A War of Words: Language and Conflict in the Middle East.

• Author: Kaye, Alan S.
• Position: Book review

A War of Words: Language and Conflict in the Middle East. BY YASIR SULEIMAN. Cambridge Middle East Studies, Vol. 19. Cambridge: CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2004. Pp. xiii + 270. $70.

The author, Professor of Arabic and Middle East Studies and Director of the Edinburgh Institute for the Advanced Study of the Arab World and Islam, introduces the topic of language and conflict in the Middle East by citing an Iraqi news broadcast from the first Gulf War. That broadcast referred to the American and British aircraft dropping bombs on Iraqi targets as ghirbanu shsharr 'ravens of evil'. He goes on to explain the implications of this term, viz., that ravens are despised creatures in Arab culture. Furthermore, learning that these planes took off from ard alkuwayt 'the land of Kuwait' rather than al-kuwayt 'Kuwait', the reader comes to understand that this Arabic wording served to delegitimize Kuwait as a separate, independent nation, implicitly intimating thereby that the Iraqi cause of annexation was a just one.

The penetrating study that ensues goes well beyond the writer's previous book, The Arabic Language and National Identity: A Study in Ideology (Georgetown Univ. Press, 2003). Indeed, the present tome is one in which Arabic words can be seen to have a life of their own--triggering emotional outbursts and packing a sentimental wallop that justifies the tome's title--A War of Words. The introductory description of the volume on the first page, also reproduced on the book's back cover, offers an excellent summary (part of which follows) that serves to whet the prospective reader's appetite:

[the] book considers national identity in relation to language, the way in which language can be manipulated to signal political, cultural or even historical difference ... [it] offers ... poignant illustrations of antagonisms articulated through pun or double entendre. During the recent intifada, for example, Gazans would frequently respond 'bomba' ('Couldn't be better') to questions about their health. By making the phonetic connection between the Arabic 'bomba' and the English word 'bomb', they declared their defiance, their optimism in the face of Israeli bombings. Chapter one, "Introduction" (pp. 1-6), succeeds in explaining via several illustrations just how language, culture, and politics are interrelated via the Arabic language. For example, Suleiman astutely observes that the Libyan mass media are the "undisputed masters" of satire, citing the case of...