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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. It was first published in 1973, and later revised in 1983. An update (Patai has since died) is planned for 2007.

The book advocates a tribal-group-survival explanation for the driving factors behind Arab culture.

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.

Criticism

According to 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."[1]

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".[1]

Patai is criticized in passing at several points in Edward Said's book Orientalism. 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in the U.S. military.’”[2] The book is described as simplistic, reductionist, stereotyping, generic, essentialist, outdated, superseded, flawed, unscientific and even intellectually dishonest by other scholars.[3]

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 of a book called The Arab Mind which was written by Raphael Patai. 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]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Emram Qureshi (May 30, 2004). "Misreading 'The Arab Mind'". Boston Globe.
  2. ^ Philip S. Golub: The Wasteland of Empire (Logos, Summer 2004)
  3. ^ 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.
  4. ^ PCDC Edu - 2004 Racism Watch Calls for Action to End Use of Anti-Arab Books by the U.S. Government
  5. ^ The Guardian -'Its best use is as a doorstop'
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