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By Sumayyah Meehan November 30, 2009 That’s the title of a new book penned by British journalist Brian Whitaker that, at first glance, looks like one giant slap in the face of the world’s most tumultuous region and everything Arab. In fact, the book represents such a disturbing notion of cultural bias that it would be unsavory for any God-fearing Arab to open it. However, if one braves the controversy slowly beginning to swirl around the publication of this book, one might see that Whitaker makes a couple of very real, tangible and truthful points. No “shoeing”, please. The rest of the book appears to be, by far, something Whitaker dreamed up in the sand swept deserts of Arabia. A non-Arab, an albeit ‘foreigner’, criticizing an Arab nation (let alone every Arab nation) is never a deed warmly received by Arab governments who are a lot more tactical with airing their ‘dirty laundry’ than their Western counterparts are. However, with Arab nations riding a wave of continued economic superiority despite two ongoing wars, it’s not surprising that the region as a whole is under the microscope and a prime target for critics. As for Whitaker, who has lived extensively in the Middle East and even worked for seven years as The Guardian newspaper’s Mideast Editor, the points he raises in the book deserve at least a second look. The first target he takes aim at is education in the region which is substandard to schools in the West, the reason being that memorization is often favored over independent thinking and freedom of expression in most Middle Eastern schools. The next target is an inclusive sweep of human rights abuses in many Mideast countries such as discrimination, racism and the exploitation of the downtrodden. It also levels some hefty charges at Arab governments for the, “...inequality of opportunity, impenetrable bureaucracies, arbitrary application of the law; and the lack of transparency in government.” He also attacks other flaws he perceives in Arab nations such as citizen’s reliance on their governments and the ironfisted system of autocracy in the region. But perhaps the most explosive part of the book deals with what Whitaker calls “The Politics of God” which takes an extremely narrow-minded and audacious swipe at the Islamic faith that only someone biased against Islam could concoct. In his book, Whitaker merely chalks up the religion of Islam and the intense growth of the ranks of the faithful as the “Arab Malaise” over the 1967 defeat by the Israelis. By all appearances, Whitaker must also be a Psychologist since he has diagnosed millions of Muslims in the Mideast as having severe depression for the past forty-odd years as he accuses the religion of Islam as being the only available remedy. Perhaps the book should actually be entitled, “What’s Really Wrong with Brian Whitaker”. Is he merely trying to line his pockets with some cold-hard cash for a controversial book deal, was he possibly jilted by an Arab beauty and this is his form of revenge or is he simply suffering from his own personal woes and would rather shine a light on an entire civilization than look himself in the mirror? Now that, that is a question. http://www.elanthemag.com/index.php/site/blog_detail/book_review_whats_really_wrong_with_the_middle_east-nid758541795/