Sex, violence and "The Arab Mind"

It is obvious by the time we reach Patai's fourth chapter, on the Arabic language, that no matter what he claims, Patai is not illuminating a culture he loves so much as building an indictment. Here the goal is to show that Arabs are irrational. Patai states that because of the structure of the Arabic language, "for the Arab mind it is of relatively little concern whether two past actions, events or situations recalled were simultaneous or whether one of them preceded the other. It is almost as if the past were one huge undifferentiated entity."

It is true that in classical Arabic, as in biblical Hebrew, the tenses do not correspond to those in the Indo-European language group. But in the Arabic dialects, there are prefixes to denote action currently going on and action in the future (in Iraqi, "d" for current action and "rah" for the future, and in formal Arabic, "sah" or "sofa" for the future). In formal Arabic, and the Quran, the prefix "f" is added to a series of verbs expressly to show a sequence in time (more or less, "and then this happened, and then this, and then that"). In both formal Arabic and Iraqi there is a structure approximating the Indo-European subjunctive ("if I were rich, I would buy a Ferrari"). The past is no more "one huge undifferentiated entity" than the Arab dialects or the Arabs themselves.

Whatever the merits of Patai's argument about Arabic's tense structure, if he is going to argue the inferiority of Arabic on this basis, he could just as well argue its superiority on the grounds that it is far more logical and complex than any of the modern European languages. It is also puzzling to think of the people who gave the world the zero, algebra and the foundations of astronomy as indifferent to calculating time. But Patai doesn't spend even a page on the scientific aspect of "the Arab mind," and to the extent that he takes notice of Arab cultural achievements at all it is to proclaim their inferiority to Western models. The Arab decorative arts represent a "neglect of reality," and Arab music is also deficient: "Many music-loving Arabs who have had a European education despise traditional Arab music ... Most musicians and music critics incline toward Westernism."

By now it should be clear that those Americans who took "The Arab Mind" seriously as a sourcebook on Iraqi culture would have reinforced any existing negative images of Arabs they had and added plenty of new ones. Although there is something to be said for Patai's willingness to analyze rather than merely describe, the reader interested in a philosophical treatment of Arab culture would do better to consult the Tillion book, or Columbia University anthropologist Lila Abu-Lughod's "Veiled Sentiments" (about the Bedouin of Egypt's western desert). Both books are far more intelligent, careful and subtle.

The seriousness with which this amateurish text was apparently taken does no honor to this administration; more experienced Arabists than I might want to investigate just how well Patai really knew Arabic. The majority of his citations from books published in Arabic are drawn from translations into the European languages or Hebrew (and thence into English by Patai), which also raises questions about accuracy. He does indicate in the notes that his translations of some Arabic newspaper articles are his own, which gives one pause after finding so many errors in his remarks on the language.

But the larger point is that no one seems to have cared much about accuracy, neither Patai nor his neocon readers. Patai says more or less what we've long wanted to believe, and that was enough. And the objectifying, dehumanizing and contemptuous tone of Patai's discussion of a people he claims to like is inseparable from his arguments. It is a great tragedy if it influenced American conduct in Iraq.

Part of the reason I supported the war is inseparable from my conscience as a Jew. If I am not willing to intervene to save Arabs from a tyrant, why should Christians have been willing to intervene to save Jews from Hitler? "Never again" can't apply only to my people. It is terribly ironic that Patai's repressed Arabs are the inverse of the Jews of medieval and 19th century myth, oversexed, underinhibited and, in the case of women, readily available. But maybe it is to be expected. It might be that the two anti-Semitisms are inseparable the one from the other, and that it is no coincidence that European sentiment against the Jews has risen along with European and American sentiment against the Arab world and the Arabs and Muslims among us.

I don't subscribe to the theory that the main reason Bush attacked Iraq was to strengthen Israel, not least because it would play too neatly into the anti-Semitism that positions Arab-Israeli relations as a zero-sum game. But I suspect that any influence "The Arab Mind" had on American policymakers tapped into the deepest level of Westerners' troubled feelings about Jews, Arabs and sex.

Thanks to the always gracious and patient Dr. Ameer Hassoun, originally of Baghdad, for his assistance with the Arabic language.

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