CULTURAL RESISITANCE, Global and Local Encounters in the Middle East
تاريخ النشر: 01/07/2002
الناشر: دار الساقي للطباعة والنشر
نبذة الناشر:This book addresses in the first instance the interplay between traditonal loyalties and social change, and explores the crisis of Arab intellectuals and their failure to act as effective carriers of socio-cultural and ideological transformations in their respective societies. This deficiency highlights even more the role of seemingly 'traditional' groups ...that have emerged as alternate vehicles for change.
The second part of the book starts with a detailed critique of Protestant orientalism and its legacy in the Middle East, exposing the mind sets and some of the disparaging images American Protestants harboured towards islam in their efforts to evangelize the Orient, and relating the history of Protestant missionaries and their impact on cultural change in the Arab world.
Khalaf follows with an analysis of the impact of the prolonged civil war in Lebanon - psychological, economic and, particularly, social - on communal identities and group loyalties, but also on colective psychology and perceptions of the 'other'. The sustained brutalities and the changing forms of violence are also examined, focusing on how seemingly ordinary citizens got entrapped in it, and how traumatized groups came to cope with chronic hostility and fear.
Samir Khalaf's ideas on the restoration of civility in Lebanon include dolutions for the country's social and physical reconstruction; he argues that communal and retribalized loyalties can become viable agencies for transforming a geography of fear into a political culture of tolerance. إقرأ المزيد