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The Flight of the Intellectuals |  | Author: Paul Berman
Publisher: Melville House
Category: Book
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Rating:  15 reviews
Sales Rank: 62893
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 304
Number Of Items: 1
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Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 4.9 x 1.3
ISBN: 1933633514
Dewey Decimal Number: 297.0905
EAN: 9781933633510
ASIN: 1933633514
Publication Date: April 27, 2010
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Product Description
Twenty years ago, Ayatollah Khomeini called for the assassination of Salman Rushdie—and writers around the world instinctively rallied to Rushdie’s defense. Today, according to writer Paul Berman, “Rushdie has metastasized into an entire social class”—an ever-growing group of sharp-tongued critics of Islamist extremism, especially critics from Muslim backgrounds, who survive only because of pseudonyms and police protection. And yet, instead of being applauded, the Rushdies of today (people like Ayan Hirsi Ali and Ibn Warraq) often find themselves dismissed as “strident” or as no better than fundamentalist themselves, and contrasted unfavorably with representatives of the Islamist movement who falsely claim to be “moderates.”
How did this happen? In THE FLIGHT OF THE INTELLECTUALS, Berman—“one of America’s leading public intellectuals” (Foreign Affairs)—conducts a searing examination into the intellectual atmosphere of the moment and shows how some of the West’s best thinkers and journalists have fumbled badly in their efforts to grapple with Islamist ideas and violence.
Berman’s investigation of the history and nature of the Islamist movement includes some surprising revelations. In examining Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, he shows the rise of an immense and often violent worldview, elements of which survives today in the brigades of al-Qaeda and Hamas. Berman also unearths the shocking story of al-Banna’s associate, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who collaborated personally with Adolf Hitler to incite Arab support of the Nazis’ North African campaign. Echoes of the Grand Mufti’s Nazified Islam can be heard among the followers of al-Banna even today.
In a gripping and stylish narrative Berman also shows the legacy of these political traditions, most importantly by focusing on a single philosopher, who happens to be Hassan al-Banna’s grandson, Oxford professor Tariq Ramadan—a figure widely celebrated in the West as a “moderate” despite his troubling ties to the Islamist movement. Looking closely into what Ramadan has actually written and said, Berman contrasts the reality of Ramadan with his image in the press.
In doing so, THE FLIGHT OF THE INTELLECTUALS sheds light on a number of modern issues—on the massively reinvigorated anti-Semitism of our own time, on a newly fashionable turn against women’s rights, and on the difficulties we have in discussing terrorism—and presents a stunning commentary about the modern media’s peculiar inability to detect and analyze some of the most dangerous ideas in contemporary society.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 15
 An Important Book April 28, 2010
I. Tysoe (Earth)
91 out of 98 found this review helpful
According to the New Yorker, when George Packer asked Tariq Ramadan two questions at a recent ACLU-sponsored event in New York "the general picture was surprisingly, reassuringly bright: reconciling Islamic faith with liberal values is easy; the views of Muslims are basically the same as everyone else's; the oppression of Muslim women is a third-order issue." But George Packer's questions were drawn explicitly from or, it seems to me, were hugely influenced by Paul Berman's The Flight of the Intellectuals and, as a result, they were uncomfortable questions. George Packer wanted to know why Tariq Ramadan never disassociated himself from his grandfather, who founded the Muslim Brotherhood (and who is quoted in Hamas' Charter), from the Mufti of Jerusalem, his grandfather's ally and a man allied with Nazis, or from Sheikh Qaradawi, the man who passed a fatwa allowing women to carry out suicide bombings. George Packer also wanted to know if Tariq Ramadan felt that human rights were universal or if they could be determined by religious authorities. When it came to his grandfather's alliance with Nazi sympathizers, Tariq Ramadan asked the audience to consider the "context". The second question he dodged. And still more questions (this time from the audience) kept coming. Questions about women's oppression; questions about Hirsi Ali. And Paul Berman's book was not yet out.
But it seems to me quite right that this book should have such influence. To begin with, in it, Paul Berman provides the reader with context in spades. Here is Hassan al-Banna (Tariq Ramadan's grandfather) lavishing extravagant praise on the mufti of Jerusalem. Al-Banna declares, "Germany and Hitler are gone, but Amin Al-Husseini will continue the struggle. He is but one man, but Mohammed was also one man, and so was Christ..." (p. 106). High praise for a man who collaborated with Walther Rauff. Walter Rauff was the Nazi who put together the Einsatzgruppe Agypten, a group of seven SS officers (one of whom was liaison to the mufti al-Banna likened to Christ). The Einsatzgruppe Agypten was to carry out the Final Solution to the Jewish Problem in the Middle East once Rommel broke through. But the praise for Rauff's ally makes sense in light of what Hassan al-Banna wrote in "To What Do We Summon Mankind?" Here, in the course of arguing that "over the course of history, tiny movements led by charismatic figures have triumphed more than once" (p. 30), al-Banna cited various examples from the history of Islam. He also provided one non-Muslim example: "And who would have believed that that German workingman, Hitler, would ever attain such immense influence and as successful a realization of his aims as he has?" (p. 31) The context then is more than opposition to the formation of a Jewish state (as Tariq Ramadan implied in New York). But there is still more to the story.
There is how al-Banna thought Muslims ought to live, for example. Paul Berman quotes from al-Banna's "Toward the Light" on this issue and I will select a few of Berman's quotes: "the imposition of severe penalties for moral offenses," "the prohibition of dancing and other such pastimes," "the expurgation of songs," "punishment for all who are proved to have infringed any Islamic doctrine or attacked it" (p. 44) and so on.
Tariq Ramadan's father propagated al-Banna's ideas and those of the Muslim Brotherhood thinkers in Europe and Asia, first as editor of al-Banna's magazine and later in his own magazine al-Muslimun. Ideas like Hassan al-Banna's notion about "the art of death" and "death is art" (p. 32). Al-Muslimun also introduced Urdu-language ideas of Mawdudi's sister movement to an Arabic-speaking audience" (p. 34). And, after a while, these ideas enabled "Himmler's Islam" to emerge victorious from its battle with "its arch-rival, the Islam of generosity and civilization" (p. 97). Certainly that is the position of Muslim liberals like Abdelwahab Meddeb (and Paul Berman makes quite clear that Muslim liberals have ever been Tariq Ramadan's fiercest opponents). So that is Tariq Ramadan's family; his context. But Tariq Ramadan is not his family. Still, since in his "The Roots of Muslim Renewal," Tariq Ramadan spends some two hundred pages writing about his grandfather in a "gusher of adulation" (p. 36) that context matters.
Consider: here is Tariq Ramadan condemning terrorist attacks against civilians in general but making an exception for terrorist attacks against civilians who happen to be in Israel (p. 195); here is Tariq Ramadan endorsing the Taliban (p. 194); here is Tariq Ramadan denouncing as Jews and as "knee-jerk defenders of Israel" six intellectuals whose crime lay in pointing out that violent anti-Semitism in immigrant neighborhoods in France is on the rise (pp. 157-8); here is Tariq Ramadan campaigning to cancel Voltaire's play "Fanaticism, or Mahomet the Prophet" and campaigning to add a touch of creationism to the teaching of evolution (p. 16); and here is Tariq Ramadan refusing in a televised debate to denounce the stoning of women (pp. 214-215). This is not an exhaustive list but it gives you an idea of the sort of consequences that arise from Tariq Ramadan's context. And then Paul Berman points out something else.
He points out that a great many Western intellectuals assure us that Tariq Ramadan is a moderate; even a liberal. These intellectuals decry Ramadan's detractors; especially if those detractors happen to be Muslim. These Western intellectuals, Berman explains, have adopted Islamists' categories of judgment. And by Islamist's lights, it is possible, I suppose to see a man like Tariq Ramadan who (unlike his brother) does not explicitly favor stoning women to death but who would prefer to debate the issue, as a kind of moderate. Far more moderate than Hirsi Ali who opposes such things, certainly.
Here, I think, Paul Berman misses a great opportunity. He does not point out that the biggest mistake many of us make is thinking that Muslims are any more pious than anyone else. It seems to me that, based on the evidence Paul Berman himself provides in his book, Muslims are no more likely to make their day-to-day decisions based on their faith, than most Christians. Consider: if Muslim girls were as devout as so many Western intellectuals seem to assume they are, would they sneak even a peek at a book titled Infidel? And yet Paul Berman suggests that they do peek.
This is not the only argument I have with this book. The arguments I have with the book are, in fact, part of its charm. It is a book that makes you think. And, if only for that reason, I urge you to read it.
A very careful and meticulous analysis. May 13, 2010
Fouad Boussetta (Montreal, Qc, Canada)
31 out of 34 found this review helpful
A very careful and meticulous analysis, it is expanded from the author's June 4, 2007 "Who's afraid of Tariq Ramadan?" article in The New Republic.
The article, which is pretty long (I printed 37 pages), is available online for free if you want to check it out before you buy this important book.
Thoughtful and Well-Documented May 20, 2010
Cary B. Barad (Baltimore, MD)
21 out of 22 found this review helpful
You don't find many theoreticians, politicians or historians these days who are willing to challenge the conventional wisdom of left-wing European intellectuals--most of whom who appear consumed with their own rage and jaundiced viewpoints of the Middle East conflict, cultural antagonisms, and religious extremism. This fellow Berman convincingly skewers the proponents of one-sidedness and exposes their sneaky methods and hidden agendas. A surprisingly thoughtful, concise and well documented treatise.
Insight Into Islamo-fascism May 19, 2010
Ratonis (Lincoln, Nebraska)
15 out of 15 found this review helpful
In "Flight of the Intellectuals," Paul Berman presents an extensive critique of the thought of the Swiss philosopher Tariq Ramadan, and his kid-glove treatment by western intellectuals. The book is a trenchant exposure of Ramadan's tendency to speak out of both sides of his mouth, and the acceptance of violence as a political strategy, even among alleged "moderate" voices, that lies at the heart of the Islamist movement in Europe and America. Although Berman is cautious about giving credibility to the concept "Islamo-fascism," (he backs off from this), he nevertheless agrees that one can understand why people might want to use that phrase. He then unfolds, with wonderfully crafted prose, the very real fascist (specifically Nazi) influences on the Islamist movement since the 1930s down to the present day, and how accepting the alleged "moderate Muslim" Ramadan is of these principles.
The greater percentage of the book is a critique of Ian Baruma's article on Tariq Ramadan that appeared in the New York Times Magazine in 2007. This extensive critique of a specific writer discussing a leading Swiss Muslim philosopher illuminates Berman's assessment of western intellectuals' response to radical Islam, which he describes as "a coverage animated by earnest good intentions, but, then again, by squeamishness and fear. And by less-than-good intentions."
Berman clarifies the intellectual line of descent in Ramadan's thought from Hassan al Banna (Ramadan's grandfather)through Jerusalem's Grand Mufti Amin al-Husseini and Sayid Qutb. Berman challenges Ramadan to explain why he refuses to clearly reject the violent extremism of such figures, and why, when writing of them, Ramadan dances around such a lurid anti-semitism and exterminationist agenda as was embraced by the the Mufti. And why doesn't Baruma press the point while interviewing Ramadan for his NYT article? As far as Ramadan is concerned, Berman notes that Ramadan's whole intellectual tradition "is precisely the milieu that bears the principal responsibility for generating the modern theory of religious suicide-terror."
Along the way, Berman calls our attention to some promising further reading, most notably a novel by the Algerian writer Boualem Sansal entitled "The German Mujahid," translated into English from the original French in 2009. In Sansal's story, the sons of a former German SS officer who has moved to Algeria and converted to Islam, discover the truth concerning their father. The dramatic thread of the novel is rooted, significantly, in the harmonious relationship between Nazi anti-semitism and the officer's new Islamist version of the Muslim faith. The boys come to the "alarming recognition that Nazism and Islamism have something in common."
The ninth and final chapter of the book, which recapitulates the title of the book itself, is worth the price of the book (and it's expensive). In this chapter, Berman expresses moral outrage at the cowardly and twisted responses of western intellectuals to a woman of great courage and intellect--Ayaan Hirsi Ali. While Ramadan gathers sychophantic admirers among western intellectuals, Hirsi Ali's advocacy of womens' rights and individual liberty draws their scorn and ridicule, some of which is itself clearly sexist in nature. The intellectuals manifest a now-familiar guilt and disgust of their own western civilization, and seem to wallow in the "pleasure of self-hatred." Quoting Pascal Bruckner, Berman notes that "it is astonishing that sixty-two years after the fall of the Third Reich and sixteen years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, an important segment of Europe's intelligentsia is engaged in slandering the friends of democracy."
Berman expresses the view that the Salman Rushdie affair has now "metastasized into an entire social class. It is a subset of the European intelligentsia--its Muslim free-thinking and liberal wing especially, but including other people, too, who survive only because of bodyguards and police investigations and because of their own precautions. This is unprecedented in Western Europe since the fall of the Axis. Fear--mortal fear, the fear of getting murdered by fanatics in the grip of a bizarre ideology--has become, for a significant number of intellectuals and artists, a simple fact of modern life." Thus it is that western intellectual life is threatened by the intellectuals themselves, who refuse to discuss or even acknowledge "the Nazi influence that has turned out to be so weirdly venemous and enduring in the history of the Islamist movement."
This is a book that should be on the recommended reading list of college students throughout America. But I wouldn't hold my breath on that, for that would require courage far beyond the conventional "multiculturalist" bromides that now put them to sleep.
***** July 6, 2010
ButlinsSeltaeb (USA)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
A brilliant book. Berman obviously read reams of books and publications when researching this book, and he distilled the essentials from all his research into this intelligent and often gripping analysis. It was a major eye-opener for me. For one thing--among many eye openers--I never before knew that the mufti of Jerusalem during WW II, Haj Amin al-Husseini, actually persuaded the Nazis not to free thousands of Jewish children that they were set to free, and insisted the children be killed instead. And because of al-Husseini's intervention, those children were sent to the gas chamber. What's more, after being freed from prison in France after the War, al-Husseini was welcomed in Cairo as a hero! (With info like that in this book, be sure that the one-star review I see below--and any that will follow--tells more about the reviewer than it does about this book!) A fantastic book. P.S. Paul Berman answered the critics of this book in an editorial in the 7/10/10 WSJ. Visit link to read it: [...]
Showing reviews 1-5 of 15
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