They unfortunately don't think like us Western-minded Muslims. There is too much 'rule of the fist' in the Muslim world, no real checks and balances, which greatly debilitate a nation's ability to develop. Also contributes to much corruption. And lastly, many Muslim nations are poor/not wealthy enough where most people are just trying to make a living and can barely afford eating out at a fancy restaurant once a month, if even.
Now for the wealthier nations in Arab world, the rulers believe providing a good quality of life can offset negatives of totalitarian rule. Either that, or they believe it is too early to start transferring some power to more civilian representing institutions. I doubt that however. In meantime people will do nothing about it, because they(Gulf Arabs) more distracted by Iranian threat. Also those rulers constantly tout in state media the advantage of having security, it's pretty much propaganda. Even some nationalist music is centered around being grateful for having internal security and not ending up like other nations. That's great that none of these nations are like Syria, but you can bet these ruler's intentions are not about development or reaching sky's high limit. They will always hinder ability of population to prosper if they keep feeding them with this propaganda.
They also promote theories that other Arabs want to see them fail and are jealous, and that they should just focus on themselves and appreciate their rulers for representing the Gulf Arab world, and without those rulers they would lose their identity to an extent. It may be true some ordinary(non-influential people) are indeed jealous, but jeoaulusy is so common among humanity, and I wouldn't even take that seriously, unless it's serious and coming from an hostile regime. So these rulers are providing quality of life and emphasizing nationalism as of recent in an accelerated manner. At same time, they don't want their citizens to even think of strategic independence.
So I hope Muslim people don't settle for 'security/prosper'. This is like a society not taking initiative to be better or the best. And we know what that ends up making us, pathetic losers with no clout. It's not a coincidence that influential nations always are working to innovate and be ahead of others. And the other part of it is the inclusiveness in the government, Arabs do not need to rebel against their rulers, but they need to ramp up social pressure on their rulers to allow for more inclusivenesses and checks and balances if you want to have effective policy making. Now I'm emphasizing Gulf Arabs because I believe they have the potential and I believe they will eventually figure things out. As for other Arab nations, they are too poor or incapable of strategic independence.
So maybe we will see that time in the future, but I can't help but feel there are wasted opportunities and time thanks to the rulers.
