The Arab Mind
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The Arab Mind is a non-fiction cultural psychology book by cultural anthropologist Raphael Patai, who also wrote The Jewish Mind. The book advocates a tribal-group-survival explanation for the driving factors behind Arab culture. It was first published in 1973, and later revised in 1983. A 2007 reprint was further "updated with new demographic information about the Arab world".[1]
The book came to public attention in 2004 after investigative journalist Seymour Hersh writing for the New Yorker magazine revealed that the book was "the bible of the neocons on Arab behavior" to the effect that it was the source of the idea held by the US military officials responsible for the Abu Ghraib scandal that "Arabs are particularly vulnerable to sexual humiliation".[2]
Contents |
[edit] Contents
Along with prefaces, a conclusion and a postscript, the book contains 16 chapters including Arab child-rearing practices, three chapters on Bedouin influences and values, Arab language, Arab art, sexual honor/repression, freedom/hospitality/outlets, Islam's impact, unity and conflict and conflict resolution, and Westernization. A four-page comparison to Spanish America is made in Appendix II.
The Foreword is by Norvell B. DeAtkine, Director of Middle East Studies at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg.
[edit] Criticism
Patai is criticized in passing at several points in Edward Said's book Orientalism.
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The book is described as simplistic, reductionist, stereotyping, generic, essentialist, outdated, superseded, flawed, unscientific and even intellectually dishonest by other scholars.[3]
[edit] 2004 criticism of the book's use by the US military
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The Racism Watch organisation reported in June 2004 that Columbia University director of African American Studies, Manning Marable, had called for immediate action to be taken to end the U.S. military's use the book. This was followed by a surge of media interest in the book during the summer of 2004.
The book was described by Guardian Newspaper correspondent Brian Whitaker as one that presents "an overwhelmingly negative picture of the Arabs." In an article in the New Yorker magazine, Seymour Hersh said that he was told by an academic that the book was "the bible of the neocons on Arab behaviour".[4] The Guardian also said that the book's best use was as a door stop.[5]
According to a 2004 Boston Globe article by Emram Qureshi, the book's methodology is
"based on a fatally flawed set of assumptions -- most importantly, that there is one entirely homogenous Arab culture, derived from nomadic Bedouin culture. This ignores both the diversity and history of a people and civilization that extends across dozens of countries, from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic, and the deeply rooted Arab culture of cities and agricultural communities."[6]
In his view the book is "emblematic of a bygone era of scholarship focused on the notion of a 'national character,' or personality archetype". According to Qureshi, Sondra Hale, a professor of anthropology and chair of the women's studies program at UCLA, sent him an e-mail in which she stated it can "no longer be taken seriously".[6]
Philip S. Golub calls it “a compendium of racist stereotypes and Eurocentric generalizations” which “has become the bible of the Bush administration’s leading neoconservative lights and ‘the most popular and widely read book on the Arabs in the U.S. military.’”[7]
[edit] See also
- Arab culture
- Islamic culture
- Shame society vs Guilt society
- Bedouins
- The Bookseller of Kabul (in Pakistan)
- Tales from the Expat Harem (in Turkey)
[edit] References
- ^ # Recovery Resources Press, ISBN 9780967201559.
- ^ "Its best use is as a doorstop" by Brian Whitaker, The Guardian.
- ^ S. M. Stern (ed.), Ignác Goldziher, Muslim Studies, Transaction 2006, ISBN 0-202-30778-6 p. LXXXVI;
Abdeslam M. Maghraoui: Liberalism Without Democracy: Nationhood and Citizenship in Egypt, 1922-1936, Duke University Press 2006, ISBN 0-8223-3838-6, p. 11;
Michael Hudson: The Political Culture Approach to Arab Democratization. In: Rex Brynen, Baghat Korany, Paul Noble (eds.), Political Liberalization and Democratization in the Arab World, Lynne Rienner 1995, ISBN 1-55587-579-3, p. 66;
Fouad M. Moughrabi, The Arab Basic Personality: A Critical Survey of the Literature. In: International Journal of Middle East Studies, 9.1 (January 1978), Cambridge University Press, pp. 99–112;
Ibrahim Abhukattala, The New Bogeyman Under the Bed: Image Formation of Islam in the Western School Curriculum and Media. In: Joe L. Kincheloe, Shirley R. Steinberg (eds.), The Miseducation of the West: How Schools and the Media Distort Our Understanding of the Islamic World, Praeger 2004, ISBN 0-275-98160-6, p. 167. - ^ PCDC Edu - 2004 Racism Watch Calls for Action to End Use of Anti-Arab Books by the U.S. Government
- ^ The Guardian -'Its best use is as a doorstop'
- ^ a b Emram Qureshi (May 30, 2004). "Misreading 'The Arab Mind'". Boston Globe. http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2004/05/30/misreading_the_arab_mind?mode=PF.[dead link]
- ^ Philip S. Golub: The Wasteland of Empire (Logos, Summer 2004)
[edit] External links
- "The Arab Mind Revisited" by Col. Norvell B. De Atkine (ret.), an updated foreword to the book
- "Inside The Arab Mind" by Lee Smith, Slate (magazine)
- “Culture Knowledge” and the Violence of Imperialism: Revisiting the Arab Mind by Frances S. Hasso (Oberlin College), The MIT Electronic Journal of Middle East Studies, Spring 2007 (PDF).
- "The Arab Mind by Raphael Patai. Book review by Lloyd F. Jordan"
