142 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 21:3

Fear and Anxiety in the Arab World
Michel G. Nehme

Gainesville, USA: University Press of Florida, 2003. 200 pages.

The title is certainly catchy, as not much has been written on fears and anx-
ieties in the Arab world. Much, however, has been written on Muslims and
Islam post-9/11. While some writers genuinely try to understand the various
Islamic ideologies and Muslim cultures, others seek to paint a rather dim and
depressing picture of Muslim societies. This book attempts to describe
Arabs, as well as their fears and anxieties, in the garb of “interdisciplinary
research.” It is divided into seven chapters and contains a section on notes,
a bibliography, and an index. The chapters address issues related to Arab
politics (e.g., political identity, nationalism, and minority issues) and more
general areas (e.g., religion and Arab culture). The author is a professor of
political science and diplomacy at the Notre Dame University in Lebanon.

In the preface and opening chapter, Nehme introduces the growing
field of political psychology, which draws upon various psychological the-
ories to interpret human political behavior. Although he admits that the
best results can be obtained through collaborative research between
experts in each discipline, he dares to make an independent attempt to ana-
lyze Arab fears and anxieties from a Freudian perspective. 

The book’s first few pages are quite a turn-off, as many preposterous
statements are made. Playing psychologist, Nehme asserts that world
events are themselves natural experiments and, therefore, his assumptions
are “empirically based” (p. 2). He diagnoses the problem of violence
among Arabs as resulting from a “built-in consistency of anxiety” (p. 3),
“most Arabs no longer appeal to God … instead, they call on their govern-
ments for relief” (p. 4), “they are afraid of everything” (p. 7), “Arab men
are afraid that their wives will be sexually attracted to other men if they
leave home to work” (p. 8), and so on. He goes on to characterize suicidal
tendencies among Arabs as a “death wish” that is not new in Arab history,
as it develops their inner power … through acquiring weapons, and states



that “Arabs need enemies … otherwise they will destroy themselves!” (p.
18). The first three chapters are devoted to demeaning Arabs by using psy-
choanalytic jargon that is often unclear and confusing. 

Nehme is so fixated on Freud that, in chapter 4, he attempts to explain
Arab nationalism in Freudian terms. He states that nationalism’s central
concerns are “fear, anxiety, and the conceptualization of self” and that “the
great enigma that has to be accounted for once we find ourselves within
the imaginary representative is molten rock of the unconscious” (p. 61). In
simpler terms, he criticizes the Arab world’s lack of political development,
which became more evident after communism collapsed, and goes on to
blame Arab nationalism for divisions, sectarianism, and even Islamic fun-
damentalism in the Arab world, including Iran and Afghanistan. He claims
that Arab nationalism is, in fact, a myth, because of the Arabs’ diversity as
well as their ethnic, communal, regional, and religious disputes. Islamism,
on the other hand, is on the rise and is trying to replace Arabism as a polit-
ical ideology; however, Islamism is insufficient to redress valid solutions
and suffers from flaws similar to Arabism. 

Compelled to explain authoritarianism, ethnic and minority uprisings,
and religious fundamentalism in the Middle East, he opines that Arab fears
are like an “obsessional or paranoid system translated into methods where-
by normal feelings of sympathy are denatured, numbed, or killed so that
people can act with cruelty toward others. ... The victim is dehumanized,
being a source of fear, and converted into a subhuman; a despised animal”
(p. 86). This analysis of how Arabs treat minorities extends to almost all
political factions, religious groups, women, languages, and ethnicities. He
claims that almost all minorities in Arab states are considered alien in nation-
ality or origin. Nehme blames the Islamic view of nature that “does not
encourage a breakthrough to a modern scientific worldview” (p. 95) and its
“individualism” and “supernatural reliance” for Arab society’s delayed
growth. Although his criticisms of Arabs and Islam are free-flowing, his
assessment of the West’s role in Middle East politics is almost nonexistent.

Nehme contends that psychology, as a discipline, is “completely
ambiguous” in studying religion (p. 109), but continues to analyze Arab
fears in the realm of religion by referring to Freudian writings. He claims
that “kings and presidents in the Arab world have the power to act and
speak like gods, and they are obeyed as gods; ordinary people saying they
are gods are regarded as madmen and locked up in asylums, even when
they are harmless” (p. 111), and, on the other hand, that “Most Arabs’ con-
cept of God is never clear” (p. 121). The closing chapter mentions the value

Book Reviews 143



144 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 21:3

of empirical surveys; but, like earlier chapters, it draws on Freudian and a
few other psychoanalytic ideas to explain Arab self-image and culture. 

At least for the lay person, it is important to know that Freud’s work
was discarded by his own disciples due to a lack of objectivity in his theory
and an overemphasis on sexuality and aggression. Freud personally suf-
fered from the Oedipus complex and Nazi aggression that shaped his the-
ory of human nature. Much of what he wrote was based on his interactions
with a handful of young and upper-class European women, and so does not
necessarily pertain to people of other cultures. Even for people in the West,
Freudian theory is outdated and has been revised over the years by neo-
Freudians and modern psychoanalysts.

Nehme, being a political scientist, seems to be unaware of this and has
taken liberties in overgeneralizing aspects of Arab politics to the entire Arab
population. However, if one agrees with his premise that fear and anxiety
exist in the Arab world, one also would have to agree with his suggestion
that such a topic should be brought to center stage and studied from an
interdisciplinary perspective. Hopefully, this will result in a more objective
assessment of the situation and a positive outcome for the Arab people. But
this may also be true of many other cultures and societies in the non-Arab
world, including the West.

A review of the notes and references suggests that besides Freud and a
few other psychoanalysts whose writings are based mostly on western
experiences, some references are from “scholars” who have a reputation for
distorting the Arab image. What is truly regrettable is that such a book,
which is intent upon slandering and promoting ethnic stereotypes, gets pub-
lished without a proper check for academic honesty and by a press that is
run with the taxpayers’ money. 

Amber Haque
Department of Psychology, International Islamic University of Malaysia

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia