Dhaouadi, Mahmoud. At-takhalluf al-Aakhar: 'Awlamat Azamat al-Hawiyyaat ath-Thaqaafiyya fil-Watan al-'Arabi wal-'Aalam ath-Thaaleth-Arabic (The Other Under-development: The Globalization of the Crisis of Cultural Identity in the Arab Homeland and the Third World).

• Position: Book Review

Dhaouadi, Mahmoud. At-takhalluf al-Aakhar: 'Awlamat Azamat al-Hawiyyaat ath--Thaqaafiyya fil--Watan al-'Arabi wal--'Aalam ath--Thaaleth--Arabic (The Other Under-development: The Globalization of the Crisis of Cultural Identity in the Arab Homeland and the Third World). Tunis, Tunisia: al-Atlasiyya lin-Nashr, 2002. Paper, no price indicated.

The author contends that the "other underdevelopment" is a linguistic, cultural and psychological phenomenon prevalent in the Arab homeland and the Third World. The work is divided into four parts in which the main theme is discussed with reference to the Maghreb, other Arab and Third World countries.

Part one offers a general treatment of the nature of cultural symbols and influences among human groups with examples of the relationship of the colonial power to the colonized. The prevalence of "settling" the colonial language (French) in the Maghreb, for instance, enhanced the underdevelopment of Arabic.

In part two the author contends that the Arabic language is underdeveloped as it is not being used in all aspects of social life across the Arab homeland. He attributes this underdevelopment primarily to the absence of a developed discipline of Arab sociology and warns of the dangers to Arab cultural security because of the dominance of western cultural symbols. Illiteracy (the inability to speak or write modern standard Arabic) among Arab students is a consequence of western cultural domination. The entire phenomenon of Franco-Arabe, is indicative of the relationship between language and development. Individuals, especially the uneducated, use Franco-Arabe to pause as modern and...