The opening of every Wikipedia article is supposed to provoke a neutral summary of the contents of the article. Here are the opening sections of three Wikipedia pages about books that violate this rule.
* “The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews is a book published in 1991 by the Nation of Islam. The book documents involvement of Jews in the Atlantic slave trade.”
The article is actually about a notorious, book-length, anti-Semitic canard. According to Henry Louis Gates Jr, this book is “the Bible of new anti-Semitism…. the book massively misinterprets the historical record, largely through a process of cunningly selective quotations of often reputable sources”.
* “The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering is a book published in 2000 by Norman G. Finkelstein, that argues that the American Jewish establishment exploits the memory of the Nazi Holocaust for political and financial gain, as well as to further the interests of Israel. According to Finkelstein, this “Holocaust industry” has corrupted Jewish culture and the authentic memory of the Holocaust. Finkelstein’s parents were both Holocaust survivors who had been inmates of concentration camps.
“The book was a bestseller in Europe, the Middle East and the Americas, and has been translated into 16 languages.”
Sadly, this opening is quite true. The book and the author are widely lionized. Of course, it is equally true and more significant to inform readers that this is a discredited, anti-Semitic and thoroughly unscholarly book. To discover this, however, you have to read to the bottomof the Wikipedia page. And even there, the section, titled “Reviews and critiques,” begins with an encomium by Noam Chomsky, another controversial figure.
* Orientalismis the 1978 book by Edward Said that has been highly influential in postcolonial studies. In the book, Said writes that “Orientalism” is a constellation of false assumptions underlying Western attitudes toward the Middle East. This body of scholarship is marked by a “subtle and persistent Eurocentric prejudice against Arabo-Islamic peoples and their culture.” He argued that a long tradition of romanticized images of Asia and the Middle East in Western culture had served as an implicit justification for European and the American colonial and imperial ambitions. Just as fiercely, he denounced the practice of Arab elites who internalized the US and British orientalists’ ideas of Arabic culture.
“So far as the United States seems to be concerned, it is only a slight overstatement to say that Muslims and Arabs are essentially seen as either oil suppliers or potential terrorists. Very little of the detail, the human density, the passion of Arab-Moslem life has entered the awareness of even those people whose profession it is to report the Arab world. What we have instead is a series of crude, essentialized caricatures of the Islamic world presented in such a way as to make that world vulnerable to military aggression.”
As usual, you have to read to the bottom of the page to discover the scholarly criticism that the book has been subjected to.
The proper Wikipedia procedure with controversial books like these is to include the word “controversial” in the opening paragraph, while giving a fair summary of the book, its contents, and why it is controversial. But some pages are ignored, and others so highly policed that balance and accuracy are kept off the page.
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When you say that “Sadly, this opening is quite true,” surely you do not mean this opening, do you? “American Jewish establishment exploits the memory of the Nazi Holocaust for political and financial gain, as well as to further the interests of Israel.”
Sorry about that confusion. I understand your meaning now. You mean that it is quite true that that (that first line) is indeed what the book is about. And that he is lionized is true as well, particularly by many Wikipedians. It is also true that the work is a “discredited, anti-Semitic and thoroughly unscholarly book” and further that it is thoroughly impossible to get a hearing for this at Wikipedia. In fact, it is virtually impossible use the word “antisemitic” about anyone’s words without getting drummed out by a huge crowd, including administrators, as if the sin is to speak its name, not the behavior. This may be true in part because of the large numbers of Europeans editing who fear prosecution for “hate speech.” Thus “hate speech” becomes more subtle, and we are more subtly insulted. We recognize this, but there is no redress for it at Wikipedia; and worse, the person who even mentioned “antisemitic” is likely to be chastened for having suggested it, no matter how egregious.
Take this article for example about the antisemitic musician Gilad Atzmon. First Line: “Gilad Atzmon (Hebrew: גלעד עצמון; born June 9, 1963) is an Israeli-born British jazz saxophonist, novelist and anti-Zionist political activist and writer.”[2][3][4][5]
Way down at the bottom of the page under a section called CRITICISMS is the line “Several of Atzmon’s statements regarding Jews and Judaism have led to allegations of antisemitism. In 2004 the Board of Deputies of British Jews criticized Atzmon for saying, “I’m not going to say whether it is right or not to burn down a synagogue, I can see that it is a rational act.”[59]
I apologize if my opening was unclear. Thank your for flagging the Atzmon article. Sadly, the Atzmon article is typical of the way that insignificant anti-Israel figures and their political allies use Wikipedia as a propaganda organ.