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Title: In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong by Amin Maalouf ISBN: 0-14-200257-7 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 25 March, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (10 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Looking Beyond the Narrow Wall of Our Identities
Comment: Maalouf's message is that as long as individuals identify with only one element of a more complex and various ethnic and national heritage, we are going to face "gang-wars" on a national and international scale.
How many of us are truly "pure bred"? In America, I don't think many are. To identify with only one part of one's cultural background is dishonest and keeps many people hooked in to an identity of victimization; according to Maalouf, people tend to align themselves with the heritage that has been oppressed rather than the heritage that was built by the conqueror and oppressor.
I praise Maalouf for taking the hard task of accepting himself as "mixed." When we see we are all "mixed" to one degree or another, we are more likely to find commonality. Beginning with what we have in common, whether bloodlines or interests, languages or personal experiences, we are far more likely to move past the narrow wall of singular racial or ethnic identities.
Mr. Maalouf spends much of the second half of the book in explication of the current crisis in Arab identity that resulted with the rise of European dominance in the 19th and 20th centuries. It's fascinating when you realize how much Arabic cultures contributed to the cultures and accomplishments of the West. While the West fails to acknowledge and extol its Middle Eastern teachers, those in Arabic and Near Eastern cultures all too often fail to see what it is they might learn from the Western world. There is a lot more mixing between the two worlds than we will fess up to.
This tunnel vision on the part of individuals who claim one identity over others; and, on the part of nations that assert "one race, one creed" (echoes of Hitler and more recent acts of "ethnic cleansing) denies the facts of human migration, assimilation, intermarriage, and rich cultural exchange and diversity. It leads us away from constructive dialogue and shared vision.
The book is an excellent primer on these issues, a quick read, and passionately expressed.My main criticism is that the ideas contained here are larger than the short length of the book can fully develop.What is lost in making the book accessible to a broader audience would be welcome material for further exploration in a second book.
Rating: 4
Summary: Thoughful and thought provoking essay
Comment: Valuable essay on the issues behind modern conflict, genocide, and violence, as well as elements of personal motivation. The drive to express and emote one's identity can lead to violence and conflict. Modernity and Globalism increase the conflicts and frustrations -- both fight and flight. Reflecting with the author will deepen any reader's understanding and also perhaps suggest the dark side of Nationalisms and Religions -- especially when they threaten another's authenticity and self-expression. Goods book for those who want to think about contemporary history and the future rather than merely read narrative.
Rating: 4
Summary: Small Size, Major Containment
Comment: One of the major issues of modern history is that it is so extensively filled with dramatic events, that it often is difficult to spot the connections and total images. The answers that follow every grand work of historic and political research seldom outnumber the questions. But with this book of Amin Maalouf, I might say that we have come a bit closer to catching up.
Amin Maalouf is born in Lebanon in 1949, and worked as a journalist in the Lebanese newspaper An-Nahar before he moved to France in 1977. Since Maalouf, a Christian Lebanese, resident in France, with Arabic as native tongue and French as everyday language, he, as with Edward Saïd, accomplishes very special conditions to write this kind of essays. In other words, his life expresses one of the most jammed ideological road junctions in the world.
His background has practically speaking coerced him to perform some highly detailed thinking concerning the existence of his identity, because he never has been able to take it for granted. "In The Name of Identity", or "Les Identités meurtrières" in French, is small in number of pages and Maalouf's thoughts are uncomplicated and concise mediated, but the containment has yet extraordinary historical value. It is a brave contribution to how we can understand the roles of violence, religion, culture and colonialism throughout history.
One of the most important points in Maalouf's book is that the cultural identity of human beings shifts in different phases of their lives. It is a great danger in getting to closely tied to one single side of cultural attachments, whether it is religious, ethnical or national. At the same time it is substantial to not explain everything seen in light of religion, but also connect the fact that religious, historical (by this, he means political), cultural and material circumstances influence each other mutually. Maalouf deliberates this with examples from conflicts where violence and identity cleavages work together as twin mechanisms, e.g. the Middle East, South-Africa, Rwanda and Algeria.
Another inevitable point of Maalouf is when he makes us aware of that Christianity not always - if ever - has been the bearer of theological pluralism, political harmony and tolerance. For several centuries it was Islam that inhabited these particular values, while Christianity was the narrow-minded, material, violent and suppressive religion. Another author worth mentioned in this connection is the Norwegian Jens Bjørneboe, which with the so-called "trilogy of the history of bestiality" from the 1960s, merciless disclose the brutal history of Christian missionaries and "adventure expeditions" in the name of God. In academic circles may we include the work of professor in social anthropology Thomas Hylland Eriksen at the University of Oslo, and especially his book called "Bak fiendebildet - Islam og verden etter 11.september". Also this literary contribution is remarkably readable, and based upon the new world enemy lines that occurred after September 11, 2001.
A particular strength of Amin Maalouf is his ability to never reduce a statement to a certain ideological bias. He admits instantly that Islam also represents a history of harsh violence and material greed, especially in post-colonial times. Fundamentalists, ultra-ortodoxian and extremists have during all times done their most to claim a moral right to kill in religion's name. What religion that strongest have promoted despotism and hostility towards for example information rights alternate in history.
A third interesting theory Maalouf propose, is when he claims that social renewal and modernism the last five centuries - no matter where you live on the planet - has been synonymous with the upgrades of western civilization standards. The conditions of being the receiving part to people within the "loosing" culture become completely different than for people in western countries. To the "loosing" part the consequences might be that they feel they must abandon elements of their own identity, and deal with deep emotional questions that contains enthusiasm, inspiration, bitterness, humiliation, self-denial and identity crisis.
It is not impossible that this may be an actual explanatory basis to what happened in de-colonized countries after World War II. Instead of turning outwards to the rest of the world and integrating some parts of political or cultural inventions that could be useful for them, some power groups directed their energy towards internal originality. Another important author of post-colonial history, Franz Fanon, phrased it in a subtle sentence: They made it honorable to wear African sandals instead of European shoes. This kind of national self-centralization was not something that they really wished for, but something they found necessary to keep the outer world's political and cultural pressure at a balanced level.
The immediate thought is: what if the present situation in the Arabic world in their consequences is similar to the one in post-colonial countries? What if the western world through their modern cultural agenda has subdued the pan-Arabic culture to introvert itself? Are the effects of forced "westernization" a reason to common aversion and have it made the Muslim regions turn their original openness into polarized hostility, imperialist antipathy and simplified scapegoat hate? I leave these questions open for new readers to interpret.
This little book of Amin Maalouf is all in all a solid input in the debate concerning the forced integration of nations, religions and morality. In addition to this it is a modern book with reflexive considerations about violence and religion as driving forces in historic processes. In a time where almost every field of scientific research is filled to the edge with innumerable details and intriguing accuracy, it's relieving to read a brief and informative essay like this. We sometimes need to simplify the world, but only if the simplifications are good.
And best of all: its first edition was written before September 11, 2001.
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Title: Crusades Through Arab Eyes by Amin Maalouf ISBN: 0805208984 Publisher: Schocken Books Pub. Date: 29 April, 1989 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Leo Africanus by Amin Maalouf, Peter Sluglett ISBN: 1561310220 Publisher: New Amsterdam Books Pub. Date: 01 January, 1990 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Samarkand by Amin Maalouf, Russell Harris ISBN: 1566562937 Publisher: Interlink Pub Group Pub. Date: September, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Gardens of Light (Emerging Voices Series New International Fiction) by Amin Maalouf, Dorothy S. Blair ISBN: 1566562481 Publisher: Interlink Pub Group Pub. Date: September, 1999 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Ports of Call by Amin Maalouf, Alberto Manguel ISBN: 186046890X Publisher: Harvill Pr Pub. Date: July, 2001 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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