Europe and the Arab World

Abstract

Concise, succinct, and informative, this book skillfully elucidates andassesses the patterns, prospects, and complexities of Arab-European relationscontextualized in a globalizing (read “Americanizing”) world. It alsoidentifies the ambiguities and limitations of social movements and struggleswithin the Arab world, as well as their implications for mutual relationships(p. vi). The authors’ main thesis is that both global capitalism and theAmerican determination to construct a “new” Middle East in its own imagehave undermined the possibilities of domestic reforms and external realignmentsin most Arab countries. American hegemonic influence, together withthe growing sway of politicized Islam on public life, have added more limitationsand constraints to other failures to transform the underlying economicand political structures defining the relations between members onboth 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 surveyof conditions in the Arab world in general and that of the Arab “state” in particular.Amin designates the latter structure as a manifestation of “mamelukepower,” reflecting a complex traditional system that has merged the personalizedpower of warlords, businessmen, and men of religion (p. 3). The Arabstate, he argues, has never really embraced or understood modernity. Egypt,Syria, and the Ottoman Empire underwent a first phase of ineffective modernizationduring the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The secondphase was associated with the populist nationalism of Nasserism, Baathism,and the Algerian revolution between the 1950s and 1970s. With the end ofthis phase, a multiparty system gave way to a paradoxical regression into themameluke type of autocracy (pp. 10-12). Whereas Europe broke with itspast, which allowed for its modern progress, the Arabs have not. Amin identifiesmodernity with such a historical break as well as with secularism, thedifferentiation of religion and politics, the emancipation of women, and therest of the term’s conventional elements (pp. 2-3).He criticizes currents “claiming to be Islamic” (p. 6), particularly thoseof the Wahhabi type, viewing Islamic militant groups as manifestations of arevolt against “destructive” capitalism and “deceptive” modernity (p. 6),more interested in sociopolitical issues than in matters of theology. Amin dismissesIran as being no different, although he provides no details (p. 8), and ...