[From a newsgroup respondent]:

Please read this book for a real understanding of Arabs & Islam "The Closed Circle : An Interpretation of the Arabs" by David Pryce-Jones

Warning: it might not seem to be completely politically correct for knee-jerk left-leaning intellectuals.

have a look at some reviews: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060981032/ref=ase_avsearch-df1-2-20/ 002-4594092-6976018

http://www.journalism.uts.edu.au/archive/vilification/d3.htm

To anyone seeking to gain some insight into the Arab world, I can whole-heartedly recommend a book by David Pryce-Jones, The Closed Circle: An Interpretation of the Arabs, first published in 1989. Pryce-Jones' basic thesis is, essentially that the kind of untrustworthiness, ruthless adventurism, brutality, irrationallty, and subservience or everything else to power, which we have seen from Saddam Hussein, is inherent in what he calls the ''shame and honour" motivations which pervade the whole of Arab culture. Anyone, he says, who attempts to analyse the politics of Arab countries without understanding that is wasting his or her time. If only to forestall the inevitable outcry of the ignorant, I stress that this thesis has nothing to do with racism.

It simply asserts, as a matter or empirical observation, that Arab culture as distinct from race is such as to produce, over and over again, one Nasser, or Saddam, or Syria's equally murderous Assad, after another, and that the propensity for this to occur is inherent in that culrure.

As Pryce-Jones points out, in no Arab country today is there democratic process, freedom or speech, or security guaranteed by law, for the individual or for property. Despite technical assistance and aid flowing into the Arab countries, and the stupendous wealth produced from oil, the vast majority remain poor, and violence is both customary and systematic. Pryce- Jones argues that the Arabs are caught in a closed circle room which they have not been able to escape a circle defined by deeply rooted tribal, religious and cultural traditions.

I shall not argue Pryce-Jones' thesis here, but simply note two things about it. First, if he is right, why have our governments permitted the entry into Australia of so many adherents to a culture so alien to the basically Judaeo- Christian one which has always constituted the core culture or our society?

Second, a key test of any thesis is its success or failure in enabling you to predict events. On that basis, the Pryce-Jones thesis seems to score high marks. It explains, tor example, why a pitiless tyrant like Saddam should be "honoured" among Arabs precisely because, through the exercise or those qualities, he has gained power.

It explains recent Iraqi atrocities against innocent Kuwaitis, and their lack of any compassion for people so treated . It also points to why, in ending this war, it is essential to do so in a way which does humiliate (shame) Saddam.

In the Arab world, to fail to do so would be a sign of weakness. Quite contrary to much or the waffle in our media, only by shaming him can his standing among the Arabs themselves be toppled. On January l7 I speculated that Saddam could end up in hiding in Libya or some such other bolt-hole".

In fact, once he has been humiliated he is more likely to suffer the same fate he has so mercilessly meted out to so many others over the years to be cast, lifeless, upon some dung-hill, to the execrations of the same Arab rent-a-crowds whom, until recently, have been demonstrating in his favour for the benefit of Western television crews.

There are already suggestions that, once Saddam has gone, the allies should ensure the emergence of a democratically elected regime in Baghdad. This is Westernised fantasy, of the kind beloved of foreign offices. No such regime could either be elected, or survive for long if it were. Indeed, as to Iraq itself, I see no particular reason why, post-war, its territorial integrity should be affected.

It was brought into being as an artificial construct, by a stroke or the pen after the 1914-18 war. There is no compelling reason other than that the USSR would not like It why it should not now be dismembered in the same way. Paladin Grafton Boohs (paperback).