Behind the Headlines Expert on the ‘arab Mind’ Says Arab Psyche Has Undergone Subtle Changes During

Raphael Patai, the first man to receive a Ph.D from the Hebrew University (1935) and the author of more than a dozen books, including the much acclaimed “The Arab Mind” (1973), says that there have been some subtle changes occurring in the psyche of the Arab world as a consequence of the frequent military encounters with Israel.

Patai, an anthropologist who has studied Mideastern culture, suggests that a new form of sobriety, entirely uncharacteristic of the Arab mind, is now part of the world of discourse among Arab intellectuals.

The Israeli-trained scholar, who now resides in the United States, makes this observation in a new paper-back edition of his much heralded work on the Arab mind. In the preface to the book published by Scribners, Patai says that for the first time democratic sentiments are being expressed by Arab writers.

AN UNPRECEDENTED STATEMENT

He quotes the former Kuwaiti minister of finance, Abdul Rahman Al-Atiqi, as being one of the latter. Al-Atiqi has publicly deplored the “constant oppression” under which Arabs live, contrasting this deplorable state with the democratic freedoms of Israel where people have the right “to criticize their own leader.”

Patai indicates that Al-Atiqi’s statement, made just recently, is unprecedented and that it bodes well because heretofore Arab explanations of Israeli successes have all been based on presumptions of superior Israeli resources and technology. The infusion of democratic ideals can only help moderate the tensions in the Mideast, Patai indicates.

In his survey of events which have convulsed the Arab world since the first edition of his book appeared in 1973, Patai notes that the euphoria which the Arabs experienced in the wake of their partial victory during the Yom Kippur War, has all but dissipated. Dreams of conquest, the restoration of Arab dignity, Arab unity — all these have given way to a more sober rendering of reality.

His reading of the Arab press leads Patai to conclude that Arab intellectuals are becoming far more sober in their criticisms of traditional Arab rigidities in language, thought and action. The tendency towards “mubalagha,” hyperbolic speech and exaggerated rhetoric, while still part of Arab cultural patterns, is becoming more muted in recent times.

THE FACTOR OF ECONOMIC POWER

One factor which militates against further progress on this front is the economic power which the Arabs have obtained through petrodollars. The transference of vast sums of money to the oil-rich states have fuelled illusions about a return to the kind of hegemony which the Arab-Muslim civilization enjoyed during the pre-medieval period.

“What it has done to Arab pride cannot be underestimated, ” says Patai. “Yet at the same time the financial power which the Arabs have required is frightening, because the responsible attitude, which alone can make such power beneficial, could not be acquired as rapidly as the wealth itself.”

On the plus side of the ledger, Patai notes that the Arab world, so long resentful of the technological advances of the West, has finally come to an accommondation with it. This has been effected in part through the simple purchase of Western technology and know-how and it remains for the Arab world to integrate these advances within “the context of Arab culture.”

CITES PROGRESS BY WOMEN

Patai is also impressed by the progress which has been made by women in Arab society. While the concept of women’s liberation, in the Western sense of the word, is unknown in Arab lands, there has been a rapid improvement in recent years in women’s rights.

Patai makes this statement after years of monitoring both the popular and scholarly publications emanating from Arab countries. Arab women themselves are becoming more vociferous in denouncing injustices against their sex and in demanding more equitable treatment from a male dominated culture.

ORIGIN OF ‘CONFLICT PRONENESS’

In one area Patai finds little or no change in the Arab psyche — “conflict proneness.” Since the 1970’s Patai observes that Arab countries have been involved in II different armed conflicts which have drawn the bloody participation of Jordan, Syria, Libya, South Yemen, Oman, Iraq, Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Chad and, non-Arab Iran.

Patai traces the origin of these conflicts to the obsessive pursuit among the Arabs of the elusive “unity,” — the mystical oneness to which the Arabs aspire but which is inevitably beyond their reach.

The famous anthropologist believes that the Arabs will be able to cope successfully with the ordeal of modernity only when they rid themselves of their obsession and hatred of Zionism and can overcome their conflict proneness, “and can devote their best talents not to fighting windmills, but to constructing the new Arab man.”

According to Patai, the Arabs now have a better chance to achieve this than any time in the recent past because they have become aware of the fact that they are a people “who counts in the world.”