Book Review: Junoun Al-Khatar Al-Akhdar wa Hamlat Tashwih Al-Islam Junoun Al-Khatar Al-Akhdar wa Hamlat Tashwih Al-Islam ('Green Peril' Madness -- The campaign to distort Islam), Cairo: Al-Ahram Centre for Translation and Publication, 2004. pp247 'Green Peril' Madness -- The campaign to distort Islam, the latest work by Ibrahim Nafie, Al-Ahram chairman of the board and editor-in-Chief, outlines the havoc wrought by imperialist hegemony over Arab and Muslim culture. The violent incursions made by the West into Arab and Muslim lands are no secret. Nor is the accelerating rate of the economic and military penetration that follows in their wake. Yet what is less widely accepted is that it is precisely these policies of the US, aided and abetted to some extent by other Western powers, that have provided the fertile terrain for the growth of militant Islamist groups. Ibrahim Nafie does not pull his punches. Throughout this volume, he reprimands the West for its repeated demonisation of Islam, Muslims and Arabs over the three years that have passed since the collapse of the Twin Towers in New York. Nafie does not only accuse the West of lending direct support -- both political and financial -- to militant Islamist groups. He also stresses that it is failed Western policies towards the Arab and Muslim world that have created such a favourable context for the growth of violent fundamentalism. The root of the problem is to be sought both in the colonial past of the region, and in the equally misguided policies that the West continues to apply to its relations with the Middle East today, be it in relation to the Arab-Israeli conflict, or the situation in Iraq. Moreover, this interference is not simply economic and political. The West, and in particular the United States, is equally interventionist when it comes to culture. They want to mould the lifestyles of Muslims and Arabs so as to bring them into conformity with Western models and values. And they continue to pursue this goal blindly, despite all the evidence that such coercive policies are always counterproductive, even when presented in the form of such apparently attractive packages as 'democratisation' or welfare initiatives. Nafie's main argument is manifest, and increasingly urgent in these troubled times for Arab-Muslim relations with the West. Arabs and Muslims do not hate the West. They pose no threat to Western values -- even when they live in Western countries -- nor, for that matter, to Western security. Rather, throughout their history, Arabs and Muslims have wanted to live and let live. Yet despite this, they were denied their wish for peaceful coexistence as the West launched wave after wave of military, political and media 'crusades' against them, starting in the Middle Ages and continuing right through to the occupation of Iraq in 2003. The misguided extremists whom the Western nations claim they fear are not representative of the majority of Muslims, Nafie argues; nor are they supported by this Muslim majority. Rather, as he insists throughout this volume, the primary targets of fundamentalist violence were never the West, but have always been the Arab and Muslim states themselves. Whence a long and eloquent argument, conducted in series of chapters with such headings as "Dwarfing Muslims", "The Europeanisation and colonialisation of the Muslim world" or, "Americanising the Muslim World or throwing it in the dustbin of history". Just as he resists generalisation when it comes to Muslims, Arabs or terrorism, so Nafie seems equally keen to give a complex and nuanced interpretation of the West and its 'ulterior motives'. Thus, the principle target of his polemic in 'Green Peril' Madness is not the West per se, seen as an abstract bogey-man, but the concrete mechanisms of its power, and one mechanism in particular which he is especially well placed to analyse and judge -- the Western-controlled media machine. For on Nafie's analysis, it is the media which are directly responsible for the rampant "Islamophobia" of today's world. Throughout his book, Nafie never simply flings accusations in the reader's face. He always provides evidence for his assertions, citing well-documented statements by officials, decision-makers' opinions, press articles, and even cartoons. At the same time, he is also willing to put part of the blame on Arabs and Muslims themselves, for allowing their societies to lag so far behind that they have become identified, even if unfairly so, with many of the worst traits of humanity: in particular, with backwardness, and terrorism. To argue its case thoroughly, the book sketches out a historical overview of its subject, starting with the rise of the Islamic "state" or "empire". It goes on to examine the four attempts which the West made to expel Muslims not only 'out of history', but even 'out of geography', as prosecuted by the Mongols, the Crusaders, European colonisation and American-style 'globalisation'. Nafie follows the complex trail of Arab/ Muslim-Western relations like a detective, right up to the moment a couple of years ago when US President George W. Bush told the entire universe, but with his eye particularly on the Arab and Muslim countries, "You are either with us or against us". Of course, the shocking events of 11 September and their impact on the international image of Islam figure prominently in Nafie's argument. But the book still manages to avoid succumbing to a compulsive obsession with the spectacular face of terrorism. Instead, it attempts to trace the radical change in mood that has characterised Muslim-Western relationships since that day, and tries to offer an answer to the perplexing double-edged question which so many people have been asking: Why do they (the US) hate us? And why does the world hate the US? There is no simple answer, of course. As Nafie argues, at the very least we need to take into account all the complications and accumulated frustrations caused by America's unfair stances and unwise actions, whether in relation to Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq or even Afghanistan. By putting the pieces of this political jigsaw puzzle together, Nafie is able at the end to put forward his own answer: the root of the division between the US and the rest of the world can be found in the American urge to dominate, which is exercised especially against Arab and Muslim countries. The failure of the US to confront the real problem, and its attempt to confine it to the limited and misleading context of a 'clash of civilisations', or even of 'civilisation' against 'barbary', will help neither the US nor the Arab and Muslim countries. Even if America were to succeed in getting its 'allies' to reconsider their school curricula in Arabic history and religious studies, this by itself would do nothing to reduce instability, or enhance justice. At the same time, Nafie's aim is not simply to point out their mistakes to his American readers. He is also at pains to remind Arabs and Muslims that throughout their history their fortunes as a people have always depended on the rigour with which they observed the principles of Shura (democracy), socio-economic justice, tolerance and unity. It is no surprise then that the book ends with a call not just for tolerance within Arab-Islamic society, but also for genuine dialogue with the West. In his introduction, the Grand Mufti of Egypt Ali Gomaa describes Nafie's work as "a must-read" for all those who want to understand the roots of the tension between Muslims and the West, and assess the ferocious nature of the ongoing Western media attack against Islam. By Dina Ezzat
