“Book Reviews - Egypt Today” plus 2 more

Book Reviews - Egypt Today
Max Hastings: Thank God Christmas is over! I'm not a party pooper, but ... - Daily Mail
A reflection on some of 2009’s best reads - Anderson Independent-Mail

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Posted: 28 Dec 2009 12:59 AM PST

THE ILLUSION OF PROGRESS in the Arab World: A Critique of Western Misconstructions

Galal Amin, translated by David Wilmsen, AUC Press, 2006

True to his tradition of razor-sharp criticism of current affairs that has earned him throngs of dedicated readers, Galal Amin strikes again with this biting critique of the Western discourse on the Arab world.

Following the runaway success of Whatever Happened to the Egyptians? (2000) and Whatever Else Happened to the Egyptians? (2004), the social commentator and American University in Cairo professor of economics widens his focus to scrutinize the region vis-à-vis a hostile global climate.

The 160-page book, however, gets off to a bad start.

It opens with a relatively trite attempt at deconstructing the concept of 'progress.' Amin's drawn-out description of the notion and causes of the Arabs' khawaga complex (the feeling of inferiority when compared with Europeans and North Americans), frequently slips into a mode of anecdotal musings with incoherent transitions from one idea to the next.

Although his way of weaving incidents from the experiences of his father and grandfather is sometimes engaging for being so personal, he often uses these unique, private moments to make sweeping generalizations. Had he intended this book to be a more rigorous analysis of the issues he discusses, it would have been dismissed out of hand.

But this was never his intention. Amin clearly wants to convey his personal observations in the form of quick, easily digestible snapshots of his thoughts on thorny issues plaguing the world. And to this end he succeeds with flying colors.

The first chapter aside, the tempo picks up with each of the subsequent 11 chapters, in which he deconstructs and redefines concepts such as economic development, human rights, freedom, ethics and democracy.

His chapter on human development is a real eye-opener. In it, he traces the historical origins of the notorious Arab Human Development Report, first published by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in 2002. Not only was the UNDP satisfied with the misleading criteria — it set out to rank countries according to their degree of progress or backwardness based on per capita income, life expectancy at birth and the level of education — but it "strangely" chose to focus on the Arab world alone.

To add insult to injury, the report "boldly claimed to present an even more accurate measure of human progress and backwardness and to rely on three other indicators, those being freedom and democracy, the state of knowledge and what is called 'the empowerment of women.'"

In his biting critique, Amin shows how challenging it is to measure such vague concepts as freedom, empowerment and knowledge, and how any evaluation of "human" development needs to have a more holistic approach and not favor certain aspects of human life over others. Commenting on the 2003 report, he notes how it doesn't mention the role of foreign occupation of Arab land in hindering so-called progress and how the US' Greater Middle East Initiative eerily echoed the goals of both reports.

In other chapters, Amin speaks of terrorism as a fabricated, fear-inspiring tool aimed to unite people and "discourage dissent." In the eleventh chapter, he evokes two classic literary critiques of human progress, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and George Orwell's 1984, drawing comparisons between the nightmare scenario of psychological coercion, torture and brainwashing posited by both works and the post-9/11 world in which we live.

He ends the book with two open questions: Do our Arab societies need modernization or reform? If striking the balance between tradition and modernity is at all possible, can it be achieved if it is offered to us "backed by the power of the gun?"

The Illusion of Progress in the Arab World is a quick and captivating read. Amin's simple yet sharp arguments strike at the heart of the matter, deftly voicing the opinions of many Arab intellectuals.

Christians in Egypt: Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant Communities Past and Present

Otto F.A. Meinardus, AUC Press, 2006

As the final part of a trilogy on Egyptian Christianity, Otto Meinardus' Christians in Egypt offers an extensive overview of the main Egyptian Christian churches and organizations of the present day.

Preceded by Two Thousand Years of Coptic Christianity and Coptic Saints and Pilgrimages — about the history and traditions of the Coptic Orthodox Church and the lives of Coptic saints, respectively — the new book responds to a "deficit in our knowledge of the wide spectrum of the various forms of Christianity in Egypt."

Meinardus' simple, lucid style makes for an uncluttered reading experience, one easily accessible to the lay reader, but sophisticated enough to engage the specialist.

Published after the author's death in 2005, the book opens with a chapter mapping the Pharaonic heritage of Egyptian Christians, many of whom "insist they are the true sons and daughters of the Pharaohs," a distinguishing feature of what Meinardus calls "the present religious and cultural renaissance of the Copts." He traces, for instance, pagan elements of Coptic iconography such as the ankh ("key of life"), a life-bestowing symbol presented to the pharaoh by pre-Christian gods to confer the divine spirit upon him. In the fifth century, this symbol became the Coptic sign of Jesus' redemptive cross.

The chapter includes interesting details like ancient funerary customs that have survived in some form to the present day, such as the recognition of the death bird, which was to receive the soul of the departed and fly with it to the heavens.

One of the most interesting chapters is the second, entitled "Egyptian Christians as citizens of an Islamic society in the Middle Ages." Meinardus contends that this issue is marginal to his discussion — perhaps to justify the little space he allocates to it and the fact that his discussion seems incoherent and at times contradictory.

He bases his analysis on three sources: The History of the Patriarchs of the Egyptian Church (from the seventh to the twelfth centuries), the writings of Abu Al-Makarim and the fifteenth-century Islamic historian Al-Maqrizi.

Meinardus writes that the attitude of the Church toward the Islamic state largely depended on the attitude of the state itself to the religion, which varied between persecution, qualified sufferance and freedom. Although he says that the Copts rarely found themselves in a position of having to apostatize to save their lives, he also argues that the Muslim state's attitude of sufferance (a compromise based upon the payment of a tax or surrendering certain privileges) was a source of pressure by the Muslim authorities on Copts, causing them to succumb to frequent intimidations.

Based on a single source, he attributes the conversions of 24,000 Copts to Islam between 744 and 768 to this form of indirect pressure, stating (without much evidence) that exemption from paying the jizya (poll tax) was the primary reason for their acceptance of Islam.

Meinardus skirts the issue by saying that the attitude of the various Muslim rulers showed marked differences, the Fatimids being the most friendly and the Ayyubids the least. But he also cites the "tragic disunity" among Christians as one of the primary factors leading to the involvement of the state in the affairs of the Church, where the governor often served as mediator and arbitrator. He makes an interesting note about how the worst persecution of the Copts, which took place under Fatimid Caliph Al-Hakim Bi-Amr Allah, was instigated by a monk.

Meinardus sums up the ambiguity in the church-state relationship with the fact that some Copts interpreted the Arab conquest as a deliverance from Byzantine oppression, while others believed the opposite. He asserts, however, that consistent Coptic opposition to the state never emerged.

The "negative attitudes of the Copts toward the state were caused largely by temporary and symptomatic situations," and although they had to respect the government, they abhorred the teachings of Islam. In his final analysis, he seems to say that an attitude of genuine and spontaneous acceptance between church and state was a rare phenomenon in the 1,300 years of Muslim rule in Egypt, despite the countless examples of relatively peaceful coexistence.

This superficial yet fascinating probe into the thorny issue of Coptic-Muslim relations is especially pertinent considering recent tensions, but the book also offers a comprehensive compilation of Christian churches (Coptic, Greek, Armenian, Syrian, Catholic, Episcopal and Evangelical), agencies, societies and ecumenical organizations in Egypt, as well as a calendar of all Christian feasts and fasts.

Islamic Calligraphy

Sheila S. Blair, AUC Press, 2006

In attempting to define the significance of Arabic calligraphy in her 681-page Islamic Calligraphy, Sheila Blair makes a pertinent linguistic analogy: "Calligraphy is to writing as fusha (literary Arabic) is to plain speech." It is, she says, a script intended to make an aesthetic impact on the viewer and speak through its appearance, not merely through its meaning.

Though Blair is wary of the term 'Islamic Art,' which she sees as "a poor name for an ill-defined subject," she does refer to 'Islamic Calligraphy,' noting that writing has been the hallmark of artistic expression in the Islamic world since the seventh century.

Unlike other art historians and philosophers — including Iranian mystic Seyyed Hussein Nasr, who approach the art from a spiritual perspective, designed to inspire remembrance of God — Blair asserts that her purpose is to apply some of the methodologies developed in the study of Western art history to trace the development of Arabic writing over the past 14 centuries and put it in a global perspective.

Blair certainly achieves this in this informative, comprehensive and deeply indexed reference book. She provides the historical context in which the various forms of Arabic script emerged in tandem with the expansion of Islamic rule. She explains, for instance, how regional variants began to appear in the maghribi script of Spain and North Africa.

Enhanced with more than 150 color illustrations and 100 black-and-white details, this visually appealing guide is ideal for students of Islamic art. And for the non-specialist, simply flipping through the perfectly captioned images give a true feeling of the evolution of Arabic script. et

Max Hastings: Thank God Christmas is over! I'm not a party pooper, but ... - Daily Mail

Posted: 28 Dec 2009 03:43 AM PST

By Max Hastings
Last updated at 11:35 AM on 28th December 2009

One of the best moments of Christmas comes when it is over. I say that not as a party-pooper - I love it when it is happening - but because we now can get on with real life, which is not that bad for most of us, even in Brown's Britain.

Much as we love visitors, and especially small ones, the silence is heavenly when they have gone home. We need no longer spend hours on frenzied High Street hunts for presents.

There is an end to all the business excuses which start in November about 'getting back to you after Christmas'. Most of us thoroughly enjoy bawling 'O come, all ye faithful', but even the Archbishop of Canterbury has had enough of it by now.

This is a terrific time for doing household jobs pending since Easter, making up to the dogs for being neglected since advent, steering children back to planet earth after weeks in orbit, and imposing censorship on all further moaning about the weather.

Max Hastings is not a fan of the Christmas frenzy

I enjoyed the snow, but we have been there and done that. The stuff is sensational when new, clean and present in sufficient quantities for toboggans. But once it starts fading to slush, the picture-postcard thrill is gone.

We once tried going abroad for Christmas, sitting in the sun while my wife described with sardonic glee exactly what cosmetic work each of the women around the pool had had done.

However, the palm trees felt hopelessly wrong for the season, and we agreed never to repeat the experiment. This is the time for mulled wine, not bikinis. Almost everyone who loves their own home wants to be in it. I am bemused by those who brave the horrors of December airports, even when not snowbound.

My clever wife always buys a very small turkey. By Boxing Day it resembles Keira Knightley on a diet - almost invisible from a side view. Today it is already soup.

We go back to normal rations as soon as the remains of the crackers have been cleared up, and are jolly grateful, too. It is worth taking a five-mile diversion to avoid houses where you are offered mince pies or warmed-over Christmas pudding past the weekend.

I have only one complaint about this time of year. My mother produced me on December 28 - today, as it happens.

She claimed afterwards that this was entirely my fault. She said I started the way I intended to continue - in too much of a hurry, a fortnight early.

Whoever was to blame, the consequence is that for 64 years I have been fobbed off with joint presents: 'This is for Christmas and birthday . . .'

As a child, I made a crude calculation that this deprived me of say, 70 per cent of presents by value, which over the subsequent six decades has added up to a quantity of lost booty which would impress anyone save a Goldman Sachs partner.

If you want children who will love you, prospective parents should be careful about what they do together around mid-March. Few babies born in December are grateful. They resent seeing Mummy sticking candles into a half-eaten Christmas cake on the grounds that there is no consumer demand for a special birthday one.

But no matter. At my age such petty grievances are forgotten - almost, anyway.

In our family we are great believers in getting on with it, whatever 'it' may be. This is a perfect season for looking ahead rather than backwards, and making things happen.

Among the best aspects of writing books for a living, as I do, is that one is independent of anyone else to keep the production line rolling. There are no problems with the factory being shut until New Year.

I can sit at my screen any day of the year, tapping away at book reviews, chapters about wartime Arctic convoys and radio scripts on childhood.

At this time of year, I am also spared from sceptical spectators. When other people are around, I realise that some do not regard what I do as work.

I once heard two workmen on our roof discussing my activity in the study: 'What's he doing? Still sitting there reading and looking at his garden? Nice life for some, isn't it? I s'pose he sends the wife out to do the earning.'

Sufficient to say that the Christmas 'holiday' is a fine time for writers to scribble even more industriously than the rest of the year. The phone seldom rings, there are no meetings and not much news in the world to worry about.

You yourself may not feel like writing a book today. But in the blissful post-Christmas peace there are lots of other opportunities. No one under 40 seems to do DIY any more, but this is a great week for those of us who love our Black & Deckers to build new shelves, mend the fence and sort out the garage.

I can never understand why home carpentry and decorating have gone out of fashion. However many Poles are clamouring for custom, it is fun as well as cash-saving to do some of the business in-house. Our own larder shelves got built yesterday, and I enjoyed making them much more than opening presents on Friday.

I regret being thought too old to be taken to a pantomime, one of the highspots of the week after Christmas for lots of us until our voices broke. Better still in the Fifties was Where The Rainbow Ends, a shamelessly patriotic Edwardian melodrama in which St George saves assorted children from the evil dragon, assumed by most of us in those days to be German or Russian.

My wife is taking a grandchild to the panto on Friday. The contemporary version won't have any of the shocking assumptions of English racial triumphalism that Rainbow had, but I bet it won't be as exciting.

There are many compensations for being grown-up. Among them is that one is spared the sense of anti-climax which afflicts most children today, with no more parcels to open, and the tree which seemed so exciting last week shedding needles.

We oldies have the supreme satisfaction that we need not start getting glum about the prospect of going back to school. January is a much brighter month than December, with snowdrops and lengthening days.

Our ancestors had cause to get depressed at New Year about the prospect of seeing little fresh food before spring, facing months of salted meat and half-frosted potatoes. We are subject to no such privations, unless something goes horribly wrong at Tesco.

We can walk country lanes with the assurance of returning to warm homes, and wave away the last days of 2009 without a tremor of nostalgia.

This is a time for looking ahead, sighing with relief that a pretty dismal year for most of us is drawing to an end.

If children believe in Santa Claus, it is the privilege - indeed the duty - of their parents to cherish a conviction that the times to come will be better than the times past. Here's hoping that it will be so for you.

Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below, or debate this issue live on our message boards.

The comments below have been moderated in advance.

I thought I was the only person who remembered "Where the Rainbow Ends" though as I grew up in the sixties rather than the fifties I only had the book rather than the stage show. It was a wonderful story - full of political incorrectness and heart-warming patriotism. Sadly the story of Cubby The British Lion, the children and of course St George of Merrie England would never be allowed today!

- Sally Roberts, London, UK, 28/12/2009 11:32

Well in some respects I'm with Max.
I have always spent christmas with my family. Since my wife died 5 years ago with my daughters family. What fun that is. I missed this year, as I am in Thailand, but I had to smile at the cartoon done by my son in law, of my daughter as a tank commander peering over the gun turret to see if the coast is clear as he does the Christmas dinner without her help, for 12, I'd have made it 13.
My Christmas dinner consisted of a meal in a restaurant in Thailand, cooked by ( I think ) a yank. shredded turkey, hard sprouts, mashed potato, lord knows what else, hot things that should have been cold an cold things that should have been hot. it was foul, metaphorically speaking and I paid for it in more ways than one, too. Probably the most miserable Christmas I can ever remember. My daughter says that'll teach me a lesson and to go home next year.

- mick blair, thailand, 28/12/2009 11:11

As the mother of a daughter born a week before Christmas I can safely assure you she has ensured that she has never lost out by having a birthday so close to Christmas.

I, on the other hand, am a nervous wreck by the time Christmas arrives as I am the one in our family who bears responsibility for all the end of term things, birthday AND Christmas.

I agree, be careful in mid March!!!

- mum of two, London, 28/12/2009 11:07

Christmas is more for Children. If single or for many it's a Bad time of the Year, because all the old memories that come back of the great Christmases they had with people that have since died or never seen again.

- Ingo, West Ham, 28/12/2009 10:33

Quite right, Max, roll on the even more dismal 2010.

- Chris, Correze, France, 28/12/2009 10:23

"...but because we now can get on with real life, which is not that bad for most of us, even in Brown's Britain."

Oh come on Max! I thought we were living in a Stalinist, Mugabee-esque police state! I wish you DM columnists would make up your minds, I say!

- bob roberts, worcester, 28/12/2009 10:12

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A reflection on some of 2009’s best reads - Anderson Independent-Mail

Posted: 27 Dec 2009 08:19 PM PST

For a bibliophile who is also slightly obsessive-compulsive, the end of the year is a time to straighten bookshelves, shuffle un-alphabetized volumes to their proper places, discard the books I will never ever read again, and reflect on the ones I know I will return to in the future.

The year 2009 was book-ended by outstanding novels by two of my favorite authors. In January I read Ron Rash's "Serena," the story of a truly evil woman, Serena Pemberton, who arrives in the North Carolina mountains during the Depression with her timber baron husband. They proceeds to cut down every tree and every person who stands in their way. Rash's gorgeous descriptions embellish a suspenseful plot as conservationists trying to establish the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and their allies battle this Lady MacBeth of the Appalachians.

I ended the year with another novel, "The Children's Book" by A.S. Byatt, a sprawling, densely peopled and intricately plotted tale set in England. The story opens in 1895 and ends just after World War I, when the safe and ordered world of the British Empire came crashing down. If you have any curiosity about the world of William Morris, J.M. Barrie, Oscar Wilde or Emma Goldman (all of whom make cameo appearances), you will want to read this book.

Novels that combine historical characters with fictitious ones have always interested me, and I really enjoyed Gerald Kolpan's "Etta," the story of the notorious Etta Place. How did a nice girl from Philadelphia wind up as mistress to the Sundance Kid? The author takes the reader on a rollicking ride through the Old West, as Etta robs a train with a rattlesnake, travels with Buffalo Bill and befriends a young Eleanor Roosevelt.

Turning to contemporary times, NPR's "Radio Reader" drew me to "The Leisure Seeker" by Michael Zadorian, the story of an elderly couple, John and Ella, who run away from home for one last hurrah on Route 66 in their aging RV. Between them, John and Ella make one healthy person: he has dementia, she's dying of cancer. But you'd be surprised how funny two people on their last legs can be. The conclusion is unexpected and may not sit right with everyone, but as Ella says, "It is not your place to say."

Two non-fiction books that were among my favorites in 2009 took me to faraway, war-torn countries. Anderson physician Mohammed B. Alikhail shared the story of his journey from his native Afghanistan in "Goal," a memoir that reads like fiction. Dr. Alikhail, a respected internist, tells of his village boyhood, dangerous life in Kabul, harrowing defection from Afghanistan and the struggle to establish himself in Canada and the U.S. Anyone who feels they have too much to overcome should read his inspiring book, which is sold at the Anderson County Museum gift shop.

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright covers some of the same years in "Read My Pins: Stories from a Diplomat's Jewel Box," but her stage was bigger. I love brooches, and this book full of colorful photographs of Madam Albright's jewelry collection — including a cleverly constructed "pindex" in the back — combined with her pithy stories about heroes and scoundrels really caught my fancy.

Every year finds me re-reading a few old favorites. This year I re-read my girlhood copy of Margaret Mitchell's "Gone With the Wind," and found myself grimacing at the contrived dialect of Mammy and the other slaves while falling in love with Rhett Butler all over again. (How could Scarlett be so blind?!)

At about the time Barack Obama was inaugurated, I re-read Jonathon Alter's "The Defining Moment: FDR and the Triumph of Hope," finding many parallels between this year and the time when Roosevelt took office. It made standing on the National Mall on Jan. 20, 2009, huddled against the wind and cold, as President Obama took the oath of office that much more meaningful.

Happy New Year — and let's hope it's a better one! Make a resolution to find more time to read this year.

Bibliophile Kathryn Smith writes book reviews regularly for the Independent Mail.

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Book Reviews

Monday, December 28, 2009