Dreams and Shadows

Title: Dreams and Shadows – The Future of the Middle East

Author: Robin Wright

Publisher: Penguin, 2009 (First published 2008)

ISBN: 978-0-14-311489-5

Pages: 419

Just a word before the review. This is the 200th book review in this blog. When I started reviewing books way back in 2006 on Rediff Blog, I never thought even once that I had the energy to reach this much.  I thought it to be another new year resolve that would go nowhere after some time. Unexpectedly, I found out to my own astonishment, that I enjoy reading. It may seem a bit of an understatement with the long list of posts on the right pane, but to tell the truth, I never realized I loved reading. Some emotions are like that - you never know you had it, until one day you'll be aware of nothing else! I am not at all concerned about whether anyone would read  this blog. It won't surprise me if nobody would bother to read this amateur stuff, because I, myself have not troubled to read any of the posts again. Many errors or mistakes you might find are due to my own laziness. So, heartfelt thanks to anyone who would be reading these lines.

This is not just another book on the Middle East. Robin Wright is a prominent journalist who has reported from more than 140 countries and has covered a dozen wars and revolutions in various parts of the globe. She has received many laurels for journalistic feats and is the author of many books on the Middle East. With the flair characteristic of journalists, she fearlessly steps into hotspots in the troubled region and elicits interviews and responses from the major players in the political game. The Middle East is in fact an abstract entity, spanning over 20 nations and two continents. It is not monolithic even by any liberal application of the term, though it is often assumed as such by other people. Its religions include Islam, which undoubtedly forms an overarching influence over the others, and a smattering of Jews and Christians. Arabic is the common language, but Farsi and Turkish are not to be discounted. Flushed with oil money, the region boasts of some of the highest percapita incomes in the world. However, it miserably falls short on other parameters of affluence, like democracy, freedom, education and women’s rights. Its countries are ruled by absolute monarchs or political dictators. The book brings to focus the budding modes of protest against authoritarian rule, but since it was published in 2008, it misses the Jasmine revolutions which convulsed the region in a paroxysm of pain on the path to a new birth. The author recognises correctly that in the run up to democratic freedom, they have to start discussion on three basic issues – political prisoners, women’s rights and political Islam.

Palestine is the most widely known Arab non-state. The term is synonymous with oppression and terror ever since Israel came into existence in 1948. First steps on the path to nationhood were taken with 1993 Oslo Accord which poised to form a Palestinian Authority to rule over land assigned to Palestinians. Things are more complicated with many Palestinians’ hardline stance in not recognising Israel’s right to exist. Most of them, with Hamas in the front line, don’t use the term Israel for their neighbour and mention it disparagingly as the Zionist entity. Yasser Arafat and his Fatah movement saw the writing on the wall at the right time in choosing the path of conciliation, even though they themselves had as blood-stained a past as any other terrorist organisation. Wright accuses Arafat and his successor Mahmoud Abbas of widespread corruption and cronyism which fertilized the growth of Hamas, the militant Islamic outfit which won the elections in 2006. Between a parliament dominated by Hamas and an executive dominated by Fatah, Palestine is now a divided house.

When the author visited Egypt in 2005-06, it was on the verge of another sham election called by Hosni Mubarak’s regime. Ever since his ascent to power in 1981 after Anwar Sadat’s assassination, Mubarak held all democratic institutions under his vice-like grip. The domination was so complete and his rule so unchallanged that it is said to be the third longest reign by any king or ruler in Egypt’s 6000-year old history. However, by 2005, some half-hearted measures were accepted by the authoritarian regime and the main opposition party, the Muslim Brotherhood, had come out in the open. Author’s comments about the political spectrum in Egypt concludes in 2006 on a note of frustration for the democratic aspirants, but we now know that they finally went on to topple Mubarak as part of Jasmine revolutions which swept through the area in 2011-12.

Lebanon is a unique example of religious coexistence among the otherwise monolithic Arab region. Christians and Muslims constitute almost equal sizes of populations. Nevertheless, the very high birthrate of Shiite Muslims and emigration of Christians to other countries has tilted the balance towards the Islamic side. A Shiite terrorist organisation, called Hezbollah (Party of God) led by the fiery cleric Hassan Nasrallah now leads the nation both politically and militarily thanks to its heroic resistance against Israeli incursion into Lebanon in 2006. Israel, with its vastly superior airpower and conventional ground forces, could not achieve the easy victory it sought and obtained as in the previous battles. The militants had in fact invited the Jewish state for a retaliation as the basic grounds of war was the ambush and kidnapping of Israeli soldiers inside its territory. Even with crippling damage to the country’s infrastructure as a result of Israeli bombing, the guerilla resistance fighters were able to bask at the comparison to David and Goliath.

Syria is another entity riddled with dynastic rule. Hafez al Assad assumed presidency in 1970 and continued for 30 years, till his death in 2000. Assad brushed away dissidents, opposition leaders and intellectuals who had anything to say against his diktats. His son Bashar al Assad, who succeeded him in 2000 was at first optimistic about providing democratic freedoms, but soon changed track and followed his late father’s repressive footsteps when the opposition turned out to be more than he could chew. But the country which is having greater and greater influence over others in the Middle East is Iran. It initiated a new era after Khomeini’s Islamic Revolution in 1979. It opposes every western ideal, artifact or cultural feat. Even as the years roll by, the regime is getting even more hardline, now the laity also speaking in harsher tone than the clerics themselves as evidenced by Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, the current President. He won the elections in 2005, upsetting the formidable cleric Rafsanjani and then began an unrelenting quest for nuclear weapons by clandestine uranium enrichment, inviting crippling economic sanctions in the bargain. Even now, the people in Iran think that their country leads others in science or progressive ideas, and the world is trying to contain them with not much room to manouvre.

Wright also discusses Morocco and Iraq, where the U.S. committed its greatest mistake since Vietnam. In all countries, we see unenthusiastic measures at reform which itself are few and modest. An example is cited in Morocco in 1993 when it allowed some changes to its arcane family laws, among them: brides had to consent to marriage, husbands needed a wife’s permission to take other wives!

Drawing on the vast network of acquaintances in the region, Robin Wright has done a very good job of analysing the region – its politics, society and religion – in detail and showing what’s needed to be done. She has not fallen prey to the folly of many westerners in prescribing what’s good for the Middle East. Instead, she examines noted personalities in the arena and presents a balanced view of the desired future course, coming right from the horse’s mouth. The first-person account of happenings though invariably coloured by the preferences or prejudices of the speakers, presents a refreshingly accurate version of the ground realities. The book also dispels the myth that the Middle East is a community of religious fanatics. The vivid personal details given about the constituents of the region make us convince that the ordinary man on the street faces the same problems and same challenges, but different opportunities that we all encounter in our lives whether we live in a developed European country or a famished African nation. The book gives some anecdotes about the communal life in many countries. A humorous one depicts the anger the Iranian people feel towards the clerics. It says, “Tehran taxis often do not stop to pick up clerics. An Iranian friend recounted his own ride in a group taxi on a particularly hot day. His taxi next pulled over to pick up a cleric who had been standing on a curb under the cooling cover of a leafy tree. Two blocks later, the cabbie stopped and told the cleric to get out. My friend asked the driver what he was doing. “I didn’t want him to have the benefit of the shade,” the cabbie replied” (p.298).

The book looks somewhat outdated, written in 2007. The revolutions which rampaged the region in 2011-12 changed the shape of polity in a cataclysmic way. The author may think about coming up with a newer version any time soon. It also suffers the shortcoming that it was brought out by a journalistic impulse – by interviews and conversations, rather than by a scholarly effort. History has not been given due importance in many of the chapters when setting the background for the current conflict.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 3 Star