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Culture and Conflict in the Middle East

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Dr. Salzman has hit a home run with this book. I have spent a number of years in the Middle East and have dealt with virtually every segment of the population there, from nomads to farmers to businessmen to politicians, engineers, doctors, women, soldiers, and even insurgents. What I saw while I was there coincides completely with the information contained in this work. Not only does he draw from personal experience, Dr. Salzman also pulls from expert research in the field of Middle Eastern Studies to weave a masterpiece.

Be advised: Dr. Salzman does not pull his punches regarding the shortcomings of Middle Eastern culture. While much of what he writes may be difficult for some to swallow, it is true. Other reviewers may fault him for not conducting a similar review of Western culture, but please note the title; this is a survey of Middle Eastern culture, not Western culture or even culture in general. There are many similarities among cultures across the world, but each culture stresses certain qualities and attributes differently, and Dr. Salzman's expertise in the field of Middle Eastern culture enables him to make an excellent analysis of its particular strengths and weaknesses. Those who take issue with his work will do so along emotional lines because his writing is not "polite" or flattering. When any culture is exposed to the harsh light of educated analysis, the warts will show; Middle Eastern culture is no different from any other in that respect.

In conclusion, for any potential reader, I would like to make this comment. If Dr. Salzman had published this work in 2001, and every American and Allied officer had been required to read this before the invasion of Iraq, the current Iraqi conflict would have ended 3-4 years ago. This book is that accurate, powerful, and insightful. Everyone who has any contact with the Middle East should read it, or ignore it at their own peril.

McGill University Anthropology Professor Philip Carl Salzman in 1978 founded the Commission on Nomadic Peoples and served as its chair through 1993. In three earlier stints (1967-68; 1972-73; 1976) he had done field research studying n Iranian Baluchistan nomadic, pastoral tribes, and subsequently wrote the anthropology texts, Black Tents of Baluchistan and Understanding Culture: An Introduction to Anthropological Theory. Salzman therefore conceives of Middle Eastern Arab culture as a formal social control he labels "balanced opposition," which he describes in this brief and excellent work.

Salzman notes that within this "ingenious" anthropological "collective responsibility" system, proved by observing actual constructs of the society in question, everyone belongs to "a nested set of kin groups, from very small to very large," each one "vested with responsibility" to defend "each and every one of its members" as well as for any harms its members might cause to "outsiders." Similarly, anthropologists label whatever the group simultaneously does to defend itself "self-help."

Confrontations within this social structure aligns small groups against opposing small groups, mid-sized groups against other mid-sized groups, large groups against opposing large groups etcetera, that is "family vs. family, lineage vs. lineage, clan vs. clan, tribe vs. tribe, confederacy vs. confederacy, sect vs. sect, the Islamic community (umma) vs. the infidels." Thus the system creates a form of deterrence, or "balance between opposites," in which no individual faces any group alone, no small group faces a larger group alone, and so on. Consequently, potential adversaries realize that any target within this system will never be "solitary or meager," but rather always "a formidable formation much the same size as his."

Thus does Salzman observe that Islam was superimposed over this structure, making all smaller groups subordinate segments of the entire "balanced opposition" and "self-help" constructs. Consequently, Islam naturally balances against all non-Muslim nations and people. Despite a somewhat dispersed power base within these subordinate groups, thus allowing for equality at the local or tribal level, Salzman notes that the system overall creates "particularism of loyalties," which quite naturally spawn anti-democratic conditions.

These political values, incompatible with any "universalistic normative," Salzman documents specifically, in countries such as Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Morocco, Iran and Afghanistan. He also cites the same depressing statistics used by Ibn Warraq in Defending the West, namely, the Arab Human Development Report 2002, plus statistics from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), which with neither one can argue, given the authoring agencies' built-in Arabist biases.

As an anthropologist, Salzman maintains amazing objectivity throughout, specifically noting, "...it is not the job of anthropologists to laud societies or to criticize them, or to celebrate or to demean them," making it "a very delicate matter" to address problems and difficulties" within any specific social constructs, particularly in instances that those problems are "culturally driven."

Nevertheless, he does conclude that Middle Eastern Arab and Muslim societies are constructed atop a "complimentary opposition" structure that tends to preclude "building a civil society, establishing democracy at the state level, maintaining state support for state institutions, founding creative educational institutions, inspiring economic development, and building an inclusive public culture..."

The author also affords solid examples of balanced opposition at work within the seemingly mechanical fall back of the Baluch people (straddling Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan) upon feuding and vendetta-driven reactions, as well as by Gazan clans (or "kin groups"), and even Israeli Bedouins. Of course, he also provides examples of the bloody results of these parallel balanced opposition social constructs that today generally also fall within an Islamic superstructure.

As a natural result, these varying groups do not integrate easily or well, thus creating "...sectarian conflicts" even in presumably modern cities like Baghdad, for example, and the "Shiite-Sunni conflict for domination" that ruined Beirut in the 1980s and ultimately making Lebanon itself "Karachi at the turn of the millennium."

Salzman also courageously demonstrates how this "balanced opposition" has historically operated to hallow and even deify the Islamic institution of perennial jihad. He cites the description given by British anthropologist Sir Edward Evan (E. E.) Evans-Pritchard (1902-1973), for example, the "compensation" of Libya's Bedouin of Cyrenaica for their general unorthodox observance of Islamic rituals with their total, religious dedication to military jihad, "holy war against the unbelievers."

Observing the admonishment that "piety and holiness...are not the same," Evans-Pritchard had noted in The Sanusi of Cyrenaica and The Nuer: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People their belief in fulfilling "their obligation under this head in ample measure by their long and courageous fight" within the holy war declared by the Islamic Caliph against the Italians, French, and British. A Bedouin had told Evans-Pritchard, upon his observation that they rarely prayed, "nasum wa najhad, (but) we fast and wage holy war."

And that, of course, was long before the resurgence of Islam that has increasingly dominated the Mideast over the last 30 years.

Thus Salzman dedicates chapter 5, "Turning toward the world: Tribal organization and predatory expansion," to the considerable anthropological evidence of historical jihad, demonstrating that "tribal solidarity and balanced opposition have been and are powerful means of predatory expansion," including the principal of "submission---islam---to God."

Mohammed himself, Salzman concludes used balanced opposition to "frame an inclusive structure within which the tribes had a common, God-given identity as Muslim." Citing others' work, including that of Marshall Sahlins and Dr. Andrew Bostom, among others, Salzman evidences and discusses the anthropological manifestations of the Islamic jihad conquests of Arabia, Syria, northern and sub-Saharan Africa, Iberia, the Indian subcontinent, and even as far north as Poland, including the creation of the dhimmi status that Muslims universally imposed on non-Muslims, even in India.

This book is a fabulous and most scholarly endeavor, despite its 212-page brevity (excepting bibliography and index.) Whether or not one is an anthropologist, it sheds critical new light on middle eastern social constructs.

---Alyssa A. Lappen

Watch out for the negative reviews that are bound to be posted by multiculturalists.

This book is a powerful, lucidly written and unique contribution to the discussion which brings an ethnographers eye and work to the question of tribalism and its link to Arab political corruption and lack of social progress. Far from a damning ciritcism of Arab culuture Salzam elucidates the brilliance of the tribal dynamic of balanced opposition in reducing violence and granting the strength of group idnetity. For Salzman the problem arises when that same dynamic is so structurally pervasive that it inhibits a society's ability to adhere to abtsract principles such as rule of law and maintenance of individual rights.

Some will accuse Salzman, very unfairly and inaccurately, of being a western triumphalist, trust me, such people are simply outraged that his objectivity has led to critical judgments. His section on the myth of an Islamic tolerant golden age is particularly necessary in light of the usual drivel on the topic.

Salzman's work is part of a growing body of correction to the vision of Edward Said and an all the more important one as it comes from an anthropologist/ethnographer perspective.

Salzman's writing exhibits commendable brevity and clarity considering the nature of the subject.

This book explains in vivid detail the totally different world view of a tribal society when contrasted with those with which we in the west are familiar. The political relationships in the Middle East must be understood in the context of that environment, which is tribal. We cannot look at the muslims of the middle east and think they are 'just like us' because they are not. The societies and cultures of the Middle East and the West are, literally, centuries apart. This book explains why, and leads us to recognize that any interation with the ME must take into account these profound differences. A 'must read' for anyone wanting to understand the gravest threat to our way of life.

there is not a lot i can say about this book, apart from it is a ground breaking, extremely insightful discussion on the tribal mind that still largely determines middle eastern thought patterns

sometimes verging on antagonism towards his subject, especially when he discusses the aspects of tribalism that had found their way into islam (which part i believe is a bit out of proportion and reactionary), mr salzman gradually builds up his thesis about what he calls 'balanced opposition' as the prevalent ideology of the middle east. his writing, occasionally rambling, occasionally winding, is a powerful piece of rigorous scientific enquiry into the middle eastern mind

the book needs some reflection, though, as it focusses on the 'big picture' rather than on minute detail

a true masterpiece, it should be on the bookshelf on everyone who cares about middle eastern affairs, either as a scientist, or as a traveller, or as an ideologist, or in any other capacity. also a very timely and accessible addition to literature about the middle east, and, generally, an enjoyable read

A splendid book on the middle eastern tribes and how the tribal ethos affects the ways of islam. And how islam and tribal ethos affect the development (past, present, future) of Middle East.

Salzman discusses in the first part the tribes in a warm way as typical for an antropologist who has been living for years among middle eastern tribes.

The second part (the future) is very pessimistic: There is not much hope for democracy in the Middle East and there is not much hope for peaceful co-living with West.

"... the ingenious tribal system, based on balanced opposition, so effectual in supporting decentralized nomads, tends to inhibit societal integration at a more inclusive level, and to preclude civil peace, based on settlement of disputes through legal judgment, at the local level."

The thesis of this book is that traditional Arab society is based on "balanced opposition" between tribal groups. Loyalty is always to the group closest to yourself, groups being tribes based on kinship. You defend your tribe against the neighboring tribe, but when attacked by outsiders you unite with the tribe you were formerly fighting against.

Balanced opposition is decentralized, in that no central organization is required. It is democratic, kin that decision making is collective. It is egalitarian, in that there is no ascribed status, rank or hierarchy into which people are born. Everybody is a member of a nested set of kin groups. These groups are vested with responsibility for the defense of each and every one of its members and responsibility for the harm each and every one of its members do to outsiders. If there is a confrontation, groups face other groups of a corresponding size: family vs. family, lineage vs. lineage, clan vs. clan, tribe vs. tribe, sect vs. sect, Arabs vs. non-Arab Muslims, and finally the Islamic community (the umma) vs. the infidels.

Arab society is based on much the same individual freedom, egalitarianism and responsibility as the West. The difference is the tribal orientation as opposed to the western orientation toward rule of law. Salzman says,

"The Middle East has at its core many of the values that are presently believed to be essential characteristics of the modern western world: egalitarianism, individualism, pluralist, competitiveness, personal initiative, social mobility, freedom; but these are set within a distinctive historical [or cultural] context based on chivalric honor, female seclusion, and patrilineality and that also favored invidious distinctions between men and women, whites and blacks, tribesman and peasants, nobles and commoners, freedmen and slaves, and particularly between Muslims and infidels."

This book goes into great detail about the functioning of tribal societies, which is the topic of the author's research. Islam is mentioned only in passing until we reach chapter five, where suddenly the historical record of Islam comes under a sustained attack. Much detail is given of the brutality of the Muslim conquests and the repression of non-Muslims. While this is a necessary correction to simplistic notions of Islamic peacefulness and tolerance, I think the author paints too uniform a picture of a complex history. There were intervals in Islamic history with relatively tolerant societies with advanced learning and culture (under religiously moderate rulers), along with intolerance and religious extremism he describes. This is best illustrated in the example he gives of the reaction to a Jewish official in the Muslim government of Grenada (in Spain). He describes the five thousand Jews that were slaughtered after this event, but does not mention the relatively moderate regime that appointed the official in the first place, which had just been overthrown by a more fundamentalist group.

He then lists the reasons for the uncompromising Arab rejection of the state of Israel. In increasing order of importance, he cites conflict over the physical land and resources, the use of the conflict by Arab rulers distract their subjects from internal problems, balanced opposition, and the Arab concept of honor. Balanced Opposition means that Arabs must always unite to fight the non-Arab presence in their territory, no matter what conflicts are happening between themselves. Honor is about the fact the God intended Muslims to rule non-Muslims. Arabs can never forget the humiliation of being defeated by the infidel, especially when so few Jews can hold off so many Arabs.

The last chapter, "Root Causes", examines the prospects for Middle Eastern countries. What appear on the surface to be nation states will continue to have conflict between the central state apparatus and the tribal groups on the periphery. The tribal orientation of the population makes it very difficult for meaningful change to occur. The author is not very optimistic on this point.

Iraq is a good example of a supposed nation state that was really more of a collection of tribes held together by the brutality of Saddam Hussein. Even in the cities much of the population arrived from outlying tribes and tribal ways are still strong. The results of the American invasion should have been predictable. The support the Americans expected from the population never appeared, because the tribal ethic compels people to fight the foreign invader no matter what they think of the more closely related ruling tribe that is oppressing them. After the fall of Saddam, Iraq fractured along tribal lines. Recent American success has been a result of adapting to the tribal reality. When the local tribes felt threatened by the foreign Al Qaeda fighters they fought back, and accepted aid from the Americans to accomplish that goal.

This book is well worth reading both for understanding tribal societies in general, and gaining some insight into the way of thinking of Middle Eastern people.

From all I have read about the past and current situation in the Middle East, this book has provided the most illuminating account of the stumbling blocks Arab countries face today. Philip Carl Salzman's genuine desire to understand the land and its population without prejudice shines through at almost every page. Vivid descriptions of the landscape and human encounters transport your imagination to the desserts, plateaus and valleys of the Middle East giving you a deep understanding of the strong need for undisputed loyalty amongst tribesmen and how tribal believes and values infiltrate and influence almost all aspects of Middle Eastern life from government to family structures. You will be left better equipped understanding the conflicts in this troubled region and see perhaps clearer why economic prosperity and social equality is still a distant dream not solely prevented by the west. Philip Carl Salzman's personal believes, values and most of all loyalties also shine through and may not resonate with everyone. I fell however that he admirable managed to prevent his believes and political views from clouding his findings resulting in disciplined reporting of his research and thereby maintaining his academic integrity.

Stanley Kurtz is right about this book. It is a must read for all those desirous of understanding and fighting against Islamic jihadism.

Salzman's book gets an qualified good review from me; I think he has made a strong case for his analysis of a very unfortunate dynamic of Arab tribal culture. I suspect that the positioning in time and space of this culture at this time presents dangers which may be heightened more by the time and place than by supposing inherent and unique faults within that culture. That, while it is strictly an academic and logical objection, is nevertheless a key objection that Salzman appears to have "set aside." It is up to the individual reader to decide if this was done in order to "narrow the scope" or to "ignore inconvenient aspects of the truth." This reader feels that it is narrowing the scope; but I am not at all certain that at least a nod to general tribal structures in an anthropological sense might have helped Salzman to more clearly define the target tribal culture.

That said, there are a couple of other ringers: one is Islam and the other is oil. It would be consistent with Salzman's reasoning to say that any threat posed by pan-Islamism is a threat also of pan-Arabism. I will not bother to address the well-known role of oil beyond referring back to Salzman's own comments in the book, which were brief, but adequate.

I will note here that, despite Salzman's preemptive defense against us namby-pamby liberals who refuse to hold the west blameless in the conflict with Islamist Arabs, pan-Islamism would hardly exist today, in the virulent form it has taken, had it not been for the unfortunate CIA covert war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. That event literally forged today's steroidal pan-Islamism. It created its cast of characters, its weapons, its methods, and its propaganda in order to appeal to the the broader Muslim world to come help Charlie Wilson win his war of vengeance against the Soviets by arming and training Islamic hardliners. So, it isn't that would-be critics say, "Oh, the poor Arabs..." That is NOT what we're saying. We are saying, "Oh, the incredibly stupid, self-serving, revenge-seeking CIA meddlers we so recklessly and unconscionably turned loose on Afghanistan."

That much responsibility is clearly undeniable. The west has had a huge hand, in specific ways, in facilitating the current mess in the middle east. Sneering at imaginary liberals with imaginary tears cannot refute that. Obviously, Afghanistan is only one example of many, including the example now unfolding, or decomposing, in Iraq.

Someone, however, has inflamed the region, and I think I know who one of them is. He and the others bear some responsibility for the state of the middle east, a responsibility they have --typically and as per their habitual method -- giddily ignored.

Conservatives -- and Mr. Salzman -- love to say such things as, "Oh, those liberals who are wringing their hands and weeping over Arabs, do not understand the threat." It's a logical fallacy to begin with -- it is, in fact, a form of begging the question, because it actually presupposes, via invention, what reasonable liberal critics actually are not saying. It sets up straw men with little more purpose than to provide Salzman the relief of an occasional sneer.

I am a liberal critic of Bush and AIPAC policies and aims, and I do not wring my hands or tear up over Arabs, and I resent the characterization. I have a head on my shoulders, I do some reading, and I am perfectly capable of cold analysis. Some strains of that cold analysis point to a substantial element of Western responsibility, earned intentionally or by mere bungling, for the current middle east crisis. I don't blame Bush for Arab culture, nor do I blame him for the Arab's tribal system -- I do blame him and his crowd simply for failing to understand the culture and then recklessly meddling in it, anyway.

Despite that, the book is a tremendous contribution because of its central analysis of Arab tribal culture, its nature, its structure, and its challenge. The ideological taint this work bears is distinct, but it does not represent all that the book has to offer. Without this awareness of the structure of Arab society, one would be a fool to undertake any serious enterprise involving them without understanding that culture. Clearly, fools have been in charge of the program now, and for eight years.

In his final chapter, "Root Causes," Salzman resumes putting words into the mouths of straw men -- "cultural relativists" and "multiculturalists" -- and then sniping at them on the basis of his own, quite obvious, overgeneralizations. As I understand cultural relativism, it is a method or school of anthropology that discerns and observes cultural values without advocating them for anyone inside or outside of that culture . I believe the idea, from Levi-Strauss on, is the observation that what is "good" and "bad" will vary from culture to culture, and that, as scientists, the job of the anthropologist is not to judge, but to describe and account for existing cultural values. The assessment of what is good and what is bad is clearly relative from culture to culture. The right loves to view any sort of relativism as virtual capitulation to evil. I would venture to say that cultural absolutism is the real danger here, and the real culprit, precisely as it is advocated and practiced by al-Qaeda, as well as by the current incompetent, incumbent Executive branch of the United States.

The example of western meddling in Afghanistan, as a response to the Russian occupation, is enough to refute any implication that the west has had no hand in shaping the situation in Afghanistan, Iran, and now Iraq, as well as in the rest of the middle east and the world. "Post-colonialists," in pointing out that post-colonial problems have been exacerbated by historical acts by the former colonists, are not saying that colonialism is uniquely responsible for conflicts across Africa and the middle east. Perhaps some of these post-colonialists or cultural relativists do assert such things, but others may be more objective and comprehensive than that. The colonial formation of nations without regard to religion or tribal affiliation has had demonstrable, and disastrous, effects in previously colonized, artificial nations.

It is plainly not helpful to pretend that "multiculturalists" and "post-colonialists" ascribe post-colonial problems solely to the over-arching fact of western interference. By doing so, Mr. Salzman is indulging in bad faith in order to make his case. Is it not within reason to blame the west for the fall of Iran to Islamic conservatives? We overthrew their democratically elected government and replaced it with a king, for one thing. Twenty-six years later, we reaped the whirl-wind resulting from yet another CIA-created danger.

Is it not the case that society itself has created these "special groups" -- whether they be blacks, gays, Indians, immigrants, or women, simply by not extending to them, now or in the past, the same rights as the rest of the society? Perhaps there have been excesses in affirmative action and related programs -- but the way these "special groups" became "special" in the first place has been through official denial of their individual rights (the right to vote; the right to access public facilities; the right to marry the person they consider their mate, and so on) based on the group to whom they belong.

It is entirely hysterical to say that we in the west are "jettisoning...individualist traditions and universalistic standards, and granting collective rights and special privileges to particular groups and categories, justified in terms of multiculturalism." I would say that the right of gays to the benefits of legal marriage, the right of women to equal pay for equal work, the rights of the disabled or disadvantaged is due some consideration. Whatever "privileges" Mr. Salzman thinks are unjust are, in fact, positive aspects of those very "principles of individualism and universalism" that we in the west like to extend to those who have every right to be included within the scope of those principles. To say that the west is "jettisoning...universalistic and individualistic standards" is, I assert, an insupportable statement that flies in the face of the facts. It is both "universalistic" and "individualistic" to extend to groups who have been unjustly denied those universal and individual rights that society in general is pleased to enjoy. Frankly, I would love to learn from Mr. Salzman precisely what "groups" he claims are being favored by this imaginary "jettisoning."

Mr. Salzman has done a great job in describing a tribal social structure that remains static, refusing to adapt to or accept other cultural values or the rights of groups within the culture (women, non-believers, gays, etc.) -- a culture where change, tolerance, and a healthy regard for the indivdual's rights, the cultures and the religious views of others simply do not exist. But he then turns around and slams "cultural relativists" or "multiculturalists" for advocating redress of the inequality, oppression, and discriminatory treatment through which precisely the same groups have been disadvantaged in western society! He specifies no particular relativists or multiculturalists, so no response is possible from them, whoever they may be. He faults them only by means of his own characterization of them. (I cannot believe that he is unaware of the full range of opposing ideas. I do believe that he deliberately fails to address what other scholars or observers have actually written or said -- representing them only within a "narrowed scope" which is, in fact, too narrow.)

I am always disheartened when I read authors who understand logical thinking and scientific method and who possess the intellectual acumen to recognize reasonable, alternative views, but who nevertheless treat any opposing analyses as selectively and partially as possible, in order to make their own political points. Mr. Salzman's joy in knocking down straw dogs and his willingness to leave relevant factors out of his argument is, I think, a serious flaw in the book. "Narrowing the scope" of an argument is one thing -- narrowing the scope so much as not to fairly represent the full range of instances is simply unscholarly and in bad faith.

One can only wish that someone in the American Enterprise Institute, "scholars" that they (erroneously) claim to be, would have made themselves cognizant of Arab culture before doing the wrong thing, as opposed to the other way around. Or perhaps those "scholarly" meddlers and partisans that haunt that particular "institute" actually wanted a long-term quaqmire in Iraq, to gratify their corporate and foreign sponsors.

Salzman's book is a "good book spoiled," I believe, by an unscholarly and insupportable western absolutism -- every bit as admantine and stubborn as "balanced opposition."