is the rulers and the other part is the West. Of course with rulers like we have in our Arab nations it produces a lot of ignorance amongst the population. Except in areas where there is plenty of oil, that doesn't mean gulf Arabs are much more educated, they just have way more opportunities and leaders who do a good job domestically but when it comes to political freedom and foreign policy I don't favor them much. And then we have Islamists, yes, some Islamists are insane people with no clear objectives. But, a good portion and the majority are well educated people with clear goals and objectives. I can tell you Gaza is not like the rest of the Arabic region around Israel, such as Syria, Egypt, etc...the people there educated people whom are also logical, patient, religious but we have all kinds of people in our society. Hamas is actually more organized than Fatah and they know how to run the territory and would have done much more had they had an opportunity to. I'm a person that seeks a balance because it's the only thing that works with Muslim Arabs these days. A balance between national law mixed with Islamic law, just like Hamas does. They have raised an religious and educated population and that's partly because our struggle with Israel that transforms our people.
My family there consist of dentists, doctors, one surgeon, national employees, pharmacists ....I have many educated people in my family yet they're still barely making it due to the regional state. The rest of the Arab world is going through many problems but we can't just blame the people, it's due to years of repression from dictatorial regimes and from imperialism in the past century. So obviously right now there is chaos everywhere and the only good development is that people are actively trying to find a solution, we have people who are concerned.
I'm not sure about your personal views, but for me, I believe in God and so yes I believe Muhammad(SAW) had the right solutions to our problems. If we Muslims read about his way of life and his wisdom he have us we could solve many of our problems today. Going completely secular is not the answer in my opinion, in fact I believe we already passed that secular era in the levant region of the Middle East. Something new is brewing which will see much violence but that doesn't mean violence makes everything negative. It's unavoidable in some cases but these events change our people's minds and they learn from experiences. So I seek a balance and the issue right now is we have some people in the middle who are isolated by secular elements(By this I mean how they reflect upon their views on the region, life, foreign policy, not about conservative laws) in the Middle East. We also have extremists who don't have clear objectives or popular support but they seem to have hit an era where they have to reform themselves and eventually our priorities will change very quickly. That's what's significant about our region, you don't know what to expect but the situation overall is difficult to cope with and that's why we are very emotional when it comes to discussing our affairs but that's natural and to be expected since we all want to influence the changes occurring in our region.
Do you see what I mean here? We only exist but we are really dead.