Jordan and Invented Nation

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136 Reviews

editors cam e from foreign missionary schools, theimpact of theWest on these journals

goes largely unexamined. There

is

little comparison with British

and

American periodicals,

although

we are

told that editors borrowed from them.

The

West

is

largely identified with

the

suffrage movement, despite

the

fact that Western wom en's jou rna ls often focused

on the

same

issues

as did

those

in

Egypt: domestic science, girls' education, h ealth,

and

enhanced mother-

hood. More comp arisonn ot only with Western journa ls but also with those of countries

suchas Japan which were also trying tocomb ine reforms without W esternization wou ld

make Baron's argument stronger. If these journals were unusual,as shesuggests, thesecom-

parisons would confirm their originality.

Another consideration isthe qualityof thewritinginthe journ als.The argument that these

journalshad an impact might have been more convincing had Baron dealt with theskillof

the journalists in making their points.Theideas are considered collectively, sothat thereis

not much senseofwomen's individual argumentsorabilities.Theperiodicals, then,areseen

as historical testimonies to an era but of no particular lasting literary heritage. Thismay not

reflect

the

author's final judgm ent,

but the

quality

of the

periodicals

is

left open

to

question.

These qualifications aside, Baron hasgiven us a well-documented and very readable book.

The notes areextensive, butthere is nobibliography. A bibliography would have been help-

ful,

particularly one that contained alisting of thetitles of theperiodicals and their datesof

publication toillustrate their rangeandfragility ofpublication. This book willbe animportant

addition to Middle Eastern history collections and to international women's history, for it

documents women's participation in an era generally overlooked. Although the era 1870

1920

is

often seen

in the

West

in

terms

of the

suffrage mov emen t,

TheWom en s Awakening in

Egypt reminds

us

that

the

international women's movement

for

educational

and

domestic

re-

form

was far

broader. Further, Baron reminds

us

that Egyptian women took

an

active role

early

in the

process

of

Middle Eastern change.

SCHIRIN

H.

FATHI,Jordan An Invented Nation? Tribe-State Dynamics

and the

Formation

of

National Identity,

Politik, Wirtschaft

und

Gesellschaft

des

Vorderen Orients (Ham burg:

Deutsches Orient-Institut, 1994).Pp. 296.

REVIEWED

BY

MICHAEL

R.

FISCHBACH,

Department of History Randolph-Macon College

Ashland,Va.

The dramatic events

in

Jordan within

the

past

ten

yearseconomic problems, disengage-

ment from

the

West Bank,

the 1989

riots, democratization,

the

Gulf

War and

peace with

Israelhave prompted Jordanians and outside observers alike to probe into thenatureof

Jordanian society, politics, and national identity as the country moves intoa new era. Jor

dan An Invented Nation? Tribe-State Dynamics and the Formation of National Identity

stems from such probing. Itexamines the sociopolitical rootsof Jordan's political structure,

although notalw ays effectively.

The bookis the doctoral dissertation Fathi presented to theU niversity of Hamburg. This

in fact constitutes its major weakness:it was not reworked intoamonograph. Forinstance,

it contains the long sections defining terminology andoutlining so cial-science literatureon

tribal structures

and

governance that characterize

a

dissertation. These should have been

dropped altogether to allow a more specific focus onJordan.Nor do the chapters always

seem directly connectedto oneanother. A gain,anarrower focus onperhaps justone of sev-

eral main topics theauthor explores w ould haveled to a stronger work. There also is no in-

dex. These

are

typical

and

excusable features

in a

d issertation,

but

they should

be

addressed

when producing amonograph.
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vi ws 137

A political scientist, Fathi focuses on three main issues in the book: tribes and tribal

structures and how these have changed in Jordan, the relationship between the state and

tribes in Jordan, and the formation of identity in Jordan. To a lesser extent, she also discusses

democratization. The bulk of her discussion deals with the first of these issues. She states

that her goal is to challen ge the conv entional w isdom that Jordan's tribal popu lation is the

sole stable backb one of the regim e (p. 9). Fathi also aims to show that it was in fact the

regime that molded the tribes to fit its needs. To accomplish this, she applies elite theory to

examine the state and tribes, and the latter's changing roles over the course of modern Jor-

danian history.

Unfortunately, Fathi's focus on state and tribe suffers from an imbalance between back-

ground and analysis. Long sections on tribal structure and the socioeconomic factors leading

to changes in tribal structure, on the one hand, and on the establishment and consolidation

of the state, on the other, are not tied together well with detailed discussions which would

accom plish p recisely what Fathi seeks: namely, to discuss how tribe and state interact in order

to understand the tribes' role in Jordan's political structure. For this reason the work itself

does not quite deliver on its title: is Jordan an inv ente d nation, and what role do the state

and the tribes play in this invention?

Fathi's discussion of identity is structured better and therefore plunges quickly into the

heart of the matter. She discusses the question of the degree to which Jordanians have for-

mulated a national identity to augment their tribal identity. In this regard, she not only relies

on her earlier passages on changing tribal structures but injects the all-important question

of the Palestinians and Palestinian identity into her discussion (her dissertation was written

prior to the Israel-PLO accords). It is also in this section that she discusses the regime's

attempts to use democratization as the basis for the emergence of new national identities.

She concludes by asking rhetorically whether the political structure emerging from democ-

ratization is not in fact merely a new face on a politica l structure dee ply rooted in tradi-

tionalism (p. 239).

One problem that frequently presents itself in studies of Jordan, and one which sometimes

eme rges in Fathi's lengthy discussion of tribes, is the tendency to use the term trib es with

imprecision or to discuss the subject using ideal types. For exam ple, trib es and bed ou in

are not interchangeable terms in the Jordanian context. Even though Fathi draws attention to

this fallacy, she sometimes falls prey to it. In her discussion of the 1921 Kura rebellion, she

men tions that the bedouin are usua lly hostile to the concep t of centralized auth ority

(p . 91). Althoug h the Shurayd a family of the Kura district could be called a trib e (it was

a kinship unit), it was not a bedouin tribe. The distinction between settled tribes and bedouin

tribes is an important one, especially in the Jordanian context. Fathi should exert greater care

in discussing these distinctions and their impact on Jordanian politics. As for her ideal type,

the tribesman who is hostile to central authority, Fathi elsewhere discusses the degree to

which the bedouin did cooperate with the Ottomans and political authorities in both the

emirate and the kingdom. Clearly, bedouin did deal with centralized authority; how, when,

and why they did so remain important questions which must be approached carefully. As

Fathi herself notes in the case of the (non-bedouin) Shuraydas and in that of the

c

Adwan

bedouin revolt of 1923, the causes for these uprisings were far more specific than merely

generalized antipathy toward centralized government.

The reliance on ideal types and images creates other problems at times. In discussing the

Jordanian army and the role of tribes in it, Fathi asserts that the tribal popu lation was less

susceptible to revolu tionary think ing than its sedentary coun terpart (p. 133). When did this

quality emerge? Surely the

c

Adwan rebellion in 1923, which, as Fathi notes, was associated

with specific political deman ds for reform, indicates a tribal capab ility to articulate rev o-

lution ary dem and s. This may not be the type of radical politics she had in mind, but the


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138

Reviews

political quietude attributed to the bedouin needs greater clarification. The important eco-

nomic bases for bedouin loyalty to the army and the regime, as discussed by scholars such

as Tariq Tell, are vital for understanding this point.

Finally, Fathi could have improved her discussion of national identity by basing it upon

more solid data. Her manuscript relies largely on a small-scale survey carried out in northern

Jordan, press and secondary-source materials, and interviews w ith intellectuals and politicians.

But these sources cannot always support broad statements such as, integration into the na-

tional concept has taken place on a wide scale and . . . tribal and kinship ties remain strongest

within the social con text (p. 182). Basing their conclusions on election results and exit polls,

among other data, scholars such as Linda Lay ne and Abla Amawi have interpreted various par-

liamentary elections since the 1980s as ringing affirmations that family ties are still vitally im-

portant on the political level (some of this writing has dealt with the 1993 elections, which

occurred after Fathi's manu script was written). Fathi m ight also consider tempering statements

about the alleged impact of education and the media in fostering a Jordanian national

identity . . . [and] shared national culture and of the impact of midd le-class values upon the

rest of society (p. 167) unless she produces harder evidence to support this conclusion.

The issues Fathi explores in Jordan An Invented Nation? are important and worthy of

discussion. Her examination could be improved by greater precision and organization, and

the use of a greater array of sources and data, in order to avoid recourse to the time-honored

and sometimes inaccurate characterizations that she seeks to overthrow.

MICHAEL M. LASKIER, North African Jew ry in the Twentieth Century: The Jews of Morocco

Tunisia and A lgeria (New York: New York University Press, 1994). Pp. 414.

REVIEWED BY LAURENCE LOEB, Department of Anthropology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City

Although Jews first settled in North Africa more than 2,000 years ago, and the coming of Is-

lam found Jews well ensconced in urban and rural settlements throughout the region, his-

torical studies in English of North African Jewry are very few. Among the most important

are H. Z. Hirschberg's A History of the Jews of North Africa Daniel Schroeter's Merchants

of Essaouira: Urban Society and Imperialism in Southwestern Morocco 1844-1886 Norman

Stillman's

The Jews in Arab Lands: A History and Source Book

and

The Jews in Arab Lands

in Modern Times and Michael Laskier's previous study, The Alliance Israelite Universelle

and the Jewish Comm unities of Morocco: 1862-1962. None of these works examines in detail

the modern history of North African Jewry, and the recent social history of these communities

receives barely a glance. Thus, it was with considerable curiosity and great anticipation that

this reviewer began to read this work.

Laskier's book is a well-written, competent, and altogether interesting study. Aside from

brief discussion of the Spanish Zone of Morocco, the focus is limited to French-influenced

North Africa specifically, Algeria, Mo rocco , and Tunisia. Like the author's previous w ork,

this study is innovative in its use of sourcesnotably its extensive exploration of archival

materials and the judicious use of interviews, oral recordings, and biographical information.

The data are drawn largely from French and Jewish sources. Few indigenous Arab or Berber

sources are noted, and it is unclear whether they do not exist or were unavailable to the author.

Unfortunately, for this reader, the book's scope is considerably narrower than the title

imp lies. Laskier informs us in the introduction that he will end this po litica l history in the

1960s and that he intends to (1) pro vide a political textbook on North Africa's Jewish

comm unities, (2) present an in-depth analysis of three Third World Jewish comm unities,

their exposure to modernization, and the relations with Muslims and the European settlers,

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