[BRIEF NOTE] What went wrong?
Jul. 5th, 2006 07:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldThere are many things wrong with Bernard Lewis' 2002 What Went Wrong? The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East. These are encapsulated by this thin book's final paragraph.
It's worth noting the relative implausibility of the various candidates for foreign hegemon cited by Lewis: Europe isn't interested, Russia can't, the likely "new, expanding superpower[s] in the East" won't. It's still more noteworthy that he doesn't nominate the United States as a candidate, even though that country had multiple bases in multiple countries in the Middle East at the time of writing and has since gone on to invade and conquer two Middle Eastern countries while positioning itself to take on still other candidates. I'm dubious about the motives for his peculiar selectivity.
If the peoples of the Middle East continue on their present path, the suicide bomber may become a metaphor for the whole region, and there will be no escape from a downward spiral of hate and spite, rage and self-pity, poverty and oppression, culminating sooner or later in yet another alien domination; perhaps from a new Europe reverting to old ways, perhaps from a resurgent Russia, perhaps from some new, expanding superpower in the East. If they can abandon grievance and victimhood, settle their differences, and join their talents, energies, and resources in a common creative endeavour, then they can once again make the Middle East, in modern times as it was in antiquity and in the Middle Ages, a major center of civilization. For the time being, the choice is their own (159-160).
It's worth noting the relative implausibility of the various candidates for foreign hegemon cited by Lewis: Europe isn't interested, Russia can't, the likely "new, expanding superpower[s] in the East" won't. It's still more noteworthy that he doesn't nominate the United States as a candidate, even though that country had multiple bases in multiple countries in the Middle East at the time of writing and has since gone on to invade and conquer two Middle Eastern countries while positioning itself to take on still other candidates. I'm dubious about the motives for his peculiar selectivity.
