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Tariq Ramadan , Islam and the Arab Awakening (New York : Oxford University Press , 2012). Pp. 256. $27.95 cloth.
Politics and Protest
Amidst the proliferation of writing on the current sociopolitical upheavals in the Middle East, Tariq Ramadan contributes an ideological perspective on questions of political ethics that seeks to negotiate the tensions between Western secular-liberal culture and the robust assertion of Islamic identity. This book, pitched to a popular yet educated audience, applies this perspective in a scatter-shot fashion to a wide-ranging set of figures, trends, and challenges raised by recent events in the Middle East. Part introduction, part commentary, and part prescription, the book's first two chapters survey a number of different features of the "Arab Awakening" while the last two chapters attend to the specific role of "the Islamic reference." Ramadan's analysis is often vague and he emphasizes questions and debating points rather than answers. However, his perspective on the direction in which he hopes Arab societies will move is worth considering.
The book is less than ideal as a primer for those with little previous exposure to the Middle East. One finds a brief recounting and evaluation of the first year of the sociopolitical uprisings in Iran, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Bahrain, and Yemen (each country receiving between two to four pages lest particulars be absorbed into facile generalizations), some commentary on the role of technology and new media in the uprisings, and a few pages on the historical evolution of both secularism and political Islam. One also finds several sections on the West: the debate over its behind-the-scenes role in the uprisings; the Orientalism of its media commentators on the political left and right alike; and the inconsistency and hypocrisy of its foreign policy, which lurches between rhetoric celebrating democracy and self-determination, and actual positions that expose...