BEIRUT — The 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall passed very quietly in the Arab world, because the meaning of the wall’s fall — the transition from total state control to human freedom — also bypassed the Arab world.

Not the Islamic world, or the Middle East, but the Arab world. For many reasons, the Arab world collectively is the sole exception to the global wave of liberalization and democratization that touched every other region of the planet.

It is difficult to predict how and when our region will change, liberalize and democratize. The spark that sets off a chain reaction for freedom could happen in one country, and then spread to others, like the Solidarity movement in Poland.

The instruments of state control vary throughout the Arab world, and the intensity of autocracy also differs by country, but the net result — with very few exceptions — is the same: Most Arabs feel strong and confident about their culture, religion and identity, but powerless and vulnerable as citizens of their state.