Dreams And Shadows by Robin Wright

From The Week of February 13, 2011

While freedom is the birthright of all intelligent beings, it is, in some parts of the world, a right rarely practiced or protected. Though there are many different superficial reasons for this most grievous oversight, there is, to my mind, only one root cause, instability. It can corrupt political systems, corrode economic practices, and destroy societal norms, all this while flowing effortlessly across national borders. After all, what are the odds that country A remains a peaceful, neutral, multicultural, economically viable state while country B, with whom it shares a border, descends into violent, chaotic, despotic conflict? Poor, to say the least. And yet this is the Middle East, a collection of re-drawn nations whose populations know only colonialism and authoritarianism, where, for the last 50 years, instability has had its AK47 pressed to the sweaty temple of intellectual and scientific enlightenment. Find peace in that...

Ms. Wright, a veteran, American journalist, has travelled to, and clearly spent a great deal of time in, the Arab world. Dreams And Shadows is as much a distillation of those many adventures as it is a political and historical primer for the region, its many states, its violent regimes, its savage politics, and its heroic dissidents. From the hama Massacre in Syria to the most recent flare-up between Israel and Lebanon, she covers, here, many of the region's key events, painting a 30 year picture of political and religious extremism and the extent to which brave souls, armed with nothing more than their minds and their courage, have tried to stanch it. Iran's zealousness, Syria's ruthlessness, Egypt's corruption, Lebanon's sadness, and Morocco's darkness all play prominent roles here, illuminating, for those of us lucky enough to know stability, what it's like to live in a world where hope can be so easily and cruelly snuffed out.

This kind of sweeping narrative can be prone to generalizations, as the author's mind, built to seek out patterns, tries to make all the pieces fit. But Ms. Wright does an admirable job of steering clear of grand pronouncements, substituting them for descriptions of the events she's seen and the meetings she's had, with the oppressed and their oppressors. I found her succinct characterization of the 2006 Israeli-Lebanese war particularly revealing. The only major flaw here is the necessarily inconsistent approach Ms. Wright has taken with each of her national subjects. In Lebanon, much of the conversation is taken up with its leaders, while elsewhere the action is focused on beleaguered dissidents trying to overthrow their jailers. But I imagine this to be a largely unavoidable consequent of following the story. One can only talk to people who will talk to you... Excellent, sobering, enlightening, and especially relevant in the light of the Arab Spring. In this, it is far more prescient than dated. (4/5 Stars)