Sandcastles: The Arabs in Search of the Modern World

By Milton Viorst. Knopf, 1994, 414 pp. List: $25; AET: $19.95.

Reviewed by Pat and Samir Twair

Indeed, in recent years more Arabs have come to recognize that building a civilization on tyranny or fanaticism, however indigenous they may be, is like building sandcastles. Human rights and the rule of reason, the foundation of modern societies, are as relevant to citizens of the East as to those of the West.

This passage sums up Milton Viorst's vision of most regimes in the Arab world, garnered during numerous visits to the Middle East. The book's nine chapters are articles Viorst wrote for the New Yorker. Two are on Iraq, before and after the Gulf war, and others cover Syria, Egypt, Kuwait, Jordan, Lebanon and the Palestinians. One chapter is on a non-Arab Middle Eastern state, Turkey.

Viorst writes sympathetically about the Palestinians. In describing the miseries of life in occupied Gaza, he becomes downright passionate about the injustices they have suffered. His analysis of what transpired in post-1948 Gaza and the West Bank is excellent. On the other hand, in his chapter dealing with Lebanon, he fails to distinguish between the Maronites and Orthodox Christians when he generalizes (p. 172) that the Muslims sided with the Palestinians and the Christians with Israel.

His chapter on Egypt takes a charming approach—viewing the country's 20th century history through the eyes and works of Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz. We do object, however, to Viorst's asking Mahfouz—upon observing ecstatic participants in a Moulid (birthday of the Prophet) celebration—if "such profoundly Islamic people were ready for secular democracy." On any day other than a religious holiday, these people no doubt would differ little from blue-collar workers Viorst might encounter in Washington, DC. Using the same comparison, perhaps some intellectuals might question if equally "ecstatic" Americans celebrating New Year's Eve were ready for democracy.

Viorst offers an interesting explanation of why Saddam Hussain still is in power, despite the catastrophic defeat of his army in Kuwait:President Bush, though obsessed with getting rid of Saddam, had to recognize the danger of regional instability if Iraq were to disintegrate. This danger, of course, was, or should have been, just as apparent on August 2, and ought to have imposed on Bush greater caution in rushing into war in the first place. Indeed, the strategic need to have Iraq as a balance to Iran forced Bush, in the end, to forgo the overthrow of Saddam, the villain of the piece.

In interviewing Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz on the relations between Washington and Baghdad, the author documents Aziz's charges from Norman Schwarzkopf's autobiography and State Department sources. It is clear from this interview, which must have been undertaken with some trepidation in post´Gulf war Iraq, as well as the meetings with Naguib Mahfouz, that Viorst has a knack for getting to key leaders in any Middle Eastern country he visits.

Viorst's comments on his October 1993 visit to Gaza and the West Bank are prophetic. Already, independent Gaza leader Dr. Haidar Abdul Shafi is pessimistic over the prospects for democracy. And an anonymous UNRWA official voices his disillusionment over Arafat's failure to establish administrative committees for self-rule.

It is Viorst's summation of Islam (p. 358) that we disagree with most: But institutional Christianity and Judaism have retreated over the centuries before the assaults of reason and made compromises with secular culture. Islam, however, had defeated secular, nationalist trends within its culture by the 11th century, and has been successful ever since in fending off their rebirth. A few thinkers have argued that modernism, and even democracy, are incompatible with doctrinal Islam. But whatever the implications in principle of its theology, traditional Islam prospers, promoting a stifling conservatism which preserves the social and intellectual status quo.

We believe Viorst has confused fanatic or radical Islam with progressive or contemporary Islam. One of the best examples of the forward approach of Islam is here in the U.S., where Islam has uplifted its African-American converts and put them on a course for success à la the Mormon example—no alcohol and a cohesiveness within the community that promotes advancement. Another problem is the book's lack of footnotes, making it difficult for students of Middle Eastern history to use as a source. Such problems aside, however, Viorst's prose in incomparable. This is a beautifully written book.

Pat and Samir Twair are free-lance writers based in Los Angeles.