Europe and the Arab World By Samir Amin and Ali El Kenz (London: Zed Books, 2005. 166 pages.)

Abstract

Concise, succinct, and informative, this book skillfully elucidates and
assesses the patterns, prospects, and complexities of Arab-European relations
contextualized in a globalizing (read “Americanizing”) world. It also
identifies the ambiguities and limitations of social movements and struggles
within the Arab world, as well as their implications for mutual relationships
(p. vi). The authors’ main thesis is that both global capitalism and the
American determination to construct a “new” Middle East in its own image
have undermined the possibilities of domestic reforms and external realignments
in most Arab countries. American hegemonic influence, together with
the growing sway of politicized Islam on public life, have added more limitations
and constraints to other failures to transform the underlying economic
and political structures defining the relations between members on
both sides of the Mediterranean.
The book comprises four chapters: three written by Amin (chapters 1, 2,
and 4), and one (chapter 3) by El Kenz. The first chapter is a critical survey
of conditions in the Arab world in general and that of the Arab “state” in particular.
Amin designates the latter structure as a manifestation of “mameluke
power,” reflecting a complex traditional system that has merged the personalized
power of warlords, businessmen, and men of religion (p. 3). The Arab
state, he argues, has never really embraced or understood modernity. Egypt,
Syria, and the Ottoman Empire underwent a first phase of ineffective modernization
during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The second
phase was associated with the populist nationalism of Nasserism, Baathism,
and the Algerian revolution between the 1950s and 1970s. With the end of
this phase, a multiparty system gave way to a paradoxical regression into the
mameluke type of autocracy (pp. 10-12). Whereas Europe broke with its
past, which allowed for its modern progress, the Arabs have not. Amin identifies
modernity with such a historical break as well as with secularism, the
differentiation of religion and politics, the emancipation of women, and the
rest of the term’s conventional elements (pp. 2-3).
He criticizes currents “claiming to be Islamic” (p. 6), particularly those
of the Wahhabi type, viewing Islamic militant groups as manifestations of a
revolt against “destructive” capitalism and “deceptive” modernity (p. 6),
more interested in sociopolitical issues than in matters of theology. Amin dismisses
Iran as being no different, although he provides no details (p. 8), and ...