Book Review

Opium and Empire:

The Lives and Careers of William Jardine and James Matheson

by Richard J. Grace

     Imagine some people in a neighboring country, like Mexico for instance, decide that a certain drug, maybe crystal meth or fentanyl, has a potentially giant market in another country like the U.S.A. So they decide to start businesses that manufacture and traffic these drugs. Of course these narcotics are dangerous, wrecking people’s health and causing addiction as well as draining people of their money and landing them in prison; therefore the American government classifies these drugs as illegal, criminalizes their sales and distribution, and labels the businessmen as purveyors of organized crime, drug syndicates, and cartels. But from the Mexican traffickers’ point of view, they aren’t doing anything wrong. They provide work for poor people and make money in a country that isn’t rich. Furthermore, the drug sales provide a steady income whereas other business ventures tend to be less predictable and unstable. Farmers who want to grow produce, like avocados for example, grow some banned substances to keep their finances steady while the market for vegetables fluctuates. This benefits trucking companies too who smuggle drugs in boxes of cucumbers and cilantro across the border, providing work for truck drivers who need to pay rent and feed their families. Of course, a lot of Americans, especially the government and police, think this whole situation is rotten so they fight back hard. Now imagine the Mexican cartels decide to start a war with America to force them into legalizing their drugs so the gangsters south of the border can make even more money than they already do. Eventually they convince the US government to give them the entire city of San Diego so they can have a convenient base for the distribution of their goods. All praise be to Santa Muerte.

This is roughly what happened when the Jardine-Matheson trading company began selling opium on the black market in China at about the same time the Napoleonic Wars began. Richard J. Grace, in his Opium and Empire, tells the story of this nefarious corporation and concludes that they weren’t such bad people and were, in fact, just ordinary businessmen who just happened to do trade in a vice that ruined people’s lives.

You could just as well argue that good things Mexican drug cartels do outweigh the bad. It isn’t fair that dangerous narcotics are illegal in El Norteno and they are really just ordinary gentlemen who provide a service that is in demand anyways. They work hard to earn their money and there’s nothing a red-blooded American capitalist loves more than people who get rich by working hard. Hell, you might even say that the cartels are nothing more than heroes of free market capitalism, letting the invisible hand of the marketplace decide what people buy and sell. Right?

Right?

The story of William Jardine and James Matheson begins in Scotland more innocently than one might expect. Jardine came from a poor farming family and got employed as a surgeon for the East India Company, Great Britain’s colonial trading and shipping monopoly. The younger Matheson came from an upper class family in Edinburgh and eventually went on to work for the East India Company too. He met up with Jardine in India, the two paired up, and went to work as speculators, trading in silk, rice, tea, and, most importantly, opium which they purchased in India and shipped to China.

The kingdom of China at that time was closed to foreigners. They would not allow outsiders to enter their lands for business so they sectioned off a strip of the river bank running along the outskirts of Canton, or what is now known as Guangdong. There they were allowed to build a tiny village of warehouses, factories, and living quarters. Chinese merchants came to the riverfront to do business, buying and selling all commodities except opium which was illegal in China. But Jardine-Matheson insisted on peddling opium since the addiction it caused guaranteed a steady flow of wealth which helped to supplement their more volatile trading goods whose prices fluctuated unpredictably. The Jardine-Matheson company therefore sold opium offshore in international waters to smugglers who brought it onto the mainland. If Jardine-Matheson couldn’t sell opium the legal way, they had no qualms about breaking Chinese laws to make their fortune.

A large portion of this book describes the backgrounds of these two businessmen and the running on their company. It also details how they grew to such prominence as the East India Comany monopoly ended, making room for other companies to enter the competitive colonial markets. Most of this is ordinary business history explaining the methods and functions of Jardine-Matheson. If that is within the scope of your interest, it might be exciting, but actually the writing is often dry and boring. The several passages about finance and banking are especially dull. There is nothing more boring then people talking about money, especially when it gets a bit technical. It is even worse than watching golf on TV.

The story gets more exciting in the run-up to the Opium Wars. After the Chinese government seized and destroyed the entire inventory of opium, Jardine and Matheson pressured the British government to invade China in retaliation and to demand compensation for the lost products. The second Opium War happened when the British colonial government decided to force China to legalize opium for the benefit of British businesses and the extension of British colonial power. Talk about a sense of entitlement. And yes, large numbers of people died over this. Along the way, China gave the mostly uninhabited island of Kowloon, Hong Kong to the British for the sake of allowing them to have a base for business-dealings in the region. So selling illegal drugs on the black market in China was the primary source of finance for building up the British Empire. Maybe in the future, Latin American drug cartels will rule the world.

The end of the book has a long chapter about the lives of Jardine and Matheson after retirement. It isn’t especially interesting. Then, in the epilogue, the author evaluates the Jardine-Matheson company from a moral and historical standpoint. He acknowledges that selling illegal drugs on the black market and starting two wars with China was kind of a crappy thing to do, but he lets them off with a slap on the hand, figuratively speaking, because they were really just a couple of ordinary businessmen who did a lot of good things for their communities back in the British Isles. More importantly, they belonged to some prominent social clubs back home and were considered respectable men by other members of the upper class. Richard Grace goes so far as to say that they were historically important, as if that could even be denied, and their amorality was of little consequence because they were pioneers of free market capitalism. Well, that is actually a weak argument for those of us who are not especially enthusiastic about capitalism to begin with.

And about those Mexican cartels...well they may be harming and endangering a lot of lives, but they are putting people to work and financially enriching their local communities, so it isn’t all that bad, is it? Besides those guys are fun to hang out with wow do they ever throw some fantastic parties and that’s really what’s important. Who cares about all those clucks who buy their drugs on the streets. It’s their own fault they’re losers because they didn’t choose to get a job and work like the rest of us. Right? Yeah right.

I don’t know anything about the author Richard J. Grace, but I can say for sure that we don’t see eye to eye when it comes to values. Opium and Empire tells the story of the Jardine-Matheson company, saying what it needs to say to accomplish that. It is a boring book, however, written by an author with questionable morals. He claims that Jardine and Matheson were not merelya couple of sleazy drug dealers. But just because they hid behind a facade of respectability and a Protestant work ethic, doesn’t mean they weren’t a couple of slimeballs at heart. I don’t think Grace is necessarily immoral, but I get the impression his ethics are in the wrong order. This book does serve a historical purpose, but there has to be an account of this company that is more engaging and a little more balanced. The Chinese perspective on this history is barely even mentioned.

If you visit Hong Kong now, you will find a skyscraper in the center of Kowloon with a unique architectural feature. It is a slender rectangle with its cladding entirely permeated with round windows like portholes. This is the Jardine House, world headquarters of the Jardine-Matheson company which still exists to this day. Because of its unique appearance, the local citizens of Hong Kong have nicknamed it the House of 1000 Assholes. Sometimes I wonder if the people of Hong Kong think back over the times when Chinese peasants became emaciated from lounging in opium dens while their families starved to death because all their income went to feeding their addictions. Maybe that name doesn’t actually indicate how they feel about the Jardine House’s appearance but actually signifies how they feel about all the company’s employees that got rich and powerful by enslaving Chinese people to narcotics. Richard Matheson justified the opium trade by saying he had never seen a Chinaman “beastialized” by opium use. I’m not sure what he meant by “beastialized”, but one thing is certain: while he was running his smuggling business and throwing dinner parties in his mansion, he wasn’t spending time in the opium dens of China, observing how his drug was ruining people’s lives. Just an ordinary businessman? No I don’t think so, but then again take a look at the businessmen of the 21^st century. I’m not sure they any better.

 

Book Review

In the Spirit of Crazy Horse

by Peter Matthiessen

     I’ve always thought Peter Matthiessen was a terrible writer. I’ll be up front about that right from the start. The fact that he was a CIA agent doesn’t do much to lend him credibility either. But the story of Leonard Peltier and the American Indian Movement (AIM) is important enough for me to overlook the shortcomings of the author and take In the Spirit of Crazy Horse into serious consideration.

This copiously researched and overwrought work on recent Native American Indian history begins with an account of Crazy Horse, Geronimo, General Custer, and the massacre at Wounded Knee in South Darkota. After some commentary on stolen land and treaties that were never upheld by the U.S. government, the story is brought into more recent times by briefly telling the story of AIM and how leaders like Russel Means, Dennis Banks, John Trudell and other lesser known men formed the militant activist group at the end of the 1960s. The group was loosely organized and made up of urban Indians, mostly from the West coast. They came into prominence in the early ‘70s when they occupied the Oglala reservation of Pine Ridge, South Dakota. This led to a brief standoff with the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and the FBI that brought AIM into the spotlight of national politics and won them support among Native peoples all across the country. Matthiessen follows this section up with an account of the trials that came after.

Up to this point, the story is straight forward and easy to follow since it goes along an ordinary linear path. Matthiessen’s style is not known for being direct, precise, or clear, but in these opening chapters he manages to keep a tight rein on his language so the audience doesn’t get lost so soon. The opening chapter on Wounded Knee feels arbitrary and unnecessary, especially for anybody who knows about American history. It could have been left out or shortened, but it doesn’t do any real damage to the book. The problems come later. At least these sections do a good job of setting the tone and context for what comes next.

What does come next is the whole heart of the story. In June of 1975, two FBI agents drove onto the Pine Ridge reservation with a huge entourage of FBI and BIA agents, SWAT teams, a gang of thugs, and a right wing militia group, while a spotter airplane flew overhead. A group of AIM members were camping on the reservation with a cache of weapons. Nobody knows how it started, but a firefight began. The two FBI agents were shot point blank and one AIM activist named Leonard Peltier was later charges and convicted of murder.

This whole chapter is confusing. I have to say, that is not Peter Matthiessen’s fault. He tells the story several times from the points of view provided by several different witnesses. Since most of them were either firing guns or hiding to avoid being shot, you can’t expect any of them to provide a clear explanation of what happened. As muddled and difficult as this part of the book can be, Matthiessen still holds your attention enough to keep you reading and guessing what will happen.

The inevitable next section of the story is the arrest of Peltier and some others and their two trials for murder. The prosecution does a terrible job in both trials, resulting in a finding of not guilty in the first and guilty in the second, the one in which Leonard Peltier got sentenced to life imprisonment. Matthiessen demonstrates how insufficient the prosecution’s case was in both and how they broke the law in their conduct by intimidating witnesses, tampering with evidence, and withholding necessary documents from the defense. If Matthiessen’s account of these trials is accurate, then there is more than sufficient reason for Peltier to be allowed a retrial. If Matthiessen’s account isn’t accurate, then it is because he is guilty of massively cherry picking his information. Given what I know about Leonard Peltier, I think the former is more believable than the latter and I would prefer to just go along with the author. But what comes later in the book, or more accurately what doesn’t come later, gives me reason to pause and question how trustworthy the author is.

From a simple standpoint of excitement, the beginning of the last section is the most interesting. The imprisoned Leonard Peltier learns of a supposed plot to assassinate him, so he escapes from the penitentiary, only to be caught soon after. If you want any more action to keep the narrative going, you will find it here. This incident leads the author to assert that there is some sort of conspiracy by the FBI to bring down the American Indian Movement. Matthiessen’s theory is that they are working with some corporations to access uranium mines in the Black Hills on the Pine Ride Reservation. Is it a real conspiracy or just a conspiracy theory? We know that the FBI tried to take out other Civil Rights organizations along with other activist groups of the New Left in the 1960s, so it isn’t a far fetched idea. As to why they chose to go after Peltier even though they probably knew he wasn’t guilty, is a bit more complex. It appears they needed to pin the murders on someone, even if it wasn’t the actual murderer and they found it easier to build a case against Peltier than anyone else. As for the assassination plot, I just don’t know. The FBI had Fred Hampton of the Black Panthers assassinated so it can’t be ruled out even if there is testimony from only one man regarding this.

The rest of this last section involves Matthiessen rambling around, talking to various people about various elements related to the case. Except for the two people who claim to have murdered the FBI agents, there isn’t anything here that actually strengthens the author’s argument. It is a disorganized mess of random stuff that is barely, if ever, interesting. It seems that Matthiessen felt he had to include all the information he had gathered even if it didn’t contribute anything of value to the book overall.

The biggest problem with this last section is not its bad writing, but the way in which it makes its one-sidedness so obvious. I have to say that I mostly agree with the author’s stance on the issues addressed, but the absence of opposing points of view make it look suspicious. There is one passage where the author has a phone conversation with FBI agent David Price, but Price does little more than talk in circles without ever saying much of anything. He obfuscates the FBI’s case rather than clarifies it. It doesn’t stand firmly as an attempt at providing a counter-argument. Matthiessen should have cut down on all the testimony from AIM members and sympathizers, who sound like nothing more than yes-men and yes-women, and included more from the government’s point of view. It would have made the story more complete and I don’t think it would have hurt his thesis. It probably would have strengthened it.

Is In the Spirit of Crazy Horse worth reading? For now, I have to say yes. The history is interesting enough on its own to survive the bad writing. And as far as I know, this is the most well-researched and comprehensive account of the Leonard Peltier affair that is available. Still the question remains, did Leonard Peltier kill those two FBI agents? I really don’t think so, but I also don’t think Peter Matthiessen did a good job of proving his innocence. What he does succeed in is showing how the trial was a sham, a persecution motivated by extreme prejudice and not by a desire for justice. 

 

Book Review

Arabs Without God

by Brian Whitaker

     Being an atheist or agnostic in America isn’t easy. Bigotry, religious fanaticism, intolerance, and anti-intellectualism run rampant here and this is a country where the First Amendment is the cornerstone of our Constitution. Being secular-minded in Arab countries in the Middle East and Africa is even more dangerous, being a part of the world where human rights aren’t respected, governments are authoritarian and autocratic, and Islam is the dominant form of cultural expression. In most Arab countries, Christians, Jews, and members of other smaller religions like the Druze, Alawites, and Zoroastrians are regarded as second-class citizens. Muslim sectarian fighting between Sunnis, Shias, and various other denominations is common too. In a region permeated with religious strife, having a rationalistic, scientific, or skeptical outlook can be deadly for so most Arab atheists tend to stay silent or pretend to be religious to avoid persecution. In Arabs Without God, British journalist Brian Whitaker gives an in-depth analysis of the cultural and legal climate of Arab societies and explains what it means to be an atheist in such places.

As the internet penetrates Arab nations, people who had long been silent about their disbelief are coming into contact with others of like mind. Secular Muslims, mostly those who are highly educated and familiar with other cultures, find they aren’t alone and write blogs, discuss their beliefs in chat rooms, and use social media to contact other atheists and agnostics. When the governments and religious authorities learn about this, they crack down hard on free-thinking Arabs. They send atheists to prison, harass them and their families, and, in some cases, forcehem into exile in Europe or America. In many cases, the families and friends of atheists break off contact with them, although some find that they have parents or family members who have kept silent about their skepticism all their lives. In the patriarchal world of Islam, female atheists are in an even bigger bind because women are traditionally expected to be submissive and subservient to men so by coming out as atheists, they risk even more danger and degradation.

This book is divided into two sections. The first is about the history and culture of atheism in Arab nations. Whitaker examines the history of atheism in the Middle East, proving that such skepticism is nothing new in the region. This was the weakest part of the book as he does not provide any real sources of Arabs with arguments in favor of non-belief in God. He does provide some good examples of intellectuals and poets, going back to the dawn of Islam, who expressed doubts about religious belief without actually coming out and saying they disagree with Islam. Whitaker then goes on to examine reasons why Arabs turn to atheism and scientific thought, most of the time a result of listening to Muslims and observing their behavior. Religious leaders have often blamed the West for bringing science and skepticism into Arab countries or otherwise falling back on the old trope that Jews are spreading atheism amongst Muslims to destroy their religion. Yeah, as if Jews have nothing better to do with their lives. Some people have concluded that religion is just silly, hypocritical, and sometimes even dangerous. The whole section ends with a chapter on gender in Arab societes and the suppression of gays and lesbians who often risk imprisonment, violence, and even corporal punishment for coming out as non-heterosexuals. The whole point of this chapter is to show how dangerous it is to be secular in Arab countries.

The second section of this book is more dense and rigorous as it examines legal codes, morality, government autocracy, religious intolerance, and Arab traditions to show how complex Middle Eastern society is. Muslims can be fanatical about proselytizing Islam while often making it illegal to proselytize for any other religion. Conversions to other religions is usually frowned upon and sometimes not even recognized by government officials if it is even allowed at all. Sharia law and government practices are vague, confusing, and arbitrary. The Qur’an and the Hadiths are full of contradictions and outdated rules. Living as a Muslim in a theocratic or autocratic dictatorship requires submission to authority, even when the laws make no sense. If such is the case, then being an atheist, a member of a non-Muslims religion, or even a scientifically minded Muslim can be treacherous. Minorities run the risk of committing the crime of apostasy simply by being themselves and in many Arab countries, apostasy is punishable by death. It is no wonder that many Arab atheists emigrate to more tolerant countries in the West. This second section does not comment much about atheism in and of itself; what it does do successfully is show how complicated it can be to think for yourself in such repressive societies.

The book finally ends with Whitaker making a plea for greater respect for human rights in Arab societies and equality for those who disagree with the dominant modes of thought. Finally, he takes both the Western right and left to task for treating Arabs and Middle Eastern people as monolithic societies. The xenophobic right sees them as nothing but evil incarnate and the left sees them as being angelically perfect beings who can no no wrong. People on both sides do more harm than good by holding such attitudes. Leftist accusations of Islamophobia are extremely damaging because some Arab atheists, as well as some Muslim human rights activists, have been shunned and attacked by the left, using the epithet of Islamophobia to shut down conversations about human rights abuses in Islamic countries. This is inherently racist, preventing people in Arab nations from defending the rights of women, racial minorities, and LGBTQ people by forbidding discussion on these issues in the name of tolerance. These problems can never be solved if people, especially the people who are affected by them, are silenced in the name of tolerating Islam. A lot of Arab atheists immigrate to the West so they can have more safety and freedom of choice, but then find themselves being hated by leftists for not being authentically Arab in their rejection of Islam. Being a marginalized person in any society is not easy, but it is worse when marginalized people get rejected by those who claim to defend marginalized people because they don’t fit into the stereotype they are supposed to inhabit.

Arabs Without God is worth reading because it gives an in-depth look at Arab societies from an alternate point of view, one that you may not get from any other source. Even if you aren’t interested in atheism or agnosticism, it gives another perspective on Arab societies that is unique and provocative. In conclusion, it must be said that Brian Whitaker is not concerned with converting Muslims or people of any other religion to become atheists or abandon their cultures. He clearly states that he has nothing against religious people. What he wants is for people to tolerate atheists and repect their freedom to choose, allowing them right to human dignity that they deserve. If that bothers you then you might be a bigger problem than any secular humanist ever has been. If your belief in religion is so strong then it shouldn’t bother you when others hold opposing beliefs. If it does, then you aren’t as secure in your faith as you think you are. 

 

Book Review

The Dream Palace Of the Arabs

by Fouad Ajami

     The Middle East is planet Earth’s permanent snafu. While the troubles there didn’t start in the 20^th century, it is clear that the Arabic lands since World War II have been a continuation of their turbulent past and a sad precursor for where they are heading in the future. Fouad Ajami takes a look at modern Arabia and shows how it relates to the ideologies of Arab intellectuals in The Dream Palace Of the Arabs.

The Arabian lands span an arc across the globe from western Africa to Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula in the east. Most of what Ajami writes about is in the middle of this region with the heart of it all being in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt. The work begins in post-World War II during the time of Arab Nationalism. Using the frustrating life of Syrian poet Khalil Hawi as an anchor for the narrative, Ajami shows where Arab Nationalism came from and why it failed. In the postwar world, Arab intellectuals were eager to break free from colonialism and European domination while they were simultaneously fascinated by European ideologies. Not just nationalism and modernism but also socialism, communism, capitalism, and even fascism became part of the intellectual lives of poets, novelists, college professors, and journalists. Any kind of “ism” that spread out of Europe at the time got embraced by this small class of educated people. It was Arab Nationalism and Pan-Arabism that eventually emerged as the most dominant forces. Pan-Arabism failed in its attempt to unite all the Arabic people under one ethnic umbrella, be they Muslim, Christian, Jew, or anything else. Tribalism and sectarianism proved to be stronger markers of identity than ethnicity. Regional differences were too vast and Arab Nationalism took over. Arab intellectuals pushed people to unite within national boundaries; it embraced the blood and soil element in fascism This was doomed to failure too because of so many sectarian differences. In addition a lot of Arabic people hated their leaders, making nationalism a dim hope. The dreams of Arabic unity shattered and Khalil Hawi committed suicide in despair.

Ajami continues on with Middle Eastern history in tandem with the poets Nizar Qabbani and Adonis. This section covers the time period from the 1960s or so up until the Gulf War when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. Both poets continued on expressing their desire for Arab unity and their muted disgruntlement with the growing autocracy amongst Arab politicians. Three majr events disillusioned Arab intellectuals even further. One was the Iranian Revolution, the time when the Persian, non-Arab Muslims asserted themselves as the world leaders of Muslim ideology and political power. Even worse, the Iranians were predominantly Shia and this set off a long series of clashes between Sunni and Shia Muslims in the Arabic lands. The next big obstacle to Arab unity was the oil industry boom on the Arabian Peninsula and the rise of the petrodollar. Suddenly Saudis, Emiratis, Kuwatitis, and Qataris saw themselves as richer and superior to the other people of poorer Arabic nations and they didn’t hesitate to show it. Then the rise of Saddam Hussein in Iraq dealt another blow to the intellectual’s dream of Arab unity. Iraq lost the war when they invaded Iran and when Hussein invaded Kuwait, the Saudis brought in America to fight off the attack. The impression left on the artists and scholars was that Arabic people were too weak to handle their own affairs and, even worse, members of their own ethnic group couldn’t be trusted or relied upon. A sense of dismay set in.

Ajami also goes into brief details about the Lebanese Civil War in the 1980s. Up until that time, the west end of Beirut was akin to the Sorbonne in Paris with chic cafes and the presence of the universities. It was a haven for progressive, upwardly mobile Middle Eastern people. Then the Palestinians invaded southern Lebanon and tried to force the Marontie Christians off their ancestral homeland. The Palestinians lost, but progressed onward to West Beirut and merged with the Iran-backed Hezbollah. West Beirut turned into a ghetto dominated by street gangs of Palestinian and Shia thugs. Anti-intellectualism went on the rise in the Middle East from then on.

Ajami move on to an analysis of Egypt in the eras of Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak. Egypt, along with the rest of the Arabic nations, began a decline into autocratic governments, punishment for intellectuals who challenged their authority, and a rise in anti-Jewish conspiracy theories, political Islam, and Islamic fundamentalism. The lives of Egyptian intellectuals became dampened by governmental persecution and terrorist attacks from fanatical Muslims, some of which were deadly. Ajami is actually quite sympathetic to Sadat, especially because of his efforts to make peace with Israel, but he is also critical of the increasingly totalitarian nature of his government. Ajami has no sympathy at all for Hosni Mubarak.

The final section of this book examines the role that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has in shaping the intellectual life, or I should say the anti-intellectualism, of contemporary Arabic society. While acknowledging the tragic displacement of the Palestinian people, Ajami is also critical of the way Arabs, particularly journalists and Muslim fascists have turned anti-Zionism into their primary ideology since the 1990s. He points out that Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin did everything they could to make peace with their neighbors, most of which, like the Jordanian royal family and the Egyptian government, had a low opinion of the Palestinians from the start, even laying claim to the land that is now owned by Israel. There was a time when Jordan claimed Palestine as their own territory and even denied that Palestinians had a right to their own nationality. Ajami also points out how Arabs turned against their leaders like Sadat and both King Abdullahs from Jordan for trying to make peace with Israel. He even points out how much Arabs hated Yasser Arafat for agreeing to the current borders of Gaza and the West Bank in a pragmatic attempt to prevent further wars with Israel. But the fascisitc elements in the Middle East got their way and the result has been a never ending cycle of attack and counter-attack in the so-called Holy Land ever since.

Fouad Ajami’s whole concept of The Dream Palace Of the Arabs is that Arabic intellectuals have been chasing after utopian solutions to their problems. When one naive ideology fails they move on to another naive ideology. Now these intellectuals have run out of ideologies and a lot of the poets have degenerated into writing vicious screeds against the Jews or retreating into a comforting and toothless womb of sentimental love poetry with no political ambition at all. Ajami’s writing is roundabout and never direct, but if you follow his argument carefully, you realize he is making an argument pragmatism. That means working with what you have within the realms of the possible. Arabs might not like the political choices they have, but if they are the only choices it is wise to do the best with what is there. Progress only happens in stages anyways. No savior or messiah is going to come and put eveything in order. No war is ever going to create stability or independence.

After living in the Middle East, I can supplement Ajami’s argument with my own observations regarding the anti-Jewish rhetoric and conspiracy theories that run rampant in the region. Arabic people have legitimate grievances against their autocratic governments, but censorship is heavy and criticizing their leaders is extremely dangerous. It is my contention that these politicians encourage the hatred of Jewish people and Israelis as a valve for releasing psychological pressures resulting from frustrated political desires while at the same time serving as a deflection away from the governments that are the actual source of people’s anger. It’s better for the government if people hate the Jews rather than the politicians. The unintended consequence is that instead of endangering the stability of Israel, the stability of the entire world is at risk due to radicalization and terrorism in the Arabian lands.

Fouad Ajami has a compelling perspective on the Arab intellectual and Arabic society in general. The worst thing I have to say about this book is that his indirect style of making an argument can be frustrating for the reader at times. While he has a definite point to prove, he never states it clearly and directly so that the effect is a kind of wishy-washy dance around what he wants to say. That indirect style may be the result of living under a repressive political regime, but then again it may just be the way people communicate in the Middle East, or maybe it is a little of both. There are also times when he includes references to literary works by Arabic authors simply because they are known outside the Middle East and not necessarily because their works lend anything of immediate value to Ajami’s thesis.

The Dream Palace Of the Arabs may not arrive at the conclusion that Arabic people want to hear. I imagine some people will uncritically hate this book simply because Fouad Ajami wants Arabs to have peaceful relations with Israel whereas he sees that politicians and journalists are making the situation worse for Palestinians, not better. I think what he has to say should be heard because the wars in the Middle East are resulting, so far, in nothing but eternal warfare. Simply put, Ajami is saying that Arabs need to get their feet on the ground, get their heads out of the clouds, overthrow the dictators, and come up with a better way to solve problems. It is a bitter pill for some to swallow, if they even bother to swallow it, but it is something that needs to be said anyhow.