Bernard Lewis: What Went Wrong?

Bernard Lewis: What Went Wrong? The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East (2002, Perennial). The title is freighted with ambiguity and clamor, as if it's meant to panic, or maybe just to cash in on panic. There are, after all, several distinct problems: one is the difficulties that middle eastern countries have in negotiating their way through modernity; a second problem is the whether the west is more or less responsible for the middle east's failures and frustrations along the way. But while the title is sloppy, the book itself has a tidy little message: the middle east is in turmoil today because flaws in their culture, philosophy, and religion (Islam) have undermined their few belated efforts at modernity, leaving the region hopelessly backward, sour, and vindictive. And, of course, the ever munificent west has no blame for this sad outcome.

We can tear this argument apart several different ways. First, Lewis provides no actual measure of the problem (that is, the lack of modernity in the middle east). Instead, he offers anecdotes, most of which involve the Ottomans. It is worth remembering that what was modern during the Ottoman period was substantially less than what is modern today (e.g., transportation and communications technology). Moreover, Lewis' concentration on culture and religion sweeps aside the question of political factors. It seems clear now that Ottoman control significantly limited Arab political response as the west expanded in the 19th century, and that the lack of established Arab political institutions allowed the west to assert control, extending the period of Arab political "immaturity." Also, even if democracy was key to the west's accelerated power, Europe's preferred political form for the middle east was to establish monarchies, which concentrated wealth among individuals who reinvested that wealth in the west, preventing any real capital accumulation in the region. And to the extent that middle eastern economies were based on export trade (mostly oil), they never engaged in the sort of protectionism that stimulated the manufacturing industries in east asia. Also, any middle eastern states who leaned toward the Soviet Union were effectively quarantined from the west. And then there is the damage incurred in many middle eastern states from war, especially in Lebanon and Iraq. These are all things that have weakened the middle east that have virtually no cultural cause.

posted 2003-03-01