On Conflicts within the Arab-Muslim Culture

In his book "Oriental Promenades" Volker Perthes describes encounters in the Middle East with political cadres and religious dignitaries, with social activists and people on the street - always at eye level and never overbearing. Beate Hinrichs reports

Volker Perthes takes us to party conventions and youth groups, to private discussion rounds, and political debates. The recurrent topics are democracy, human rights, and religion. And the answers are often surprising.

For instance, in Iran the author meets a high-ranking Ayatollah who advocates secularism, because he does not think it is good for a society to be governed in the name of an ideology.

And in a discussion round at a Islamic university in the holy city of Qom, eminent professors have quite different concepts of human rights – very ideological, but also very enlightened and Western. With encounters like these Perthes illustrates his claim that "Iran has advanced further along the path toward pluralism than any other country in the Middle East."

Khatami and Katzav's hometown

In Yazd, a trading town in central Iran, he meets many inhabitants who are proud that two state presidents were born in their city: former Iranian president Muhammad Khatami and Moshe Katzav, the president of Israel.

We also learn that surveys conducted among Palestinians show that they consistently rank Israel as number one when asked which country has the "best democracy in the world" – because Palestinians also want to have parliamentary checks and independent courts.

And a Hamas leader from Gaza explains that of course he would negotiate with Israel; after all it is not "haram," that is, forbidden. Nor is it "haram" to shake Arien Sharon's hand.

Advocates and critics of the wall in the Middle East

Breaks in clichés like these characterize many encounters. But Volker Perthes always interlaces analysis and background material in order to round off the picture.

Volker Perthes (photo: German Institute for International Security Affairs) — Volker Perthes is one of the most knowledgeable Western experts on the Middle East

Nor does he gloss over intolerance and repression – he lets each side have its say: in Israel und Palestine, for instance, the advocates and critics of the wall being erected around the Palestinian Territories.

His conversational partners debate whether peace, a ten-year ceasefire, or a hermetic separation of the two societies could be a solution.

The Kurds in northern Iraq do not have their own state either. The overriding question for the Kurds is whether they want to be a part of a federal Iraq or be independent – to which many Kurds give quite varied answers.

Their mobile phone network demonstrates that Kurdish unification does not always function: With their mobile phones they can telephone with the entire world – but not to regions governed by another Kurdish party.

The Fight for democratization and pluralism

Also more pluralistic than we are aware of in Germany are discussions in Saudi Arabia with its extremely dogmatic religion. Here changes are by all means debated – but always in religious, or more concretely, in a Wahhabi frame of reference.

In Egypt, last of all, the opposition – religious and secular – has long been fighting for democratization and pluralism. But much more important than democracy for him, says a professor of agriculture in Upper Egypt, would be to reduce the illiteracy rate and the birthrate, and to improve the drinking water supply and health care system.

This book is not a scientific analysis. If it argues a thesis, then it is this: That one cannot talk about a conflict between civilizations, but more appropriately about "a conflict within the culture or a divide in Arab-Muslim civilization."

Furthermore, "Orientalische Promenaden" is a mosaic of people and their opinions and thus an image of Middle Eastern realities. The merit of Volker Perthes' book is in making these realities perceptible.

Beate Hinrichs

Translation from German: Nancy Joyce

Volker Perthes: "Orientalische Promenaden" (Oriental Promenades). Der Nahe und Mittlere Osten im Umbruch. München: Siedler Verlag, February 2006, 400 pages. Hardback. 24.95 Euro.

Volker Perthes is head of the German Institute for International Security Affairs, "Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik." His extensive publications on the Arab World include "Geheime Gärten: Die neue Arabische Welt" (Secret Gardens: The New Arab World) and "Arab Elites: Negotiating the Politics of Change".

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