Chile is a long way from the Middle East, perhaps in more ways than one. As I watched the rescue of the miners earlier this week, a question came to mind which has been niggling me ever since: What if the accident had happened in one of the Arab countries? How would the authorities have handled it?

Chile, along with most of the Arab states, aspires to be a developed country, not a developing one; during his election campaign President Sebastian Pinera pledged to move it forward into the "developed" league.

Conditions in Chilean mines, though, are still typical of those in developing countries. The accident that trapped 33 men underground last August shouldn't have happened and with more attention to safety it could have been avoided. The same is true of most disasters in the Arab countries. Think of the flood deaths in Jeddah last year, the Red Sea ferry disaster in 2006, the numerous accidents on the Egyptian railways, etc, etc.

Prevention is one thing. But once the accident had happened, look how the Chileans handled it – turning a negative into something very positive. 

It could easily have been otherwise. Some of President Pinera's advisers basically wanted to write off the trapped miners and look for scapegoats instead: to blame the mine's owners and the previous (centre-left) Chilean government. That, sadly, is the instinctive reaction of Arab regimes: arrest a few officials (the lowlier the better) and the problem can be put to bed.

But Pinera resisted his advisers and decided that the blame game could wait. In the meantime, while there was still hope for the miners, no effort should be spared to bring them out alive. Maybe he didn't think about it in these terms at the time, but his decision was significant not just for humanitarian reasons. It signalled a shift in Chile from "developing country" mode to "developed country" mode.

This is where the Arab regimes continue to struggle. For all the shiny new buildings in their capital cities and other symbols of modernity, they still hesitate to make that mental leap.

When it came to the actual rescue, Pinera was in the thick of it, tie-less and in a hard hat, greeting the miners as they were hauled to the surface. I didn't notice his bodyguards. Perhaps they were nearby, somewhere off-camera, but contrast that with the pictures of Ahmadinejad driving through Beirut this week surrounded by men scanning the crowds for possible assassins.

To some extent, I'm sure, Pinera was playing to the cameras. He may be one of the richest men in Chile (with a somewhat chequered past) but he knows the importance for a politician of showing the common touch and it would be a hard-hearted person who didn't warm to him at least a little bit.

He was also there, not just on his own account, but as Chile's head of state, leading what by all accounts turned into a genuine national celebration. Again, how many spontaneous celebrations that bring the whole country together (as opposed to the phoney regime-organised celebrations) have we seen in the Arab world? The only one I can recall in recent years was when the Israelis left southern Lebanon – an event in which the Lebanese government was little more than a bystander.

The "common touch" is a crucial element in successfully governing a developed country. Politicians like to be on first-name terms with their voters. Address the British prime minister as "Dave" and he won't be offended – he'll relish it. This is partly about cultivating a certain image but also about the relationship between a government and its citizens: to show, as they like to say in election leaflets, that the politicians are "on your side" and "working for you".

That is not how it works in the Arab countries. With the possible exceptions of Colonel Gadafy (a "Libyan citizen") and Ali Abdullah Salih (the "brother president" of Yemen), Arab leaders make little effort to present themselves as men of the people – and it's one reason why their regimes lack popular legitimacy.

When was the last time, for example, that President Mubarak showed his face on the Egyptian streets, commiserating with his citizens after a tragedy? Did King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia put on his rubber boots and trudge through the mud in Jeddah after the floods? No, he went to inspect his troops on the southern border.

A few years ago, I attended the annual conference of the NDP, the ruling party in Egypt. At the end of it, prime minister Ahmed Nazif, was due to talk to the media. The building had a well-equipped room, ideal for holding press conferences, but it was on the ground floor and Mr Nazif happened to be on the first floor. An official said it would not be appropriate for the prime minister to "come down" to meet the journalists, so we had to go up to meet him. The result was that he spoke to us in a noisy, echoing foyer where hardly any of us could hear what he said. All for a trivial point of protocol.

There's an interesting paradox here which taps into one of the themes of my book, What's Really Wrong with the Middle East. Arab regimes are authoritarian but in a paternalistic sort of way, and heads of state like to portray themselves as the father of the nation. However, it's a concept of fatherhood that doesn't translate into the kind of leadership seen from President Pinera.

The difference is that Arab regimes mostly model themselves on traditional concepts of the Arab family, where the father is considered wise and benevolent but has to be treated with deference and the utmost respect. He also tends to be cold, aloof, distant and, at times, someone to be feared.

But back to Chile and the mine rescue. It has not only benefited President Pinera politically – it has benefited Chile as a whole. There's talk of a new sense of national unity (something the Arab countries claim to be seeking but rarely achieve) and, indirectly, it has brought a thaw in relations with the Mapuche ethnic minority. Internationally, it has also begun to change perceptions of Chile which, up to now, has been mostly remembered for the horrors of the Pinochet years.