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June 19, 2005
Kareem Kamel Looks At 'The Politics and Discourse of Humiliation'
Egyptian Scholar Kareem M. Kamel's article in the June 16, 2005 issue of Islam Online. Net headlined "The Politics and Discourse of Humiliation, which was republished in The Journal of Turkish Weekly" offers a thought-provoking analysis of what many Muslims, including many non-Arab American born ones, regard as a cultural war against Islam in conjunction with the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Mr. Kamel, a PhD candidate at the American University in London, and a teaching assistant to the Political Science Department at the American University in Cairo, says "more disturbing" than insults to Muslims by the likes of Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and other evangelists and writers "is the prevalence of justifications for the US occupation of Muslim lands based on condescending, arrogant, and racist foundations; reformulations of the white mans burden thesis that seek to magnify the essential otherness and incurable deficiencies of the Orient vis-à-vis an enlightened, progressive West. Central to neo-conservative thinking in this regard is Raphael Patai's book entitled The Arab Mind (1973)." He notes that:
The Arab Mind was catapulted into the limelight when Seymour Hersh, investigating torture at Abu Ghraib, claimed that it was the bible of neocons on Arab behavior, (Hersh). Patai, a Hungarian-born Jew and an ardent Zionist, describes the Middle East as a monolithic cultural area, with no plurality of differences, and portrays Arabs as evasive, shifty, indifferent, deceptive, and careless individuals, who are exceptionally and intrinsically susceptible to humiliation and indignation. The same mind-set is apparent in a work by Douglas A. Kupersmith, published by the School of Advanced Airpower Studies, wherein it is argued that the Arab culture commonly exhibits a strong disdain for manual labor and to leave things undone until the last possible minute. Kupersmith enthusiastically cites Patai, arguing that the situation in the Arab world is one of a handful of nations paying cash for the best military hardware, while relying heavily on outside expertise to keep their modern forces operational (ONeil Ortiz). Thus, the US occupation of Muslim land is seen as essentially picking up where intrinsic Arab weakness left off. In other words, because Arabs are lazy and passive, it follows that all colonization of industry (or of nations themselves in the Middle East) are in fact provoked by those who cannot help themselves, (ONeil-Ortiz). Norvell B. De Atkine, Director of Middle East Studies at the JFK Special Warfare Center and Military School at Fort Bragg, and Patai's greatest champion, admits that "At the institution where I teach military affairs, the Arab Mind forms the basis of my cultural instruction. Over the past 12 years, I have also briefed hundreds of military teams being deployed to the Middle East. (ONeil-Ortiz).Mr. Kamel pointed to Mr. De Atkine article in the Middle East Quarterly entitled Why Arabs Lose Wars, in which he attributes
Arab military defeats in the modern era not to contemporary political or military specificities, but to a culture that engenders subtlety, indirection and dissimulation in personal relationships... and the often-paranoid environment of Arab political culture, hinting at the possible role of Islam's inherent fatalism in encouraging a defeatist mentality among Arabs, (De Atkine)."More seriously," Mr. Kamel wrote, "the Area Studies Branch of the World Religions and Cultures Department of the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center distributes an Area Manual to soldiers and private personnel in various war theatres that is replete with ethnocentric and utterly flawed notions of presumed typical Arab behavior, (Working and Training Guidelines).
Again, the manual depicts Arabs as passive, fatalistic, indecisive, incompetent, tribal, primitive, and opportunistic. Even positive characteristics, such as Arab generosity, are portrayed, not as a humanitarian attribute, but rather the result of an innate desire to induce loyalty through indebtedness, and thus strengthening ones family and/or kin, (Working and Training Guidelines).He said, "Given the dissemination of such essentialist and outright racist notions in the military, it is obvious why US military personnel in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, or Bagram Air Base would torture their Muslim captives by using specific methods designed to shame and humiliate, since the writings of Patai teach them that honor envelops the Arab ego like a coat of armor... the smallest chink can threaten to loosen all the loops and rings, (Wyatt-Brown)."
(Editor's Note: Links were added to this excerpt for quick reference for those who may not be familiar with the various institutions and individuals mentioned in Mr. Kamel's article.)
Posted by Munir Umrani at June 19, 2005 05:29 PM
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