Because of the Americans (interesting analysis of Arab culture)

Frontpage ^ | November 28, 2001 | Jamie Glazov

[Mr. Mulliner]

Because of the Americans

FrontPageMagazine.com | November 28, 2001

MANY OF MY CONVERSATIONS with Arab acquaintances about the recent war in Afghanistan have forced me to revisit an issue that has always mystified me.

There is a consistent theme that I tend to hear from many Arabs: that Americans are behind most – if not all – of the problems in the Middle East. Americans are even behind the problems that hurt their own interests.

I couldn’t count how many Arab taxi drivers have explained to me that the Americans themselves orchestrated the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, and so on and so forth. The argument is always that the Americans control everything and that they create enemies – and their own misfortunes – to legitimize their imperialism and military build-up.

In my latest conversation with an Arab friend, it was explained to me that the Americans were themselves behind the Sept. 11 tragedy.

As we have lately become aware, this mysterious fantasy has a large-scale popularity in the Arab world. Why?

There are a few phenomena that we might want to consider in searching for some answers to this enigma.

While there is obviously diversity in the Arab world, Arabs do accept a certain general feeling about themselves. They see the world through the perspective of all Arabs being brothers – children of one single nation. And this is why Arabs strongly believe that there is such a thing as an Arab personality, which they call shakhsiyya.

In The Arab Mind, scholar Raphael Patai demonstrates how the Arab language is much more based on its poetic and musical quality than on the valid use of past and present tenses – which are often mixed up. In the Arab culture, therefore, there is a great appreciation of gesture, but not necessarily an emphasis on logic, or on the relationship between cause and effect. When learning to speak, Arab children quickly adopt the specific and popular stylistic devices known as mubalagha (exaggeration) and tawkid (overassertion). There is often confusion in Arab society over the difference between words and action. Saying that you are going to do something can often become much more significant than actually doing it. Words serve as substitutes for acts.

Muslim fatalism blends with this cultural trait. It stresses that it does not make much sense for the Muslim to act in certain situations, since much is in "Allah’s will" anyway. As a result, there is often little motivation for Arabs to take action for change or to evaluate critically their own circumstances.

In addition to this, there is a general aversion to manual labor in the Arab world, particularly to the kind that involves dirtying one’s hands. While the Protestant work ethic sees work as a good thing, the Middle Eastern ethic sees work as a curse and something that should be avoided. The Arabian Nights, for instance, includes many examples of this belief system.

The result is that many Arabs often do not end up feeling a sense of responsibility for their own failures. To admit that a problem is one’s own fault brings humiliation upon one's self and also shames the group's honor. Thus, the obsession with avoiding shame cancels out the possibility of truthful self-reflection and examination.

When a problem is confronted in the Arab world, a hidden enemy is often imagined. Consequently the inability of Arab countries to create democracies, let alone functional economic and social societies, are read by many Arabs as personal humiliations that are caused by enemies.

Many Arabs simply grow up believing that success in their societies is simply just supposed to materialize, even if no one is actually taking any individual initiative to bring it about. If problems develop (i.e. economic backwardness, dictatorship etc.), they are believed to be caused by enemies (i.e. the evil Americans). If there is a solution to these problems, it lies in destroying those causing the problems (i.e. the evil Americans). The idea that problems can be solved by Arab individuals themselves, and that the citizens must actually participate in solving their own society’s problems, is an idea that is incomprehensible to significant portions of the Arab population.

It becomes understandable why anti-Bin Laden demonstrations are virtually non-existent in the Arab world today. Bin Laden is simply getting America back for all of the shame and humiliation that Arabs must live with everyday – in despotic and impotent societies that have emerged not because of anything that Arabs have done, but because of what they view the Americans – and obviously the Jews – as having perpetrated.

[PeoplesRepublicOfWashington]

I don't mean this to be as rude as it sounds, but isn't all this an elaborate way of saying Arabs are stupid and lazy?

If you were intelligent enough to understand the article and ambitious enough to actually read it, you wouldn't have to ask silly questions. Are you an Arab?

[Zorobabel]

"One result is that warlords accustomed to posturing and exaggeration are likely to overlook the understated, deadly threats made by President Bush. "

I've long noticed the Arab penchant for blustery hyperbole, "mother of all battles," "rivers of blood," land burning beneath your feet," etc. that constitutes their attempts to terrify their enemies. I think western people for the most part, reporters and other media particularly, tend to take this empty boasting seriously and start issuing alarmist warnings about the ferocity of our Islamic foes. "Fifty thousand body bags," "4th largest army in the world," "elite" Republican guards," yada yada yada, and the medias all time favorite shibboleth the dreaded Q word. QUAGMIRE! shudder gasp!

And Arabs, used to this paper tiger bluster with no reality, like you said, tend to not understand nor anticipate how deadly serious, the low key and moderately voiced stated intentions of the CINC really are. They are beginning to find out that this President means what he says, and their sniveling and whining reaction to current events does my heart good.

[MissAmericanPie]

Yes, poverty pimps think that all the worlds ills are due to poverty and never take into account spiritual darkness to the point that their culture allows no enlightenment as to right, wrong, the ability to define the difference between the two and act on that difference.

Right now what pitiful amount of universites there are left in Afghanistan are filling up quick with women wanting to be doctors. They can educate people over there till the place is full of people holding college degrees, but their spiritual darkness will only eventually pull them right back to the stone age just like it did 25 years ago, and 1,500 years ago.

[NixNatAVanG InDaBurgh]

"I don't mean this to be as rude as it sounds, but isn't all this an elaborate way of saying Arabs are stupid and lazy?"

By George, I think you've got it!

As strange as it might seem, I don't think that Arabs are stupid OR lazy. Besides which, Muslims are NOT all Arabs. What I DO find, is that many of the Arabs who follow this fanaticism have more or less been lied to for generation upon generation so they could be more easily controlled. They are a proxy army, from prebirth until death, for evil, despotic leaders and psychopathic murderers. They have never been taught differently since Mohammad stole Islam.
If all you have ever learned with your math and your geography was hate, hate, and MORE hate, you would be hard pressed NOT to hate. Their leaders have made their transformation from hatred to peace impossible. The most rewarding profession there is in Islam is murder in return for martyrdom.
These things are ingrained in their psyches from cradle to grave. That is why, even now, though the incitements and demonstrations are becoming less, it isn't because they don't hate us or anything different from themselves including slightly different replicas of themselves from amongst themselves. It's because their LEADERS are smart enough to learn the fear of losing the golden goose. US.

[LiberalBassTurds]

Hysterical. Were you born this way? Car accident? Fall from great height? Beaten as a child? Hehehe you tickle me.

[Valin]

Animals don't possess the capability for self-reflection, nor do they change behavior unless they are forced to.

Ya your absolutly right, they aren't anything like us. I mean they don't look like us, they smell funny, they rat weird food, they dress funny. Boy am I glad I'm an us and not a them.

< /dripping sarcasm>

[Brian Allen]

Great essay....

Yair.

Its not too bad, at that!

[Brian Allen]

..... the Mind of the American .....

OK.

But you start the process.

And, given that we Americans are from 168 nations and that around 15% of us were born in those 168 nations, please first define "American" -- take your time, now -- and then define "the mind of the American," willyah?

And get back to us with your definitions

[malakhi]

Thanks for the ping. The similarities between the stereotypical Arab and liberal mindset are fascinating.

[Lent]

The result is that many Arabs often do not end up feeling a sense of responsibility for their own failures. To admit that a problem is one’s own fault brings humiliation upon one's self and also shames the group's honor. Thus, the obsession with avoiding shame cancels out the possibility of truthful self-reflection and examination.

excellent observation. This accounts for the chronic revisionism which plagues the Arab Islamic world with respect to their history of demagoguery and hegemony.

[Lent]

The result is that many Arabs often do not end up feeling a sense of responsibility for their own failures. To admit that a problem is one’s own fault brings humiliation upon one's self and also shames the group's honor. Thus, the obsession with avoiding shame cancels out the possibility of truthful self-reflection and examination.

Patria One I just found out why you lie so much. The above paragraph is a pretty good start on an explanation.

[Harrison Bergeron]

"These are not the characteristics of a culture that is dominated by men."

With the exception of that last point about Arabs passively "expecting" success (remember that Saudi prince who trained for the Olympic ski jump team by meditating in a cave?), the article could have been describing eastern Asian culture, which puts a severe emphasis on the concept of "face."  Many of those cultures (but I'm mainly thinking Chinese, since I've lived in Taiwan) appear to be dominated by the men, but in the traditional Chinese home, the tai tai (wife) is in charge of all of the money and has the final word on family business decisions.  Child rearing in the Arab world, as in Asia, appears to be dominated by women also.  You just don't see Arab men having anything to do with children - not even during meals -  until the children are old enough to be of use as warriors or laborers.  But what jumped out at me when I scanned the article was this:

"The idea that problems can be solved by Arab individuals themselves, and that the citizen must actually participate in solving their own society’s problems, is an idea that is incomprehensible to significant portions of the Arab population."

To me, that's a textbook description of a matriarchal society.  In the West, it's a dead-on description of feminism.  The brief excerpt from the book would lead one to believe that the kids -  yes, even the boys - are socialized by women before being turned out to society.  The weird reports of Bin Laden's ongoing contact with his mother might provide some insight into this phenomenon, if we knew what they talked about.

Interesting food for thought when you relate it to Western culture - thinking about the American "daycare center" in terms of the Arabian harem, where women take charge of molding the children in the complete absence of men.  This is a brand  new development in the West.  All I've been taught about Western civilization has told me that almost all of our significant advances were directly related to the fact that boys were socialized by men (I'm pretty sure that this is what distinguishes patriarchy from matriarchy).  It's possible that radical Islam culture isn't encroaching on the West, but that the West is slipping backwards to meet it.

[chantal7]

Whenever something happens, it's "God's will". Someone fall in a pit? God's will. Someone get their legs run over while they were working on their car with their legs sticking out into the street (they really do this in Cairo)? God's will again. It's either God's will or an evil Zionist/American pig plot to destroy the Arabs.

When in Saudi Arabia, my step father knew a man that was arrested for running over an Arab man that got off a bus and was crossing the street without looking to see if it was clear or not first. The man apparently didn't check the road because if he got ran over then it was Allah's will.

They believe that whatever happens, happens because it's Allah's Will, even if the Muslim is too stupid to know to check the street before crossing unless it's an American that accidently runs over the Muslim then, of course, it's murder and the American gets thrown in jail, held without charges or counsel, not even allowed his medicines for diseases like diabetes and beaten until the authorities allow the person to leave or decide to charge and try the person in court. The person is told to leave the country by the next day or else if the authorities release him.

In the case of the man my step father knew, after 3-4 weeks (without his medicines for diabetes, to boot) he was turned loose and told to leave the Kingdom immediately or else.

I have also seen Muslim men hugging each other, arms around each other's shoulders one minute, then for no or little reason, they start yelling at each other, pull knives on each other and try to kill each other the next minute only to start smiling and hanging all over each other in the next minute.

It's very confusing but also quite a bit more lively than the typical stiff upper lip Western persona. They aren't afraid to show any type of emotion, that's for sure.

Bbiab. Time for my coffee so that I can communicate half way coherently. :)

[junta]

Since I'm a betting man I'll put my money on Islam over Multi-culturalism and leave the points. Since PC has nothing going for it save "Hate Whitey" Islam will break it faster than the Lions went 0-10, witness the Islamic prayer rooms that are just appearing inside our public schools. I cannot wait to see some insolent man-hating feminist PC diversity queen outfitted with a burqua, hell I'll convert just so I can lash her for speaking in public.

[a history buff]

I've read Patai; some of it does resemble reality, but a lot of it is wishful thinking. Yes, many if not most Arabs do have paranoid tendencies, low expecations of life & of recently suicidal violent tendencies. But so do most people who grew up in other despotic dictatorships like East Germany, where 25% of the population was found to be "clinically paranoid" after the wall fell. Many have pathetic work habits, just as in the old Soviet Union.

In my opinion, some who focus on the problems of the Arabs do so to legitimize denying them the very antidotes to the very problems they correctly deplore such as the right to vote and freedom of the press. When people are denied our freedoms, they become nutty along the lines described above, be it in Germany, Spain, or Syria. And when given those freedoms, they prosper.

[Semaphore Heathcliffe]

very interesting read, indeed. thanks, Dennis.

[MissAmericanPie]

Yeah, I see the same symptoms breaking out right here in the USofA but no one address's them either. Here we go with the "when we deny" stuff, so I guess that means it becomes our responsibility to fix their problems and give them what they should be earning for themselves. Seems to me they deny themselves these trappings of sanity. Freedom of the press and the ability to vote will fix all their mental problems will it? I don't think you realize that their mental problems are far deeper than anything ever experienced in East Germany.

At least in East Germany they didn't skin each other alive and tear down all trace of civilization. The task to raise these people above their cave man status would be a huge undertaking and not workable as is obvious by their past. They seem to rise to a certain level, then because of some spiritual, dark, defeatist, "something" they slide back into war and self destruction. So far they don't seem big on understanding cause and effect, their comprehensive reasoning takes on more cunning than reasoned intelligence, with no issue of right or wrong, fair or unfair, just or unjust coming into play at all. That is just my observation but it indicates to me a pretty hopless situation.

[timestax]

Well based only on travel films, and newsclips I have seen throughout the decades, I noticed that most of the able bodied men were NOT working. Unless you call people watching at the town squares, or strolling at the bazarres work!

[Victoria Delsoul]

I love this statement: "In the Arab culture, therefore, there is a great appreciation of gesture, but not necessarily an emphasis on logic, or on the relationship between cause and effect."