Myths of the Middle East

By Jim | May 1st, 2008 | No Comments

Myths emerge from interpretations of material events and realities that circulate, proliferate, and then accrue certain power and authority. This Saturday at Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, Arizona, Shannon O’Grady and Jim will introduce the book to another group of readers. Myths have been on our minds of late, as they’re pretty much impossible to escape when following the endless cycle of news about the Middle East, most of it flavored with the familiar taste of gloom and doom.

Consider some of these that have become well-worn in recent years (recent decades? recent centuries?):

Myth: Hatreds in the region are ancient and irreversible (e.g., Shia vs. Sunni, Jew vs. Arab).

Myth: People there are destined to misery; fatalism is an inherent cultural condition of the people for good reason.

Myth: Violence is endemic–cultural practices like Ashura being read exclusively as evidence of this claim; human rights are an afterthought but not desired by people of the region.

Myth: Religion is the prime mover, the root of “it all” and always a plausible explanation for a crisis or conflict situation (rather than other explanations–economics, colonialism/history, globalization, politics).

Storytelling has the capacity to speak back to generalizations of this sort. We believe stories that offer intimate portrayals of the people and traditions too often absent from books about this misunderstood region can work against some of the crippling effects of these myths.

I would also be naive not to mention that stories can have diverse effects, so that while some pernicious myths may be destablized others could be consolidated. Stories can even start their own new myths, I suppose. But what makes narrative so important seems to be the detail, the move out of abstraction and generalized assumptions, and into the quotidian, the everyday, the mundane. The human.

Come hear Shannon put a human face on Shia men and women through excerpts from her story of experiencing Ashura up close in Bahrain.

Saturday, May 3, 2:00 PM
Featuring Jim Bowman and Shannon O’Grady
Changing Hands Bookstore
6428 S. McClintock Dr., Tempe, AZ, 85283