The Arab Mind

Catholic New Times, July 4, 2004

Professor Manning Marable, Director of African American Studies at Columbia University, recently called for immediate action to be taken to end use by the U.S. military of a book, The Arab Mind, by Raphael Patai. In the words of Brian Whitaker, Middle East correspondent for Britain's Guardian newspaper, the book presents "an overwhelmingly negative picture of the Arabs.

"It is outrageous that a book full of racially charged stereotypes and generalizations would be a major source of alleged 'knowledge' about Arab people within any branch of the government," Marable charged. "It reminds me of how Africans and Native Americans, later joined by Mexicans, Asians and other Latin people, were dehumanized for centuries over the course of our nation's history. Such overt racism is not only wrong and backwards, it is dangerous, having a direct connection to what took place at Abu Ghraib and other U.S.-controlled prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan."

In an article posted on May 24 in the Guardian, Whitaker explains that the use of The Arab Mind was mentioned earlier this month by Seymour Hersh in an article in the New Yorker magazine. Hersh says, "The Patai book, an academic told me, was 'the bible of the neocons on Arab behaviour.'" In their discussions, he said, two themes emerged--"one, that Arabs only understand force, and two, that the biggest weaknesses of Arabs is shame and humiliation."

Whitaker explained that "My own further enquiries about the book revealed something even more alarming. Not only is it the bible of neo-con head-bangers, but it is also the bible on Arab behaviour for the U.S. military. According to one professor at a U.S. military college.

The Arab Mind is "probably the most popular and widely read book on the Arabs in the U.S. military." It is even used as a textbook for officers at the JFK special warfare school in Fort Bragg."

According to Whitaker, one of the racist generalizations made in the book, is that there is one "Arab mind," as the title implies.

"The idea that 200 million people, from Morocco to the Gulf, living in rural villages, urban metropolises and (very rarely these days) desert tents, think with some sort of single, collective mind is utterly ridiculous."