I picked up this book because my much-abused players are now on the run, and a couple of their planned boltholes lie in and around the Middle East. I was also interested in seeing how the book integrated the new Mummy characters, and just to sate my curiosity about how White Wolf would do modern Islam and the politics of the region. From those in a hurry here are the ‘Coles Notes’ of my review:
1. No Mummy integration (and little on Egypt, making this book a very poor, dare I say ‘false’ addition to Year of the Scarab?).
2. Confusing mix of real Middle East scholarship with a horrifying amount of misunderstandings. I say ‘horrifying’ because while a game book should never be taken as a reliable source on anything real, the fact that it mixes cultural stereotype with real cultural understanding lends credibility to the stereotypes.
3. The art is, in a word, disappointing. Would it have killed anyone to give us an example of women without chadour (the full-length body covering infamous to media stereotypes) who weren't being ripped apart by zobies or any examples of the kufic script?
4. A mechanics-kludge grab-bag of stuff that harkens back to the “supernatural ethnic group” horror that was WOD: Gypsies.
End result – AVOID AT ALL COSTS and maybe White Wolf will decide to let it rot and die forgotten somewhere.
That said the book is not without nice touches, really good scholarship/lived cultural experience and intriguing tidbits (all of which is in the second chapter of the book). The book, like the Western view of the Middle East itself is a frustrating mix of truth and fiction – Orientalism and counter-Orientialism all in one book
I should first point out (especially if Lucien, Mustafa or another White Wolf staffer is about to comment) that I do acknowledge that the bulk of the book was written by Mustafa Bashir and I’m not necessarily saying I know more about the Middle East than he does (but there is one very sore spot that I will challenge later in this review). I’ll also point out my academic and personal perspective – I do not follow any of the faiths of the Book (Judaism, Christianity or Islam), I have studied the Middle East in the context of Orientalism, and from the context of gender and the role of women in the Middle East. I am not from the area, but do follow events as best I can. I do have opinions about the topic of Israel but they do not have any bearing on this review or the book itself (since Israel plays only a bit part in the whole book and never involves itself in any great detail into the issue). I am also familiar (in passing detail) with what is written in the Qur’an and the history of Islam in the region.
The cover is a Saudi or Bedouin man with two scimitars playing Veg-o-matic while a woman (white, Israeli? Or simply Western?) stands above him doing her best Tomb Raider impression, in the background are a group of cheering men (probably Bedouins from their dress) and a camel standing on a sand dune.
Why am I getting a VERY bad feeling about this book?
The book opens with a letter written in a very small, cursive font on a greyscale background – not the most readable by many (but by dint of my experiences living through the horrors of Creedbook Judge and my good eyesight I was able to manage). Not great but passable.
Prologue – Dirge for the Living
I thought this was by far the best piece of opening fiction, despite the spotty use of repetition in the beginning. This one bit (the choice a Palestinian kiswah between his political brotherhood or his new ‘higher’ calling) was amazing, and very indicative of the sorts of confrontations and crises faced by the Imbued in that particular region. It also immediately sets out the ‘Israel’ issue up front and then moves on.
Chapter 1 – In the Mind of Arabs.
A daunting, and troubling, title to be sure. This is the introduction, and it is at this point that the reader starts to notice what will be an ongoing conflict in this book – the “just like us” narrative versus the “exotic, different, alien” of Orientalism. The chapter tries to explain that everything we see about the Middle East (here ‘outside’ the Middle East) is filtered through a nasty concept called ‘Orientalism’ – Orientalism is very complex idea to really get your head around but the basic of it is this: Europe (and the West) are the pinnacle of development, Middle East is therefore ‘backward’ and yet fascinating and threatening in our construction of it as the “other” – which makes it both ‘sexy’, ‘pitiable’ and ‘dangerous/hostile’. For more about how this was constructed please go read Edward Said’s book of the same name – it’s big and really really academic (ie. great sleep-aid) but explains it all in exacting detail.
The chapter goes on to dispel all the typical stereotypical myths – not all Middle Eastern people are Muslim or Arabs, not all Muslims are of ‘one’ political or religious mindset, and explains that terrorism is a small, very public and very embarrassing bit of the culture (think of how Americans hate being stereotyped by the movies they make or the people they elect to speak for them). The book, however, goes on to make some of these very same mistakes. It was then that I realized that the book was a bit schizophrenic – it couldn’t make up its mind to be a regional sourcebook, a cultural one, or an ethnic or a religious one. This is perhaps the root of all my criticisms and all the problems with this book – by trying to cover culture, Islam, geography, and politics all at once, in a 120 page book, by sheer necessity you are going to make Orientalist inferences that ethnicity is religion, religion is politics and that politics is geography.
All the chapters begin with a quotation from the Qur’an (the Koran) and in fact borrow heavily from Islamic images for their titles – a prime example of the inconsistency between “the Middle East is diverse” and “Middle East is Islam”.
For those who want a more diverse view I recommend reading a lot more than just the materials listed in the bibliography section, try to get either anthologies/collections of essays, or at least really well-known native academics. I’d recommend this for anyone wanting to know about a region of the world you are not familiar with, but with Orientalism at work it’s an absolute necessity.
Chapter 1 – In Allah’s Home
An introduction to the Middle East WoD . The chapter covers a lot, but nothing in great detail. The chapter is done in narration format by a pretty diverse lot of perspectives including a couple of previous Hunter.net posters, one or two European expatriates who live in the area, and a range of political perspectives (on the Hunt, among other things). The result is confusing at times, but at least doesn’t devolve into the flame wars of past Hunter books. There is also a quick and dirty lexicon supplemented by other definitions and translations for individual words where and when they pop up in the text.
The generally Arabic (word chosen deliberately) Imbued consensus names themselves the kiswah, those who protect and “cover” (the origin of the term) the region from the harm imposed by the akhira (supernaturals). They base all aspects of their Imbuing – the Messengers, Edges, social/ideological division,.etc – on Islamic terms and mythology. Therefore the monsters are links mytholgically to the evil peoples destroyed by Allah – the thirsty ones are Vampires, the jackal people are Shifters, etc. This gives their jargon a rich, colourful and a feeling of being very anchored to their region… which is both good and bad really when seen in the light of the overarching struggle with Orientalism.
Our hosts re-explain (IC) the misconceptions that Western characters may have about the Middle East. They explain the term Arab (only to ignore the distinctions made and continue to use the term indiscriminately), religion (which is good, better than most quick synopsis, but omits anything but the three main divisions of Islam, Christianity and Judaism, a really brief summary of the region, each country covered by a single narrator (for ease of reading) and outlining the politics, history, culture, safe spots and supernatural threats in the area. For the most part the regional stuff is well done and meshes existing WoD changes (like the treatment of Jordan) with real life politics. My one lingering problem is with tying Saddam Hussein too closely to obvious supernatural evils. The best treatment is, in my opinion, Iran, with Syria and Lebanon coming close 2nd. Kuwait and Jordan get almost nothing, and continuing with the arbitrary set of definitions about the Middle East we do not get much on Turkey, and of the more northern or northeastern countries beyond Iran and Iraq, and nothing west or South of Egypt. There is also a lack of talk about Algeria or Morocco, or Tunisia or Libya – regions which share much of the heritage and stereotyped images with the described nations.
I’m going to say just a couple of things about the Judaism entry. First there are three commonly accepted types of Jews, only two of which are mentioned – the Ashkenazi (who originate from North America and Western Europe), the Sephardic (Eastern Europe, the Baltics and beyond, this is a relatively new term and not used by most Middle Eastern scholars who only make the distinction between Ashkenazi and Mizrahi) and the missing one (and this omission makes me uncomfortable for its implication) the Mizrahi – meaning those Jews from the Middle East and North Africa (who may be ethnically Arab, or Sudanese, Ethiopian, Kurdish, etc). These three types have (generalized) different histories and experiences with oppression (from historical to ongoing modern ones, especially in the case of the Mizrahi) and therefore have differing politics and cultural traits (the Ashkenzai for example, are the most ‘Western’ and also control much of the upper levels of Israeli society). The write-up does do an excellent job however, tracing the origins of the term Zionism as it relates specifically to the history of the area (ie. it is not a product of World War 2 but dates back a century or two earlier, back to the British Empire).
By the way – there is no mention of the Amenti (Mummies) in the whole chapter, none.
Chapter 2 – By His Breath
This is where the narrators get into discussing themselves – their origins, their differing views of the Hunt (which they call the jihad – a loaded and misunderstood term in Western contexts). Big themes emerge here – the division between the Calling and mundane problems in the region, the conspicuous hole in regional history (the Time of Ignorance, ie. pre- and post-Roman and pre-Islam periods of history of which there is little recorded and what little there was fell victim to early Islamic conquests and censorship). Like all Imbued world wide there are the three classic divisions amongst the speakers – those who care little for the greater role and seek only to fight, those that are almost inactive in the jihad (so absorbed by their questions about their purpose) and those who seek to help the monsters (or at least make them less dangerous to humanity). What I hoped was only the usual artistic bias turned out to be written into fact (and reinforced later on in the rules section) – in the Middle East there are more Zealous (or in the ‘Fervent’) Hunters than Visionary or Merciful – the spectre of the bomb-throwing extremist isn’t far behind. The individual creeds themselves are named according to the pillars of faith mentioned in the Qur’an (another problem – since the author removes one of the original 7 creeds, makes no mention of Hermit/Waywards, and elevates the concept of jihad to one of the holy pillars).
There is also the introduction of a very interesting idea – the kufic Code. Much of Islamic art is decorated with very stylistic script. Kufic script is one of the ways of incorporating verses of the Qur’an into visual art (commonly found in mosques) – poetry for the eyes (in a matter of speaking). Anyway, the Imbued of the Middle East (Moslem or not) have learned to incorporate their own symbols into these pieces of art and use them to communicate each other. The faithful believe it is a gift from Allah – a sign that they are superior to the ‘chicken scratching’ Westerners, but to counter this there is a lovingly cynical and Orientalist counter-hypothesis by Violin99 (repeated by one of our narrators) that the Word is in fact of way of keeping the Evil in the Middle East in the Middle East – a theory which gives a much more sinister slant on the ‘Web of Faith’ mentioned in Mage and Mummy. The idea is great and highly evocative… and also completely devoid of examples in the book. We keep hearing how similar kufic script is to the Word, and yet how hard it is for Western Hunters to read the script (but once they learn it is as easy to use as the Word – so it doesn’t violate the core idea of the Word) – and yet we never see an example of this: not in the background of pieces or as individual examples themselves.
Chapter 3 – To Each His Gifts
This section talks about the akhira in detail – explaining the legends and why vampires et. al. are associated with their kiswah terms. The rest of the chapter is about Hunter life – notions of family, the eternal and universal conflict between the life before and the life after the Imbuing. Cultural traditions of family and obligation and faith also come up in ways never touched on in other books. Some hunters – the Bedu (Bedouin nomads of Saudi Arabia) for example expect their whole family – Imbued or not – to assist in the hunt. Think of this section as regionally flavoured amalgam of the same territory covered in every Creed book. It ends with a nice alternative way of looking at your character’s Creed and/or Nature (too bad it is never again mentioned) in the context of Bedouin animal myths (the Bedouin are essentially the “misunderstood, noble but oppressed, unconscious keepers of ancient lore” – sound familiar to anyone who has read WoD: Gypsies, at least they don’t have nifty powers all their own.
Chapter 4 – Brothers by Virtue
Here we get more detailed in-character discussion of the distinctions between Middle Eastern Hunters from the broad strokes of the Three paths to each of the individual ‘pillars’. The chapter also talks about the attempt at unity made at the Grand Convention (a meeting at which most of the kiswah debated and traded their experiences and perspectives – it didn’t take place in a single location, but was linked together by technological and Edge-like means (implying that Hermits do exist among the kiswah). It also discusses the obstacles impeding greater cooperation – things like borders, historical grudges, language, religious divisions (although only the internal Sufi/Sunni/Shiite Islam and the Israeli-Islamic Arab are really touched on). And then there is some discussion (divided by Virtue) about what the world will look like after the ‘end’ of the jihad.
I deliberately omitted the small section where they talk about women both in the context of Hunter society and normal society for a reason. Despite it being a fictional book, and despite the innate limitations of a first-person narrative, this section is ‘interesting’ – if interesting were to mean incredibly stereotypical and a-contextual. The book tries its best to explain that not all women are the hidden mysteries or the faceless demonstrators we see in movies and CNN – and it succeeds. But then when talking about women (and in the artwork) you are told that they are all veiled and oppressed (or else giving us images of veiled women carrying huge assault rifles – playing with the contrasting symbolism). The involvement of women in political activity – even religiously-themed activism is not in contradiction to the very rigid cultural role-traditions for men and women – it is simply seen as the natural extension of woman as protector of children and child of the motherland. It’s also a simple matter of basic pragmatism – rebels, terrorists and activists need as many people as possible, a bomb doesn’t care if its being carried by a man or a woman, and a bullet doesn’t care who it hits. Looking back over the book I notice that the bibliography doesn’t have a single book talking about the role of women in the Middle East – a glaring omission, especially if you are going to talk about female Hunters in the Middle East or try to dispel the stereotypes involving women and the Middle East. This is the section I hinted at previously in my introduction. I would rather people simply ignore this section altogether, do their own research, and go from there. There is really nothing of substance in this section (beyond the use of body art as a secret language) that is really useful by itself or as a bit of inspiration.
Chapter 5 – Allah’s Servants
The rules section. Here I start to get that horrible WOD: Gypsies feeling again – because things like the Kufic code and culture are given game mechanics. Instead of the code simply being a unique way of writing the Code there is 5 pages of game mechanics for it. And then because of the “every Hunter is a martyr” theme of the book there is an equally mechanistic arbitrary ban on the Martyr creed, complete with confusing rules on how non-Martyrs develop the Martyr edges (rules which break the Virtue/Edge rules from the main book – allowing you to buy Edges then cash them back in for others if they no longer fit your concept: a rule lawyer hole large enough to drive a truck through, not to mention completely confusing and unnecessary, even if you want to play with the concept the rules as stated are unnecessary – just have non-Martyrs buy the edges the same way Western hunters get Edges from outside their Creed).
There is also talk about how to make your kiswah character – which instead of building on what has been produced in the previous chapter, or showing how to take universal themes such as tradition, family and faith and work them into the regional expressions of them, we get a politically correct version of the standard creation speech. There are also rules for Appearance (!) and Stamina, as well as typical Abilities your Middle Eastern character should have – notes on Expression (most characters should have at least one dot, since Arabs are so expressive) to Firearms (which states you should have no more than 1 dot, maximum, even if you have a character whose background is from the Syrian military – I guess even their best troops shoot worse than Darth Vader’s stormtroopers – an unnecessary, unrealistic and very ‘politically correct’ (in the derogatory sense) guideline – most Westerners, even Americans, have little or no training with firearms but I didn’t see such restrictions on them). There are similar guidelines (read: restrictions) on Backgrounds. There are acouple of new, culturally inspired Edges (which I’m torn about – I like the idea of new edges, but what are the writers implying? That somehow by sheer virtue of being born in a geographical area gives kiswah PCs access to a bunch of Islamic-inspired (even if you are Jewish or Ba’hai) edges? More of the same ugliness from Gypsies. There is also no discussion of the already developed idea that each Hunter has their own culturally and personality-inspired triggers for their Edges. The Edges themselves vary from the okay (get a snapshot of what’s happening beyond a solid object – classic X-Ray vision), to the complicated and Gypsy-like (a wardance only Bedouin get that adds Convicion and Willpower to the participants in a confusing mechanic-kludge system), from the underpowered (a level 2 Edge that duplicates a limited form of the Iron Willed background from Creedbook Defender) to the overpowered (Obfuscate 5 and Visionary 5, both as level 3 Edges).
Chapter 6 – A Brave New World
A fittingly ironic title for the book, if not just the chapter on Storytelling. It covers (in brief detail) stuff like not putting computer shops in your small refugee villages and details like the lack of snow in the area (?!). Then we learn about how to use monsters in the Middle East (with a 1 paragraph half-rumour bone thrown to the whole Year of the Scarab thing), and how True Faith (or as the kiswah identify it, Al Ha’it) works. It also introduces to us a ‘secret police’ that was never mentioned in the narrative section – a sort of internal group of judges who go around testing the kiswah and killing those who fall from the path (which path?) – they work in cells, use targeted terrorism, and are loyal to a greater goal… and I thought we were trying to get AWAY from the racist stereotypes here? There is enough internal conflict plots just using nationalism, family, and religion alone, add to it the 3 perspectives and the 6 ‘pillars’ (just like in all the other Hunter games) and you have enough to run on – the tired old “secret internal guiding force” is overdone and something that has been downplayed in recent White Wolf games – that it exists amongst the newest of PC types in one region is really annoying. One more sour note amongst many. The back has a couple of NPCs – including a couple of our NPCs (the head of this secret police, the anti-westerner fundamentalist and the Mad Arab, such nice, modern concepts).
General Comments – the Art.
More of the same – violent, big guns, lots of machismo. It would be the usual biased and non-representative art if it didn’t also try and represent Arabs - all women are covered or in shadows, all men have the head coverings more common to Saudis than anyone else, none of the kufic script anywhere. Looking at it you’d almost choke on your own laughter reading the “trying to dispel the stereotypes” speech back in the introduction – these are scenes from a bad 80s Hollywood action movie. Where are the Innocents, or the Visionaries? Hell, where are the real Arabs? The real Berbers? The real Bedouin?
Conclusions.
I started this book and this review trying to be nice and understanding, trying to like the book and believe its “realistic portrayal of the Middle East in the World of Darkness” – except that it doesn’t show that. Mr Bashir cannot mesh his obvious good grasp of the real Middle East (as evidenced by the detail and care taken in the first two chapters) with the concepts and themes of WoD and Hunter (the rest of the book). Its schizophrenia over region vs ethnicity vs religion just makes it more of the same when it comes to standard stereotypes about Arabs, Islam and the Middle East. If it’s about the Middle East then where are the non-Moslems and the non-Arabs (and countries like Algeria), if it’s about Arabs where are the non-Moslem Arabs? Where are the Arabs who live outside the Middle East (can they use the kufic script? Do they get the funky Edges?)? And if it’s about Islam where is the rest of the Islamic world, why is it so focused on a handful of countries? In short it states that it wants to do everything, but ends up doing nothing. If anything it reinforces stereotypes and myths rather than dismantling them. And it fails as a Year of the Scarab book – it has little or nothing to do with Egypt, or Mummy the Resurrection.
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