Proponents of globalization seek to reassure that globalization is good for both the rich and the poor. I would challenge this theory especially in the Middle East and North Africa. As we have seen in the latest news, most of the Middle East and North Africa are in great turmoil. I believe the rapid globalization imposed in this area by the IMF and the World Bank is to blame. These two entities are mainly controlled by the United States and other European powers who do their bidding around the world. I believe this is seen by the people of Mena as neocolonialism. Globalization has brought authoritarianism, corruption, poverty to the MENA area and has strengthened political Islam in the area. So why does globalization seem to have been such a failure in the Middle East and North Africa? The Middle East has had one of the most stagnant economies in the last 30 years. From 1980 to 1990 it had almost zero growth (IMF, 2010). According to the International Monetary Fund, the oil crash in the early 1980s put many MENA countries in a debt crisis. Most MENA countries have become heavily indebted to the IMF. The IMF has instituted austerity measures in all of these countries. These included the privatization of state-owned enterprises and drastic cuts in public spending that especially affected social programs. Many of the MENA countries have experienced a change of leadership. This new leadership was generally younger and much more open to globalization. Furthermore, at that time the Cold War was coming to an end, and it was then that US military leaders decided that radical Islam might represent the next threat18. It was then that the IMF and World Bank began granting preferential lending agreements with friendly MENA countries such as Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco. The International Monetary Fund would not lend to Syria, Sudan or even a paper medium. Leaders except the IMF and World Bank lending policies which are severe and restrictive. These policies do not help the average citizen. Works Cited by Economist, "A scathing new report by Arab scholars explains why their region lags behind much of the world" (July 4, 2002). Gerges, “The End of the Islamic Insurgency in Egypt?: Costs and Prospects,” The Middle East Journal, vol. 54, no. 4 (autumn 2000), p. 607.. El-Said, “The Political Economy of Reform in Jordan: Breaking Resistance to Reform?” In G. Joffe, Jordan in Transition 1990-2000 (London: Hurst, 2002). S. Hubbell, “The Myth of Containment: US Middle East Policy in Theory and Practice,” Middle East Report, vol. 28, no. 208 (Fall 1998), p. 9.J. Stiglitz, Globalization and Its Discontents (London: Penguin Books, 2002), p. 41.United Nations Statistical Yearbook (New York, 2001), pp. 244-258