Letters to the Editor

Fleming passes judgement too generally

I fear that in his Oct. 18 opinion piece "War's first several casualties," professor John Fleming has fallen into the trap of essentializing. While literary output (as recorded by Newsweek, whose sources we hear nothing about), literacy rates and levels of education are a convenient forum for asserting the superiority of Western culture over Eastern (this has of course been done before, usually by colonial states to defend their "civilizing mission"), it is a mistake to assume, if one is to use literary output as an indication of Western superiority, that other factors — namely economic ones — do not enter into the picture. While the United States, Europe and Israel may publish more books than the Arab world (once again, I would like to see official numbers from a variety of Muslim countries), and may well be more literate, there are direct economic reasons for the lack of literary output and lack of education in many areas of the world. It goes without saying that these phenomena are not restricted to the Arab/Muslim world but are usually endemic in "developing nations."

However, Fleming's worse sin (if I may call it that), is that he seems to think that all Muslim countries, and most Muslim people, share the same values, which are inherently opposed to the "rationality and intellectual tolerance" embodied by the West. I am surprised that Fleming considers a nation in which the president posits a current war in terms of "good against evil" (nearly the same terminology used by the "religious fanatics" against whom this war is waged) is a pinnacle of rationality. It seems to me that Fleming may not have traveled in a Muslim country, or at least not have spoken to the people. If he had, perhaps he would know that in the East, as in the West, the populace differs in terms of religiosity, and that a book that one group may consider heretical and issue a religious prohibition against, another group will read with avidity. The same, of course, is true in terms of behavior, hence the proliferation of bars and nightclubs in cities such as Amman, Cairo or Ramallah. While I do not pretend to be an expert on the Muslim world, and certainly not on the publishing practices in the various countries covered by that term, my own experiences living and working in Jordan and the West Bank enlightened me as to the debate which occurs in Muslim countries regarding the place of religion in those societies, a debate which takes place in literary and critical works, in the university and on the street. Karen Bauer GS Near Eastern Studies