The Multiple Identities of the Middle East

Rating:
Summary: Interesting and Useful
Review: I found this book enlightening and easy to read. I also used it in my upper division course on Asian politics that I taught in north-western Louisiana, and the response to this book was good, even though the students were new to the subject. The book is not overly technical and is accessible to any intelligent general reader. I am not sure that I can endorse the entire thesis, which seems to state that until very recently religion was the most important thing about one's identity in the Middle East. So much so, that other characteristics almost paled in significance. I am not an expert on ethno-cultural history of the Middle East, but it seems that the role of such factors as race, region, and ethnic and tribal origins has been a bit understated. Overall, I highly recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: Religious essentialism...
Review: In the first instance, i am impressed by the project Lewis selected: an exploration of the complexity of identity in the Middle East, one written for the average reader and spanning less than 150 pages. No small task, whatever the results.

With these niceties out of the way i would like to point out that this is a flawed and ideologically loaded book. Simply put, that Lewis repeatedly priviliges religion above other forms of collective identity, most notably the nation, is at odds with how current political actors in the Middle East view their own struggles.

In this view, the fact that nationalism was a relatively late import from Europe makes it less valid when applied to various Arab states. East Bank Arabs differ little from West Bank Arabs and any atempt to claim otherwise is a "twentieth-century invention." Two quick examples contradict this analysis: that the PLO always steered clear of anti-semitic rhetoric in favor of couching their statements in the (nationalist) language of anti-Zionism, and the Intifada which, among many other things, forced King Hussein of Jordan to relinquish his claims over the West Bank. The point that he often misses is that nationalism is a process, and further that religious projects need not only serve narrow religious ends.

Worse yet, he seems to suggest that the Arab world was (and one would assume continues to be) an undifferentiated mass. To this end he makes much of modern pan-Arabism, only to conveniently ignore the concrete political circumstances which made such alliances objectively neccessary. This brings me to my biggest criticism: the relative invisibility of Israel throughout the entire work. Though nationalism within the Arab world reeks of artificiality, Lewis spares the Jewish state from a similiar conclusion. Truth be told I know nothing about the author's politics, but this formula seems a bizarre one to me.

Rating:
Summary: An academic treatment of "Mideast" culture
Review: Lay readers like myself who are simply looking for a new insight on the cultural roots of the Mideast problem might find Multiple Identities of the Middle East a bit heavy (the chapter on "nation" for example, consists almost entirely of a discussion of the word's origin in the Jewish, Persian, Turkish, and Arabic tradition, tracing the roots back to their linguistic origins.)

But although the book at times delves into a level of detail above and beyond that which will interest the casual reader, it is direct and clearly written, and in its short 160 pages Lewis does provide some valuable insights. Lewis gives us a concise historical overview which highlights the differences and similarities between Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, and the varied cultures and societies of the region. And most importantly, he highlights the fact that these different cultures view the world from very different viewpoints. Within the "Middle East" (a term which he uses for the sake of familiarity, then quickly discards as being meaningless) both conflict and cohesion arise from these conflicting viewpoints.

An informative read which taught me many things.

Rating:
Summary: A good, but not an easy read.
Review: Lewis' has written a good book, albeit not an easy read. "The Multiple Identities of the Middle East" is based on three of Lewis' papers held at different conferences during the period 1989-1995. For this book, these papers were combined with material from articles and other conference papers Lewis has written.

The book is divided into nine chapters, covering topics such as Religion, Country, Nation, and the State to mention some of them. Rather than giving us a brief overview, the author goes deep, deep into details. For this reason, this book might be less accessible for the lay reader than other books in the same genre.

I am curious to the world in general, and I picked up this book because I wanted to understand more about the complexities in religion, culture and nations in the Middle East. Since I am one of those lay readers I talked about, I am not sure if I picked the right book as my introduction to the topic.

On a more personal note.. It's funny how the author chose to use the term "The Middle East" in the title of this book. This term is only used by people from the West. One thing I picked up from the book was that the "The Middle East" is probably the most misgiving label one can use. "The Middle East" is not a country, not a nation, and definitely not a race. Yet we use it to cover all of that...

A very good read if you already know the subject.

Rating:
Summary: Television is insufficient
Review: The Middle East has been a source of politically interesting news for Americans for a long time, and since September 11, the discussions have become more passionate, and more judgmental. And despite the area's growing influence on our consciousness, our understanding of the peoples there and who they are is one of vague categories.

Bernard Lewis does not offer a history in this short book, but rather a discussion of how people in the Middle East perceive themselves, and how they create and define their identities. We often tend toward the simplified assumption that political boundaries contain single ethnic groups, linguistic groups, religious groups, but as Lewis shows, these groups are overlaid in complex ways.

People who have only a Western perspective of the Middle East, and want to understand the area in a much more complex manner, should find Lewis' book to be a great introduction to the depth of the history and conflicts that exists there.

Rating:
Summary: Television is insufficient
Review: The Middle East has been a source of politically interesting news for Americans for a long time, and since September 11, the discussions have become more passionate, and more judgmental. And despite the area's growing influence on our consciousness, our understanding of the peoples there and who they are is one of vague categories.

Bernard Lewis does not offer a history in this short book, but rather a discussion of how people in the Middle East perceive themselves, and how they create and define their identities. We often tend toward the simplified assumption that political boundaries contain single ethnic groups, linguistic groups, religious groups, but as Lewis shows, these groups are overlaid in complex ways.

People who have only a Western perspective of the Middle East, and want to understand the area in a much more complex manner, should find Lewis' book to be a great introduction to the depth of the history and conflicts that exists there.

Rating:
Summary: An informative study of religion, race, and nation
Review: This book characterizes the main groups of people in the Middle East and traces some of their aspects from earlier times to the present.

It begins by explaining that the population exchange of Greek Orthodox people for Muslims between Greece and Turkey after World War One was just that. Those who were sent to Greece were primarily Turkish-speakers, while those who were sent to Turkey generally spoke Greek. Similarly, the Jews in Arab lands tended to speak Arabic. We see a similar contrast in Israel as well. Lewis explains that the dividing line is not really between Jews from Europe and those from Africa or Asia but between Jews from Christian cultures and Jews from Islamic cultures.

The author claims that there is relatively little racism in Arab society. There's plenty of bias, but Lewis says it is mostly religious. On the other hand, his chapter on aliens and infidels shows what religious bias means. It means the dhimma, and relegating religious minorities to "second-class citizenship." For many centuries, that made Islam relatively tolerant, as Christian lands relegated religious minorities to "no citizenship at all." But present Western liberal ideas are not consistent with limited rights any more, and thus the dhimma is now regarded by many Westerners as a form of religious intolerance. The author explains that at the same time, many Muslims are regarding even the limited rights of the dhimma as too much and too dangerous.

There are interesting discussions of country, nation, and state. Again, the attitudes about such concepts are different in the Middle East from what they are in, say, Europe. One excellent example that Lewis gives is the following. Consider the names we Americans (as well, as those in European nations) give for the countries of Europe and their languages. Germany-German. Norway-Norwegian. Finland-Finnish. Hungary-Hungarian. France-French. Malta-Maltese. Greece-Greek. Albania-Albanian. Spain-Spanish. Sweden-Swedish. And so on. In many cases, the names are quite different from the names the natives of those countries call themselves. But we have that correspondence in a huge number of cases between country and language.

That's not so true in the Middle East. One of the few exceptions is Arabia-Arabic. But Arabia is not really a country. Saudi Arabia is. Yemen is. Qatar is. Oman is. Arabia is a peninsula. And there is the almost-exception of Persia-Persian. But Persia is not a country. Iran is. And I'm not sure how much we use the word "Persian" to describe the language any more (and we certainly don't use the word "Iranian" to describe the language). That leaves Turkey and Turkish, but the name Turkey is of European origin and is of a country that is partially in Europe. The correspondence between country and language is far less in the Middle East than in Europe.

The book includes a discussion of symbols, and the author points out that the Muslim crescent and the Jewish six-pointed star do not have anything like the significance in these religions that the cross does in Christianity. And what about the Veil? For pious women, the garments are a symbol of submission, for emancipated women, they are a symbol of repression, and for Western Muslim women, they are often proud symbols of identity.

This is an excellent and very informative book and I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: An interesting overview of the Middle-East
Review: This book gives an interesting background to much of the modern attitudes of the middle-east and their historical basis. It explains how traditonaly society in the middle east has based itself around family/clan ties then religion and then state last of all.

In fact the concept of people belonging to and owning loyalty to a state is quite new to the region in many places as they don't have the long history of it that Europe has. It also explains how long standing traditions within holy law govern such things at the correct treatment of non-muslim minorities (in theory).

If you really don't know much about middle eastern and arab culture this book is a good introduction, to a society that is in many ways fundimentaly alien to western culture.

It should be noted that this book is ONLY an introduction and in many ways has a lot of generalisations, but it's a good starting point if you don't know much about arab culture (like me).

Rating:
Summary: A Scholarly Work Without So Much Scholarship
Review: What Lewis has written is not a survey of the ways in which residents of the "Middle East" identify themselves. What he has written is a book describing the ways that Bernard Lewis thinks that people in the Middle East identify themselves. What he's postulated here is an historical/anthopological/sociological topic about which he writes using no interviews, no first-hand accounts, and minimal historical sources. This is NOT, as Pumpkin King seems to think, "a discussion of how people in the Middle East perceive themselves, and how they create and define their identities." If it were, then Bernard Lewis must be a telepath to be able to intelligently discuss how people in the Middle East perceive themselves without ever actually talking to a person in the Middle East. A better title would have been "What I Think Are the Multiple Identities of the Middle East by Bernard Lewis."

Lewis's favorite technique is to bring up what he feels is a "Western" concept like "nationalism," and then write pages about the "fact" that Arabic doesn't really have a word to describe that concept and has had to borrow from other languages or redefine one of its own words. He writes these sections as though they really provide insight into a poverty of thought and ideas in the Arab populace, which is basically a giant load of crap. Lewis's ultimate conclusion? That people living in the Middle East identify themselves according to their mindless religious allegiances and their devotion to whichever brutal dictator is running their country at the time. Give me a break.

I am troubled particularly by the review of Ian Seida, who reads a book that dangerously ignores the variety of groups and persons in the region to basically say that all Middle Easterners exist solely as slaves to religion and devotees of tyrants and thinks that Lewis is giving those people too much credit! "While the book is informative, it ignores an obvious and simple fact, which is that the Middle East is rather homogeneous when it comes to religion and that religion is the ultimate definer of identity in the region." That's a fact, is it Ian? You've studied this issue quite a bit I gather? Done copious amounts of anthropological research in the region? Have you ever even set foot in an Arab country? Ever talked to an Arab? Here's another gem: "Moreover, the various ethnicities in the middle east are proven to be almost genetically indistinguishable from each other." What on Earth does THAT mean? Those same ethnicities are also almost genetically indistinguishable from every single other ethnicity in the world, including white Americans. Are you an expert in genetics, Ian?

In short, this is a scary book written by a scary man and has been reviewed here by someone even scarier (though thankfully less well-known).

Rating:
Summary: The NOT so multiple identities of the Middle East
Review: While the book is informative, it ignores an obvious and simple fact, which is that the Middle East is rather homogeneous when it comes to religion and that religion is the ultimate definer of identity in the region. Irrespective of what some of the region's governments would have you believe. Moreover, the various ethnicities in the middle east are proven to be almost genetically indistinguishable from each other. Linguistic differences are obvious but almost every language spoken in the region is overflowing with Arabic phrases, salutations, and the basic sort of cliches that regulate every one's daily life.

Now, without completely discrediting the book, yes there are differences in the Middle East between the ethnicities but those differences were cultivated from without the region very recently and for particular purposes. The lifestyles of Turks, Arabs, Kurds, Persians, Armenians, & even Greeks have more in common than they do not on the basic every day level.

Quick read, informative, but slightly misleading in that the author is basing many visible facts on wrong assumptions.