Rating: 
Summary: antihistorical
Review: For those of you not familiar with Edwards Said's unabashed support of terror groups AND getting caught in complete lies about his own privileged nonPalestinian background, do some research. This guy is not an authoritative source on anything. Sorry to have been force fed this book in class.Hes a charlatan only concerned about his own prestige.
Rating: 
Summary: A powerful study of ethno-national enmity
Review: For those who think post-modernism, post-colonialism, post-structuralism, and psychology are of only academic importance, think again. William Broyles writes, "War begins in the mind, with the idea of the enemy." It is interesting that both psychology and post-structuralism have arrived at a consensus on the way the American media and "the experts" are actively involved in creating and sustaining the image of Islam as a faceless enemy whom it may become necessary to exterminate. Said's analysis is interesting when read along with Noam Chomsky's book "Pirates and Emperors." Said studies the way the entire Middle East has been identified as a bunch of irrational, primitive, terrorists, while Chomsky studies the hypocrisy of the US's policy towards the Middle East: it's only "terrorism" if the other guy is doing it. Read John Mack's essay in the 1990 book "The Psychodynamics of International Relations" for a broad study of the psycho-cultural and psycho-political mechanisms at work in the construction of ethno-national enmities. It's absolutely FASCINATING. In identifying the Other as a threat, we create the mass-psychological preconditions for violence that, as Mack argues, "would never be acceptable on an individual level."
Rating:
Summary: Parochialism and Islamophobia
Review: Having lived in Sweden for ten years, I frequently meet people who are highly suspicious of Moslems. Needless to say, this unwarranted suspicion is primarily based on preconceived ideas, ignorance as well as parochialism. Swedish media often distort and misrepresent the facts in order to misinform and deceive the public. This is achieved by the media's subtle yet insidious allusions, which attempt to link Islam to terrorism and belligerence. Moreover, I have come across many Swedes who associate the oppression of women with Islam. Every time I meet a prejudiced person, I try to explain to him that Islam teaches piety, tolerance and equality among people of different races and religious convictions. Further, women are not considered inferior nor subordinate to men in Islam. Contrary to the popular belief in the West, Islam does not sanction torture of women who have been accused of adultery or infidelity. People who commmit these heinous crimes against women should be treated as individuals; the fact that they happen to be Moslems is completely irrelevant. These extremely atavistic and ignorant individuals wittingly misinterpret the Quaran so that their subjective beliefs are in accordance with the teachings of Quaran. However, the western media constantly attempt to link the oppression of women to Islam, which as we have seen is based on a deliberate distortion of the given facts. Also, the media almost exclusively use the word "terrorist" in conjunction with the word "Moslem". Attempting to establish a false connection between terrorism and Islam may in fact be detrimental and counter-productive for several reasons. First, it creates unnecessary suspicion but also tension between the members of Moslem community and Christians. Second, it amplifies and fosters the false conceptions of Islam in schools, labor market etc. Teaching people to be suspicious and fearful of Moslems on clearly false grounds is wrong and unacceptable. What people think has always been unimportant to me but it is difficult to remain indifferent when you are constantly subjected to derogatory and preposterous remarks about your religious conviction. Paradoxically it is often believed that westerners are very open minded and tolerant of other religions and races and surely many are. None the less it may come as a surprise to some that the intellectual communities are more prejudiced and islamophobic than the general population. Crucially, westerners fail to realize the fact that Moslems should not be viewed as a homogenous group; it would be a gross oversimplification and overgeneralization. Geographical and social differences must be taken into account before even attempting to view Moslems as a homegenous entity. There are large differences among individuals within the Moslem community, but this is common knowledge. Educated westerners should know this without my telling them; yet they continue to remain prejudiced and intolerant especially of Islam. This is a paradox as the primary objective of educating people is to obliterate prejudice and parochialism and to promote tolerance and open-mindedness. In this respect, western societies have failed. Thus the media in the west are biased, intolerant and anti-Islamic. Said's book should help explain why Islamophobia pervades our societies. Strongly recommended!
Rating:
Summary: Unmitigated Propaganda
Review: Here, as elsewhere in his writings, Edward Said has confused language with action. By that reasoning, if I were to say that there is peace on earth it would be the case. Or as Said puts it (p. 144) because certain socio-political-economic powers in the West have a vested interest in a certain image of Islam, "those sectors have the power to propagate THAT image of Islam". Thought thus becomes action. If I think it; it is so.Furthermore, by equating speech and action he has, in fact, denigrated both. I, personally, find many things Edward Said says about Jews in general and Israelis in particular offensive. I feel that by saying these ugly things he is drawing a false and mendacious picture of both. However, I do not feel that because he portrays Jews and Israelis as greedy, profiteering, colonizers, and in general very bad people, he is intent on the "conquest" (p. 172) of the Jewish people. Nor do I feel that I can equate terrorist acts with words as Said does in his Introduction when he states "Of course there have been suicide bombings and outrageous acts of terrorism, but have these accomplished anything except strengthen the hand of Israel and the United States?... [T]hey furnish an additional weapon in the contest to beat down, compel and defeat Arab or Muslim resistance..." (p. xxxv) In other words, on the one hand terrorist attacks are really just words by other means and on the other hand they are, in fact, agents of the Israelis, the Americans and the imperialist Westerners. Said contradicts himself but does not notice it-or perhaps cannot afford to notice it because any contradiction would bring his totalizing theory crashing down about his ears. For to Said, words are deeds and deeds are words. There is no difference between the two. But he does not ask if this logic means that all of us, including Edward Said, must immediately cease and desist from portraying a group-such as Jews, Arabs, Indians or Europeans-in an unfavorable light because there is no difference between speech and action. If we say or think or imagine a negative thing about any group we, by Said's definition "do violence" to that group. We are therefore (Said included) precluded from saying-anything at all.
Rating:
Summary: confuses words and deeds
Review: Here, as elsewhere in his writings, Edward Said has confused language with action. By that reasoning, if I were to say that there is peace on earth it would be the case. Or as Said puts it (p. 144) because certain socio-political-economic powers in the West have a vested interest in a certain image of Islam, "those sectors have the power to propagate THAT image of Islam". Thought thus becomes action. If I think it; it is so. Furthermore, by equating speech and action he has, in fact, denigrated both. I, personally, find many things Edward Said says about Jews in general and Israelis in particular offensive. I feel that by saying these ugly things he is drawing a false and mendacious picture of both. However, I do not feel that because he portrays Jews and Israelis as greedy, profiteering, colonizers, and in general very bad people, he is intent on the "conquest" (p. 172) of the Jewish people. Nor do I feel that I can equate terrorist acts with words as Said does in his Introduction when he states "Of course there have been suicide bombings and outrageous acts of terrorism, but have these accomplished anything except strengthen the hand of Israel and the United States?... [T]hey furnish an additional weapon in the contest to beat down, compel and defeat Arab or Muslim resistance..." (p. xxxv) In other words, on the one hand terrorist attacks are really just words by other means and on the other hand they are, in fact, agents of the Israelis, the Americans and the imperialist Westerners. Said contradicts himself but does not notice it-or perhaps cannot afford to notice it because any contradiction would bring his totalizing theory crashing down about his ears. For to Said, words are deeds and deeds are words. There is no difference between the two. But he does not ask if this logic means that all of us, including Edward Said, must immediately cease and desist from portraying a group-such as Jews, Arabs, Indians or Europeans-in an unfavorable light because there is no difference between speech and action. If we say or think or imagine a negative thing about any group we, by Said's definition "do violence" to that group. We are therefore (Said included) precluded from saying-anything at all.
Rating:
Summary: a brilliantly incisive work
Review: I have read much on Middle Eastern history and politics, particularly covering Iran, but in this work Said maps the convergence of media, politics, and racism with his unparalled intellectual rigor. It's been seventeen years since this book was first published, and we've yet to see fair, if not compassionate, reportage on the Middle East and Islam. I venture to guess Said's observations here will remain vital and provocative for many, many more years to come.
Rating:
Summary: AN Excellent book. It is simply a must read
Review: I highly recommend this book to both newcomers and experts in Islam. Edward Said analyses, rather brilliantly, the way Islam is covered in the West in general. He unveils the clumsy way Western media reports on Islam. It is shocking to see that the pattern of bias which existed when the book was first written in the eighties is still the same (or worse). Indeed even some famous media persons he mentions in the book are still making the same allegations and gross generalisations in the aftermath of September 11th. He is perhaps the most qualified scholar to write on the subject. His previous book "Orientalism" remains the paramount work in the area.
Hope you will enjoy it.
Rating:
Summary: Weak Propaganda At Best
Review: I was forced to suffer through this rubbish in a college class. This book is merely propaganda packaged under a thin dust jacket of objectivity. The arguments are weak and contrived. Said seems to be just another appologetic for Islamic barbarism. The very premise for the book seems irrelevant -unfair potrayal of Islam in the western press. It's the very typical "don't believe what you see, believe what I say" sort of drivel that only appeals to mindless drones in dusty lands.
Rating:
Summary: Covering Islam
Review: In this landmark work, for which he has written a new Introduction, one of our foremost public thinkers examines to origins and repercussions of the media's monolithic images of Islam. Combining political commentary with literary criticism, Edward Said reveals the hidden assumptions and distortions of fact that underlie even the most "objective" coverage of the Islamic world. In so doing, Covering Islam continues Said's lifelong investigation of the ways in which language not only describes but also defines political reality
Rating:
Summary: Covering up on Islam?
Review: Is this what the author is suggesting? Covering up on the crimes committed in Moslem countries. This cover up is indeed practiced by the media. Since the sixties, more than 1.5 million Christians were killed in the Southern Sudan, and this genocide is till now well concealed from world public opinion. But the book is not satisfied with that. It urges the media to explain away terror, bigotry, and racism if they occurr in the Moslem world. He also wants the media not to report on the mysogenic attitude in Moslem societies. Is it not the moral duty of a fair journalist to report on the mistreatment of women in the Arab world, on their genital mutilation, their inferior status? The pity is that if what the author recommends is adhered to, more suffering will occur in the Arab world.
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