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A review by jenny44indy
Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World by Edward W. Said
4.0
This was a difficult, but important book to read. Difficult, because it's level of scholarship and vocabulary far exceed my current capabilities.
Important, because it is good to challenge and stretch one's own boundaries, and because it questions the American media portrayal of 'Islam' and the 'Middle East' as far too narrowed and in its own interest. Say whatever you will about the matter, the fact is, American knowledge in this area is skewed for political policy, or simply because of a shortage of trained linguists and especially scholars that are not tied by some sort of business, policy, or educational endowment interest. And while this is the case for many academic disciplines, it is especially true for this area of study. Studying Islam is not just about studying Islam as the west sees it, it cannot be reduced to the study of the region in its entirety. It should be broken down into its diverse languages, diverse groups within Islam, the non-religious aspects of those societies, and for the sake of study as opposed to the sake of how to interact in business and politics. That is a very idealistic and tall order, but we can surely do better. This book was written in 1981 and updated in 1997. The way the trends the author discusses have changed, and, unfortunately, gotten worse as he warned about is frightening though in hindsight, and with Sept 11 2001 in mind, not very surprising.
But it saddens me, to see this state of things. His final pages resonated with me very well, especially just in that every scholar, every bit of research is not done in a vacuum and that those variables of human social tendency must not be discounted - I think this observation holds across many disciplines and situations regardless of cross-cultural dialogues. It holds true within a culture, within a small situation - like your every day working and social life.
I will leave a quote from the last page I found particularly useful:
Page 171: "It is certainly true that the Islamic world as a whole is neither completely anti-American and anti-West nor unified and predictable in its actions. Without trying to give an exhaustive account of these changes, I have been saying that this has meant the emergence of new and irregular realities in the Islamic world; it is no less true that similar irregularities, disturbing the calm theoretical descriptions of earlier years, have emerged in other parts of the post-colonial world. Merely to reassert the old formulas about "underdevelopment" and "the Afro-Asian mentality" is foolish enough; but to connect these casually with notions about the sad decline of the West, the unfortunate end of colonialism, and the regrettable diminishment of American power is, I must say as strongly as possible, rank folly. There is simply no way in which socieites thousands of miles away from the Atlantic world in both space and identity can be made to conform to what we want of them. One can consider this a neutral fact without also regarding it (as I happen to) as a good thing."
This book stirs up many thoughts, much reflection. I recommend it, even it if took me months to get through it and patience with a dictionary. Even though it is dated, its message rings clearer now than before, I think.
Important, because it is good to challenge and stretch one's own boundaries, and because it questions the American media portrayal of 'Islam' and the 'Middle East' as far too narrowed and in its own interest. Say whatever you will about the matter, the fact is, American knowledge in this area is skewed for political policy, or simply because of a shortage of trained linguists and especially scholars that are not tied by some sort of business, policy, or educational endowment interest. And while this is the case for many academic disciplines, it is especially true for this area of study. Studying Islam is not just about studying Islam as the west sees it, it cannot be reduced to the study of the region in its entirety. It should be broken down into its diverse languages, diverse groups within Islam, the non-religious aspects of those societies, and for the sake of study as opposed to the sake of how to interact in business and politics. That is a very idealistic and tall order, but we can surely do better. This book was written in 1981 and updated in 1997. The way the trends the author discusses have changed, and, unfortunately, gotten worse as he warned about is frightening though in hindsight, and with Sept 11 2001 in mind, not very surprising.
But it saddens me, to see this state of things. His final pages resonated with me very well, especially just in that every scholar, every bit of research is not done in a vacuum and that those variables of human social tendency must not be discounted - I think this observation holds across many disciplines and situations regardless of cross-cultural dialogues. It holds true within a culture, within a small situation - like your every day working and social life.
I will leave a quote from the last page I found particularly useful:
Page 171: "It is certainly true that the Islamic world as a whole is neither completely anti-American and anti-West nor unified and predictable in its actions. Without trying to give an exhaustive account of these changes, I have been saying that this has meant the emergence of new and irregular realities in the Islamic world; it is no less true that similar irregularities, disturbing the calm theoretical descriptions of earlier years, have emerged in other parts of the post-colonial world. Merely to reassert the old formulas about "underdevelopment" and "the Afro-Asian mentality" is foolish enough; but to connect these casually with notions about the sad decline of the West, the unfortunate end of colonialism, and the regrettable diminishment of American power is, I must say as strongly as possible, rank folly. There is simply no way in which socieites thousands of miles away from the Atlantic world in both space and identity can be made to conform to what we want of them. One can consider this a neutral fact without also regarding it (as I happen to) as a good thing."
This book stirs up many thoughts, much reflection. I recommend it, even it if took me months to get through it and patience with a dictionary. Even though it is dated, its message rings clearer now than before, I think.