Multiple Identities of the Middle East

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-p

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.

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.

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.