I can only second what Bill has said. I sometimes despair that Westerners will ever be able to generate an understanding of the Arab and Muslim (and for that matter, any 'foreign' culture) before they begin forming their conclusions.
> I lived for six years under Lebanese, Jordanian, and Israeli rule [my > wife was with me the last five of those years] and have found that much > of what is written is pure fiction. Orientalists, as they are wont to > call themselves, are mostly hermits. They read others works and compound > those errors by repeating and expanding upon them. A lot of the current > Middle Eastern authors were class mates of mine and I know how they have > gotten their info. Reporters of current news on the Middle East hang out > in bars where they are allowed and deem the inebriated person next to > them an expert source, and so on. > > Be careful when reading sources. > > Bill Ward > > The West and the Rest > > Globalization > > and the Terrorist Threat > > By Roger Scruton > > > > ISI Books. 200 pp. $19.95 > > > > Reviewed by Frank Wilson > > SNIP > > The difference can be traced to "the contest between the religious > > and the political forms of social order." In the West, thanks to the > > > > confluence of "two great institutions" - "Roman law, conceived as a > > universal jurisdiction, and Christianity, conceived as a universal > > church" - the contest has been resolved through the "separation of > > religious and secular authority." In the Islamic world, it simply > > has > > not been resolved. I wonder how Bush and his extended crew think the 'conflict' has been resolved? >From this review, I would tend to suggest that the writer knows quite a bit about the West through the mid 1950's and not much about the secular/religuous tensions that have emerged since then; and very little about Islam and the way the secular impulse and the religious one have interacted in the Arab and Muslim worlds. And it is an easy bet that he has not read "Jonah Blank's "Mullahs on the Mainframe." Cheers, Lawry
