Sunday
Dec272009
Lee Smith's book on Arab culture
Issandr El Amrani
Much fun has been made in recent years of Weekly Standard Middle East correspondent (whose work has appeared in Slate, The Nation and elsewhere) Lee Smith's tagline that he is "writing a book on Arab culture." Well, that book is now out. I've read it, and it's horrible. I did not expect much from Lee Smith, whose articles repeated neocon bromides about the region and always put partisanship above analysis. But I had never expected a book so appallingly racist, disjointed, full of factual error and borderline psychotic.
Max Rodenbeck reviewed "The Strong Horse" for The National, his sentiments are mine:
For Lee Smith, none of this really counts. The Arabs, in his view, simply have the misfortune to be guided by something he identifies as the “strong horse principle”: an apparently unique, ancient system whereby one tribe, nation, or civilisation dominates the others by force, until it too is overthrown by force. The “strong horse”, he says, represents the fundamental character of the Arabic-speaking Middle East. This is a perennially violent, xenophobic place where, in his words: “Bin Ladenism is not drawn from the extremist fringe, but represents the social norm.”
[. . .]
Smith explains elsewhere that although Arabs constantly bicker, “Perhaps the more serious concern is that the Arabs will not fight each other, and choose instead to bind together… in order to focus their energies elsewhere, like against the United States, again.” That last word is what really gives pause. To what past event exactly is Smith referring? Might he mean that dark day when the joint Arab high command sent veiled storm troopers on black helicopters into Wyoming? Or is he just subtly reasserting his sweeping charge that the Arabs as a whole were responsible for September 11 – and hinting that they might do the same again unless America spanks them regularly?
This disregard for reality appears to be prompted by two things. One is an attitude towards Arabs that may be delicately described as anachronistic and patronising. How else can one explain lapses into what sound like 19th-century depictions of barbarians? In one departure from constant praise of Bush-administration policy, for instance, Smith sneers at its naivety in thinking democracy might have flourished here when this great American gift was presented, “like an iPhone left out for the Arabs to figure out on their own.”
Elsewhere Smith informs us sagely that Arab women “hold men in contempt if they are not willing to kill and die for Arab honour.” Arabs, we discover, regard any man who says he wants peace with his neighbour, “not a peace that comes through destruction and elimination, but a real peace,” as a traitor. No wonder, for this is a people so tribally ferocious, he insists, that they hate Americans, “Not because of what we do or who we are but because of what we are not: Arabs.”
I would only add that it's a great shame that a reputable publisher, Doubleday, put out this book. I don't think that would have been the case if its subject matter hadn't been Arabs.
Reader Comments (9)
Let me see if I can do this in fewer words:
American dude gets laid in Beirut, fumes that Israeli friends cannot do same.
That was easy enough.
More seriously, Max is off-base, because the book has nothing to do with Arabs -- a good thing considering Smith does not have facility in Arabic. The shrillness is a form of self-loathing, because Smith knows quite well that the American and Israeli policies he supports (force, and more force) are only really intellectually defensible as a form of post-industrial tribalism. This is a hard pill to swallow for neocons because they style themselves as the vanguard of 'international liberalism.'
Unable or unwilling to deal with that tension within, Smith creates boogeymen to explain his own gross hypocrisies: a Leftist fifth column (directing the Pentagon, CIA and State no less) and some imaginary place called Arabia, where all one's inner frustrations take on beards and veils.
I pity him; but not the Lebanese girl who apparently failed 'to cuddle' in the morning. She, unlike him, knew it was time to go ...
Happy blogging.
"Smith does not have facility in Arabic"
Wait! I thought Smith was learning Arabic all this time while working on his book on Arab culture. I has been PWND?
No, sepoy, that part is true. It's just that his Arabic tutor was Uzi Arad, and thus his research of Arabic newspapers turned up no references to khizballaaaaa.
I contemplated putting up a review of this book but...it didn't strike me as being worth the effort. I agree with Rodenbeck's view. It's as miserable as Smith's articles over the last several years.
that does look horrible. It does tend to be open season for crazy when it comes to writing about the Middle East. New book _The Arabs_ by Eugene Rogan is quite good though.. and might make someone feel better about the world after this one..
I never understood why vermin like Smith and Friedman are even allowed in by Arab governments, such as Lebanon.
Am reading Rogan's book, very serviceable history so far.
I'd be relieved if Rodenbeck's review were published in the NYRB.
But it won't be.
In re: repute
Please take note that no less a personage than the assistant secretary of state for near east affairs (along with E. Abrams) is headlining the book launch event at Hudson.
We are into the rabbit hole.