Arab-Muslim Societies

Stereotypes

Misunderstandings

Fundamental Attribution Error

• View own actions as responses to situations

• View others’ actions as expressions of personality traits

Projection

• Freud: mechanism of defense

• Anti-social, immoral wishes & abject self-images attributed to others

• Usually to an other group: ethnic group, nation, religion, gender, “the poor,” etc.

Mini-stereotypes

Mini-stereotypes

Orientalist Paintings19th & early 20th centuries

Bridgeman, Harem Fountain

Bridgeman, Harem Boats

Giraud, Interior of the Harem

Bouchard, Almees

(entertainers)

Dicksee, Cleopatra

Collier,Pharoah’s

Handmaidens

Delacroix, Algerian Women

Delacroix, Odalisque

(concubine)

Renoir, Odalisque

Matisse, Odalisque

Ingres, Turkish Bath

Ingres, Grand Odalisque

Falero,Enchantress

Weiz, Odalisque

Gerome, The Great Bath

Gerome,Bath

Ponsan, Massage

Long, Love’s Labor Lost

Cormon, Jealousy in the Seraglio

Gerome, Slave Market

Gerome, Slave Auction

Giraud, New Slave

Rosati, Dancing Girl

Marinelli, Dance of the Bee in the Harem

Alloula: The Colonial Harem

French-made postcardsfrom Algeria

Today?

Wafah Dufour

Bin Laden’s neice

GQ 2006

Misunderstandings

1. Despotism & strife stem from a tribal mentality equipped with modern weapons

MENA should not be seen as having a “still-tribal” social organization

-- though underdevelopment and oppression may lead people to create tribe-like relationships

Misunderstandings

2. The “honor code” monopolizes the Middle Eastern psyche and subverts modernization

There is an “honor-modesty” ethics & social etiquette, but this does not retard modernization

Misunderstandings

3. Islamic “fatalism” breeds passivity and stalls development

An “Islamist ethic” fuels achievement and development, but when thwarted people turn to Islam for consolation

Misunderstandings

4. The momentum of tradition resists modernization

People may choose “tradition” as superior to “modernity”

People invent “traditions” to defend against “modernity”

Misunderstandings5. Terrorism springs from a vein of

fanaticism in Arab culture and psyche

Terrorism better explained by…

a) strategic considerations

b) social psychological processes that operate in all cultures

Violence can create a “culture of terror”

Underdevelopment

Modernity

Underdevelopment

( H. Sharabi:

“neo-patriarchy” )

Tradition