The only Arab country where protests started from rural areas might find itself facing an internationally funded reconstruction which will award money to urban centres, thus abandoning the very roots of the current crisis. The only solution is to build economic awareness. Starting from now.

The Syrian social movement has to be conscious of the necessity of establishing a just economy. Strong checks need to be built against the post-war government so that all Syrians understand the conditions of aid and consequences of reconstruction plans on their lives and the lives of their children.

Choosing a new path for development based upon self-reflection only happens rarely in history. This would be impossible without a fundamental shift in the self-perception of the vast majority of Europeans, including the political and business elite, national political classes, intellectuals and academics, churches and religious communities.

Arab Awakening's columnists offer their weekly perspective on what is happening on the ground in the Middle East. Leading the week, The second anniversary of the Syrian uprising

The intrinsic necessity of a subordinated, non-European, other to the making of a moral and political economy is not just built into Europe, but into the very idea of liberal citizenship in the modern nation state.

Global economy remains so imbalanced that significant currency shifts are needed, not only to help pull the West out of its slump but to ensure a stable and viable world for us all.

It is the marriage of the intimate knowledge of the particular - the only knowledge the particular is susceptible to, by definition - with a moral compass, that should have guided policy towards Iraq. openDemocracy's debates were my re-schooling.