Lost in the desert
The title of this book, by the Guardian's former Middle East editor, makes quite a claim. There is, you note, no question mark. Whitaker is not inquiring - as statesmen, scholars and sages have before - how peace and modernity can be brought to the lands washed by the Euphrates and the Nile and caressed by desert winds from Syria to the Sahara. No. He's going to tell us, clever chap! I am being slightly facetious, but there is a point to this, which I will come to later.
Whitaker examines the problems of the Middle East not at governmental level - democracy versus tyranny and so on - but in the context of Arab countries' societies. (He has sensibly excluded Israel-Palestine, as so much is written about that elsewhere; and Iran because, as a non-Arab country, it is a cultural exception in too many ways.) He begins by setting out how, from an early age, Arab children are taught not to question at school, but simply to memorise and then repeat the one right answer: examiners will commonly not allow alternatives, even if they might be technically correct. Thus, from the start, education prepares them for strictly hierarchical societies, with clear lines of authority, kinship and obligation, in which they will grow up. So, too, does the home.
While there are positive aspects to this subjugation of the individual to the greater entity - Whitaker rightly points out, for example, that "the idea that elderly parents might live alone or in residential care homes, as happens in many western countries, strikes many Arabs as callous" - there are also worrying drawbacks. It has led to the concept of wasta, or "Vitamin W", loosely translating as who you know and the advantages you gain from said connections, whether it is having your passport processed more quickly or obtaining a job for a relative. Its roots may lie in an extralegal form of mediation and conciliation that is still practised to mutual benefit today, but wasta also prevents the formation of a rule-observant society in which everyone can expect equal treatment. And, he argues, it feeds directly into the corruption that pervades the Middle East.
Whitaker makes wise observations about how western governments have colluded with friendly but authoritarian regimes, such as Egypt, content to allow them to remain as "emerging democracies" in which, curiously, full democracy never seems to emerge; and how some governments have found themselves on a slippery slope with religious fundamentalists. He laces the book with amusing incidents, such as how the Lebanese law demanding that all vehicles carry a mini fire extinguisher ceased to be enforced after the minister who had pushed through the law had sold his entire stock of extinguishers; but also with more serious discussions, such as of the shocking treatment of Syria's Kurdish population.
This is an interesting and informative book, and a passionate attack on the corrosive effects of inequality. But one never gets the sense that the author has managed to abandon his western perspective. He records that the cronyism and corruption which flourished under the late Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri did not appear to cause "a public outcry", a situation he seems surprised and disappointed to report.
“One of the more ludicrous consequences of states espousing religion," he opines at another point, "can be seen in Saudi Arabia, where state resources are diverted to combat witchcraft." This may be "ludicrous" to him, but not to the multitudinous millions around the world who retain a very real wariness of spirits and preach the efficacy of spells. Twice in the space of 20 pages he dismisses first kinship obligation and then the claim of Arab monarchies to hegemony based on tribe or religion as having "no rational basis". That has me scratching my head in wonder. Why should Whitaker think this is a valid criticism of societies he describes as being so comprehensively infused with non-rational traditions, ties and beliefs? What on earth, as they say, has that got to do with the price of fish?
It is clear from the many times Whitaker quotes human rights organisations and talks about the principle of universality - long before he states it - that he believes acceptance of equal rights is the key to a revitalised Middle East. Early in the book he writes:
The simple fact is that Arabs cannot emerge into a new era of freedom, citizenship and good governance while their society continues to be dominated by the obligations of kinship, whether at a family or tribal level, and while kinship systems continue to provide the security and support that other societies manage to provide for all citizens, regardless of birthright or genes. This - and how to change it - is the central challenge that Arabs face today.
Whitaker makes a forceful case for the need to fight this malady. It remains in doubt, however, whether the inhabitants of the Middle East agree with him. And if they don't - if they feel that, in fact, they are rather fond of their values and ways and would rather not give them up, thanks awfully - the book runs the risk of sounding to them like another version of that cry they have heard so many times before from liberals and neoliberals alike: "Why, oh why, can't you just be like us?"
Read Sholto Byrnes's New Statesman blog on faith in the modern world at: newstatesman.com/blogs/the-god-blog
What's Really Wrong With the Middle East
Brian Whitaker
Saqi Books, 384pp, £10.99
