Books we're reading this month

Public Administration in Palestine Past and Present by Usamah Shahwan (University Press of America, 2003)

Palestinians have been particularly poorly served by their administrators as evinced by this very focused historical study by Shahwan, a professor of public administration at Bethlehem University. "The ideology of administration," he writes, "in this part of the world has been an ideology of domination rather than of development."

Interests other than providing services for the people have governed both Arab and non-Arab administrations for the last hundred years. First, there were the Turks governing from far-away Constantinople and then the Brits, who governed from far-away London. Shahwan shows that both empires ruled through military authoritarianism and colonial selfishness at the expense of the well-being and development of the indigenous population. Britain's flaunting of League of Nations conventions during its Mandate period led directly to Israel's disregard for the United Nations. Jordanian rule over the West Bank and Egyptian rule over Gaza before 1967 were also directed towards self-serving ends and not the needs of the Palestinian population.

Finally, Shahwan devotes the majority of this brief but highly informative book to the Palestinian Authority (PA) government's failure to provide the administrative leadership and care that its people require. Shahwan describes the PA as a corrupt institution where nepotism is "rampant," leading to highly under-qualified personnel being given important positions, and where competition for foreign assistance saps away resources that could be used to help the population. Shahwan concludes with many recommendations, but the picture looks bleak as the necessary reforms can only be enacted by those who benefit from their absence.

-Chris LaVigne <clavigne@republic-news.org>

Speaking Out: Ideas that work for Canadians by Jack Layton (Key Porter Books, 2004)

No one seems to have told Jack Layton, new leader of the federal NDP, that most Canadians don't read books, which means a book can only be written with a small elite demographic in mind. This book is aimed at the average Canadian, on the other hand, who will never know of its existence, and which makes it virtually unreadable by those Canadians who actually read books.

-Kevin Potvin <kpotvin@republic-news.org>

Weapons of Mass Persuasion: Marketing the war against Iraq by Paul Rutherford (University of Toronto Press, 2004)

This book is way better in concept than it is in execution. That's too bad because if the concept had fallen to another author, or if Rutherford took the subject matter a bit more seriously, a persuasive case could have been made between its covers for showing how the Americans out-Nazi-ed the Nazis. Still, this book does provide a concentrated contemplation upon the marketing effort behind the war, throwing each unfolding event into a completely new light. I want to ask Rutherford what to make of the release of photos showing Americans torturing Iraqis.

-Kevin Potvin <kpotvin@republic-news.org>