Abdel-Wahab Elmessiri is among the Arab world's most distinguished historians of ideas, perhaps best known for his gargantuan Encyclopedia of Jews, Judaism and Zionism. To be launched by May 2008, the English edition of his autobiography -- to appear with Awakening (London-Los Angeles) -- spans the widest range of topics from Judaism to an Easterner's experience of the West. Originally written in Arabic, this is the latest chapter to have been added to the book The problem of subject versus object is a central theme in western philosophical discourse, and naturally I faced the same philosophical problematic during my residence in the west and after my final return to Egypt. During my intellectual journey, the passage from the materialist phase to the broader and more humanist one, necenistated the development of a new concept of the human mind, and a new methodology and analytical categories. Epistemological and explanatory paradigms are the prime tool in my analytical discourse, be it political or philosophical. Closely related, is the idea of the cognitive map. So what is the cognitive map? Some people believe that when someone looks at his surroundings or conditions he sees them for what they truly are. This belief comes out of the view that the mind of man is a passive recipient of data that indiscriminately records what it receives and perceives. But the truth is that contrary to the belief of some, man only rarely perceives his reality in an immediate way through his five senses. This occurs in extremely simple cases, as when he is burnt by a cigarette, or when a solid body enters his eye. Man is not simply a bundle of material desires (economic and physical), nor is his behavior conditioned actions and reactions governed by mechanical or biological laws. His mind is not a group of cells or a mere tabula rasa on which material givens are accumulated. It is a mind with generative powers, a repository of many experiences and moral and symbolic systems, a storehouse of images and memories stocked in the conscious and subconscious. Thus when a man acts, he does not act directly as a reaction to material reality (stimulus followed by response), but as a reaction to reality as he perceives it in all its complexity, through the joys, sorrows, longings, meanings, symbols, memories, ambitions, envies, good and evil thoughts, as well as a group of moral, symbolic and ideological systems he projects onto reality. Because man is a complex being who does not respond directly to material reality, no observer can conceive of the dimensions of any human phenomenon (whether political, social or economic) except by delving into the deepest levels of analysis -- that is, into the cognitive categories and images through which man perceives himself, his reality and the people, communities and things around him. These categories and images form the map man carries in his mind, believing that its elements, and the relation between them, correspond to reality and the elements that make it up and their relationships. This is the cognitive map. It is these cognitive maps, which man carries in his imagination, heart and mind, that determine what he can see in raw reality. They distance and marginalize some details so that he overlooks them, and focuses on others he considers important and central. To explain what I mean by the cognitive map, I always refer to the celebrated anecdote, whether real or apocryphal, about Marie Antoinette, the Austrian royal princess living in the lap of luxury in total isolation from the outside world, who became queen of France (before the French Revolution broke out). It is said that some guards found a peasant who had fainted of hunger. When they brought him to her and told her about his condition, she felt genuine pity for him, and said, " You should not follow this severe diet, monsieur!" In another version, they told her that the peasant had not been able to find any bread to eat for a week, and so she responded in surprise, "But why monsieur, you did not eat gateaux?" As the phenomena of poverty and hunger were not part of her cognitive map, she could not perceive them. She thus removed the phenomenon of hunger from its real context (poverty) and related it to the reasons she knew (diets, and gateaux instead of bread). That is, she forced her own (subjective) cognitive map on what she saw with her own eyes (material objectivity), and it was her cognitive map that determined her vision. That does not mean that raw objective reality does not exist outside of man's perception of it. Undoubtedly it is out there, in its materiality, naturalness, objectivity, generality, for God created it outside our consciousness, perception and will. Undoubtedly, too, it has been influential in determining some aspects of man's thought and behavior, differing in degree from one person to the other, and from one moment to another. In most cases, the cognitive map is unconscious. Man carries it in his mind, finding it the most natural and logical of things. To clarify this point, let me give an example. The racist's cognitive map determines what he sees and how he sees it. He will only see the evils of others and the virtues of his own people. The British soldier sent to the jungles of Africa was told that he was carrying the white man's burden and that he had been sent to spread civilization in the African jungle, and to civilize its savage barbaric inhabitants, who do not deserve to live. He was not told that he had gone there to loot and steal the land and displace and exploit its people. Since he unknowingly internalized this cognitive map, and since he was harboured the illusion that he was holding up the banner of western civilization, he could massacre the indigenous inhabitants completely oblivious of the fact that he was shedding human blood, and usurping the land of the other, destroying their societies and cultural formations. Such is the power of the cognitive map, it could desensitize a human being to other human beings, and therefore he could stereotype them through reductive formulae, even turning them into mere objects, useless matter that could be disposed of, if need be. This is the basis of racism and genocide. To further clarify this point, I will narrate this story told to me by an American friend who worked with us at Riyadh University in Saudi Arabia, and before that at Tehran University in Iran. He worked as a professor of English in Tehran during the reign of the Shah. His students told him that there would be a huge demonstration the following day. But it so happened that he knew the chief of the CIA in Tehran, who was then totally absorbed in moving house from a ground flat to an upper storey in the same building, where there was a roof garden. My friend asked him about the demonstration expected to take place the following day, and whether it would be better to stay at home. He was told in no ambiguous words that this demonstration would not take place, for the Shah's police were fully in control. My friend was reassured by what he was told by the mighty chief of the CIA, and went to university. This is how the story ended, as told by my friend: "I returned home crawling on my belly because the demonstration did take place and there were clashes with the police." This huge demonstration was considered the beginning of the end of the Shah. During the investigation regarding the abysmal failure of the CIA in Iran, the line of defense members of the CIA adopted was that they were in Iran to support the Shah's regime and not to spy on him. What they were actually saying was that their cognitive map was determined (and limited) by the objective assigned them, namely, the preservation of the Shah's regime at any cost, and not monitoring it, and consequently they dismissed or marginalized all signs of the impending disaster. I think the failure of American intelligence in the matter of Saddam Hussein is another case in point of how the cognitive map could limit one's vision. The American administration claimed two things, firstly it was going to invade Iraq to dismantle Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and secondly to thwart Al-Qaeda, presumed allies of Saddam Hussein, from turning Iraq into one of its bases of terrorist operations against the democratic western world. No solid evidence to support either claim emerged and they both proved groundless. On the contrary, Al-Qaeda moved into Iraq after the American invasion. I think the idea of the cognitive map can help us come up with an explanation. The American imperialist cognitive map is based on the necessity of invading Iraq (George Bush is quoted as having said, before 9/11, "We will do Afghanistan first, then we will do Iraq.") Some political analysts argue that the real motive behind these military incursions and imperialist expansion was to strengthen the American negotiating position in the world by controlling oil sources in the Caspian Sea and the Arab world, given the decline of American economic and military power and the emergence of China as both an economic and military superpower . It is also claimed that the new conservatives and Bernard Lewis, the Jewish Zionist Orientalist, made the invasion of Iraq look attractive to Bush. They argued that Arab and Islamic radicalism can be wiped out by invading a major Arab country and subduing it totally, then, the Arab Islamic domino would inevitably fall. The members of the CIA internalized this cognitive map, and began collecting evidence of weapons of mass destruction. Most of this evidence was flimsy, provided by mercenary enemies of Saddam Hussein. They dismissed or marginalized -- consciously or unconsciously -- all the evidence that would contradict their cognitive framework. The American administration believed this evidence because it desperately wanted to. Although the investigation conducted by the Congress acquitted Bush of any deliberate wrongdoing (just as the investigation in Britain acquitted Blair), I believe that the cause of the failure of the CIA was the general cognitive framework (Iraq had to be invaded) that accepted flimsy evidence without looking critically into it. The issue of cognitive maps can also explain the American military failure in Iraq. Those who took the decision to invade Iraq did not take into account the cognitive map of the American and Iraqi peoples. I argue that by making self-interest and pleasure the ultimate goal in life, the American media had depleted the majority of the American citizens -- and hence American soldiers -- of all values related to ideals such as loyalty to the homeland, and virtues such as self -sacrifice. This has therefore undermined belief in any values, and even destroyed the Self by causing it to lack aim or purpose, and not to believe in any form of ideals that would help it transcend its narrow parameters. The net result is that it has transformed the majority of Americans into economic consumerist beings who are extremely efficient at consumption. Consumerist man has no ideals except endless consumption, he measures his happiness by rising levels of consumption, and harbour the illusion that they can achieve salvation through instantaneous gratification. Hence their level of tolerance (threshold, as it is called in psychology) is very low. This process of emptying the American citizen through the media with its continuous control of information and dissemination of misinformation (which Chomsky called engineering consent) has caused Americans to become enclosed upon themselves and uninterested in world affairs and foreign policy. As long as there is "a chicken on the table", they are content to leave such major issues as defense and foreign policy to the American ruling elite, so that they could concentrate on matters of daily life, such as schools, the fire brigade, health care, and the economic situation, as these matters touch them directly and personally. Such a man, sent to a foreign country on the basis of a foreign policy he neither understands nor cares about, for reasons he cannot fully grasp, and who in the first place is self-centered and in search of immediate gratification of his consumerist dreams -- will not readily give up his life for his homeland or any non-material ideal! He cannot sacrifice himself nor can he tolerate any degree of pain, for man can sacrifice himself and tolerate pain only through a belief in something that transcends his narrow self. Moreover, there is a strong relativistic trend (that's getting stronger over the years) in American society . It undoubtedly has its positive aspects , but also undermines one's ability to judge and discriminate, because it leads one to believe that all things are equal. The word "judgmental" carries at the present time in American discourse very negative connotations, since there is no universally accepted criteria, standards or yardsticks to judge others and things by. American decision-makers also did not understand the Iraqi cognitive map. They thought Iraqis were mere economic materialistic men who would welcome the invader, as long as he gave them financial aid and afforded them some economic prosperity. They did not perceive the moral (non-material) ideals of the Iraqis that transcended their narrow (economic and biological) selves and motivated them, such as the refusal of injustice and occupation, and a belief in a transcendent God that filled them with faith in themselves and their powers of resisting the monstrous American war machine. Members of the American ruling elite, given the reductive narrow parameters of their cognitive map, failed to conceive the real dimensions of the human factor, whether American or Iraqi, and therefore flung the American soldiers into the heat of battle, and was surprised at the fierceness of the resistance -- and also at the low level of endurance displayed by the American soldiers and public. When the number of American dead reached 800, which is the same as those who died in the invasion battle, the Americans began to grow anxious. I used to tell them that those who wanted to build an empire that would loot nations and the riches of other countries had to sacrifice some blood. I used to remind them that American anxiety in the Vietnamese war only began after the death toll had reached 20,000 soldiers. They were perplexed by these comments of mine, for they had not realised that the American cognitive map had been largely changed through the intensification of the pleasure orientation and of rising levels of consumption. Most of the non-material ideals of American man had been undermined, including the belief in homeland and empire and the need to fight courageously for them. Zionist conduct is largely determined by the Zionist cognitive map, which I find most limiting and does not correspond to any element in reality. It is made up of myths, hopes, fears and divine and superpower promises, and based on power. When one studies the decisions and claims of the Zionist ruling elite and the conduct of the Zionist settlers, one should remind oneself that what determines their behavior is not their direct response to the different material elements and contradictions surrounding them but their vision and perception of those things. The Zionists have realised the importance of the cognitive map in forming public opinion and mobilizing the masses. I argue that the Zionist state is not a Jewish state, but a settler colonial depopulatory state that serves two purposes: ridding Europe of its surplus Jews, and transferring them to Palestine to form a base for western imperialism. That is, the Zionist project transformed the Jews of Europe into a mere tool that would serve a strategic goal. But as it is difficult to convince anyone to become a tool, it was necessary to change that person's cognitive map so that he would act with zeal and carry guns to defend what he imagines and what he has internalized. And so Zionist leadership moved on two levels: first, they emphasised the fact that Jews were a national, cohesive, human mass with a special history and a unique past, as well as absolute right to Palestine, for it is their national homeland. And so when the Jews settle in Palestine, they are "returning" to, not occupying, it. Their return is based on a divine promise, and not on Balfour's promise, or on both and on the fact that Palestine is in fact nothing but a promised land, Eretz Israel. The Zionist spokespersons, most of whom were atheists, took to talking about the Torah and the Talmud, and the Zionist state adopted some religious symbols, so many began to believe that it was really a Jewish state. They began to perceive it as such, and to regard its oppression and massacres on the basis of this perception. Palestinian resistance, in this context, is rendered illegitimate and impossible to understand. In fact, it becomes terrorism, while Zionist oppression becomes a legitimate defense of the self, of the land of the forefathers, occupied by the Palestinians for a few centuries, or for more than a millennium. The worst that can happen to a man is for his cognitive map to be shaken. When it is challenged by reality, the very foundations of his vision and manner of perception are shaken, the earth trembles beneath his feet, and he becomes enraged. This is what happened to the Zionist settlers: their cognitive map was based on the assumption that Palestine was a land without a people, or, at least, a people like the Native Americans who could be done away with, either by extermination, displacement, siege or transfer. Before the outbreak of the last Intifada, a colonial settlement in the West Bank, to invite new settlers to join the colony, issued a map in which no Arab villages or towns appeared, as if they had been removed, or had never existed at all -- that is, the geographical map was determined by the Zionist cognitive map that saw Palestine as a land without a people! But what happened was the opposite, for the Zionist settlers realised, on account of the mounting resistance, that Palestine was a land with a people, an ancient people who formed part of an old and complex cultural formation and who were increasing quantitatively and qualitatively in a most irritating manner that runs counter to all Zionist certainties. Thus the cognitive map was severely shaken, and a nervousness began to appear, manifesting itself in what I call the "Sharonite period", which is the settler's belief that a military savior can change reality by force to make it accord with their cognitive map. And a military messiah surely emerged in the form of Ariel Sharon, who fell victim to his own cognitive map. In his arrogance and self-centredness, he promised the Israeli public that he would bring the Al-Aqsa Intifada to an end in no more than 100 days. Needless to say he was wrong, his cognitive map limited his vision, for reality kept on undermining the myths on which the Zionist cognitive map is built; the Intifada continues, and the military messiah lies in a coma in a hospital. I think that the verdict of the International Court of Justice at Lehigh regarding the separation wall could be the beginning of a change in the western world's cognitive map. It reveals the identity of the Zionist state for what it truly is: an occupying, and not a Jewish, state. Hence, all Zionist claims are invalidated. This is what many Israeli commentators realised. After they had condemned this resolution and accused it of anti- Semitism, and after they had used up all the stock of accusations stored in their cognitive map, they began to whisper that the resolution of the International Court of Justice is flying like a red banner over the wall. Some of them pointed out that it would give legitimacy to Palestinian resistance operations and that the said verdict could be considered the greatest victory the Palestinians have achieved since the resolution of the United Nations General Assembly in 1975, which described Zionism as a form of racism and racial discrimination. The resolution, as an Israeli journalist pointed out, means a re-classification of the Zionist state as pariah -- not an apartheid state like South Africa, it is true, but one that nevertheless belongs to the same family. This amounts to changing the cognitive map regarding the Zionist state. I believe it is time the Arab media should give enough attention to the cognitive map, and to influence the western world's view of the Zionist state. This could be done through what I call "armed dialogue", that is, continuous armed resistance, accompanied by a powerful media campaign that tries to reveal the reality of Zionist state: a colonial settler depopulatory pocket that represents western imperialism and serves its interests. This should be accompanied by positing a human solution for the Arab-Israeli conflict that would guarantee the full civil, political and human rights of the former settlers, who would become citizens in a new multi- ethnic, multi-religious state. The cognitive map is not a fixed encrustation that does not change. Undoubtedly, Marie Antoinette's cognitive map changed when the hungry masses arrested her. It was then that she knew about poverty and hunger, when it was too late. Substantial sectors of the Israeli masses have begun to recognise the absurdity of trying to impose the Israeli myth on Palestinian reality and ask their government to dismantle the settlements in the West Bank and withdraw behind the green line (the borders of occupied Palestine before 1967). The American public that maintained silence during the invasion of Iraq is definitely having "second thoughts" (a phrase which means the beginning of the change of the cognitive map). An important example of the possibility of liberating man from his limiting cognitive map is what happened to the Zionist intellectual Nathan Birnbaum. He could be considered one of the founders of the Zionist movement, actually he coined the word "Zionist", and participated in the first Zionist Congress. Gradually, however, he began to discover the truth of Zionism: that it was a movement that would undermine the real ethnic and religious identity of members of the Jewish communities, especially the identity of East European Yiddish-speaking Jews, in the name of a non-existent fabricated identity. So he left the Zionist movement, and joined those who called for the preservation and promotion of Yiddish language and culture and for the preservation of the East European Jewish identity, which could be achieved in its native lands, Russia and Poland. This is different from the Zionist point of departure, which sees that there is a universal Jewish identity which must be realized in the Promised Land. His cognitive map changed more deeply when he found that Orthodox rabbinical Judaism is the only solution, and he became the fiercest enemy of Zionism. Birnbaum lived before World War II and saw the disaster as it was approaching. He realised the monstrosity of value-free modernity, therefore he suggested that the Jewish communities of Europe should be settled in agrarian parts between the borders of different European countries. In other words, he turned his back to secular time and to European history. This shows the degree of his despair and the depth of his transformation, and the extent of the change of his cognitive map, regarding secular value-free modernity, he who wanted to modernise, and secularise (and immanentize) the Jews, turning them into a people in the strictly racial sense. It might be of some interest to tell this amusing anecdote about this poor white American who owned or ran a small boutique in the hotel where my wife and I were staying in New York during the 9/11 events. It says a great deal about the unconscious cognitive map. I tried to console him, for he was truly lost. I told him (truthfully) that most people liked the American people, and added (untruthfully) that they shared the American dream. He answered, "The American dream: wealth, a blonde wife, two children, the big house, two big cars, and two or three dogs." I said, "Yes." He said, "Now I'm going to tell you a story about the American dream. I used to sell hot dogs on a cart in Central Park [which, by the way, is the worst job one can have in the United States. It is usually the lot of the illegal immigrants who have just arrived in the United States, and who are subjected to the worst kind of blackmail by the police, and exploitation by the stand owners]. I was joined by an immigrant from Chile who was very much smarter than myself and began to trade in the stock market and made a huge fortune. He bought the big house, married the blonde wife, bought the two big cars and had the two children, etc. Then he divorced his wife and abandoned his children and had a surgical operation to change his gender, and became a woman. That is the American dream." I wondered for some time about the meaning of this rather bizarre story about the fate of the American dream. The only explanation I could find was that this underprivileged American discovered that the American cognitive map, basically dominated by the American dream, did not accord with reality and that there was something wrong. The story indicates that the expected happy ending of the American dream for him is a seductive illusion and that he felt that his story with its bizarre ending was closer to reality than what is claimed, pretended and propagated.
