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| Critiquing Orientalist Perceptions |
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By Mohammad Zahid
mohammad.zahid@newcivilisation.com
Research student looking into economic and political reform in the Middle East | |
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'The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the public alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary' (H.L. Mencken, 1923)
The BBC documentary 'The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear' aired in the United Kingdom during November 2004 was a fascinating insight into the rise of fear as a political tool and source of manipulation. According to the documentary, the failure of American liberalism during the 1960s and 1970sand decreasing American state legitimacy drove the search for new avenues to restore power and authority. Instead of delivering dreams, politicians began to promise protection from nightmares in order to derive much-needed legitimacy. In the past, the Soviet Union was labelled as the nightmare to be fought against through state knowledge and power. Post September 11th, a new nightmare shaping fear and driving US foreign policy emerged packaged in the form of 'Islamic Fundamentalism'. The need to fight 'Islamic fundamentalists' for the sake of national security and world peace has become a predominant preoccupation.
What has become increasingly apparent, however, is that certain intellectual perspectives towards Islam and the Middle East are driving the discourse. After a subdued role in the public arena during the 1990s, Orientalist perspectives of Islam and the Middle East have re-surfaced, contributing to the construction of another perceived nightmare from which people need rescuing and saving.
Orientalism: Study and Approach
According to the Oxford English dictionary (1971), the word Orientalism was generally used in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to refer to the work of the Orientalist, a scholar versed in the languages and literatures of the Orient (Macfie, 2002). Toward the end of the eighteenth and the first quarter of the nineteenth centuries, the word began to acquire and reflect an alternative meaning, which coincided with British colonial rule and governance in India. Orientalism in the British tradition was used to refer to or identify a 'conservative and romantic' approach to the problems of government, faced by the officials of the East India Company in India (Mackenzie, 1995). This understanding and perception of Orientalism dominated minds and official political thinking during the epoch mentioned and was viewed as providing a much needed insight into the culture, behaviour, traits and mannerisms of the Orient, so that the Occident could attain a better understanding of far-off societies and civilisations. This rather abstract approach and study towards the Orient came into question during the period of de-colonisation that followed the end of the Second World War (1939-1945). Previously considered a neutral discipline, Orientalism began to attract suspicions of cynicism and subjectivity in its approach towards the Orient. This new attitude towards Orientalism turned this approach into a fiercely contested word within the world of academia. After recognition as a scholarly tradition, concerned with the study of the Orient, its approach was now found to be rather biased, touching upon negativism - some even suggested a hint of racism - as it consistently concluded that non-western civilisations (Orient) were inferior and mediocre in contrast to the superior and more advanced Occident (Sardar, 1999). More specifically, the culpability for this inferiority and backwardness was placed upon Oriental cultures and values. According to Orientalism, these values had effectively chained and subdued societies, preventing them from progressing and engaging in the process that drove the 'Enlightenment' and Reformation in the Occident, which consequentially gave birth to capitalism and the liberal ideology, laying the foundation for the scientific and industrial revolutions that followed (Said, 1978). In essence, according to the Orientalist perspective, the internal configuration and orientation of such societies was the underlying dominant causation behind their deterioration and decline (Roy, 1994).
Scholars such as Anouan Abdel Malek, an Egyptian sociologist, Abdul Latif. Tibawi, a Palestinian scholar of Arab history, Bryan S. Turner, a leading English sociologist and Edward W. Said have provided scholarly critique of Orientalism, associating it with imperialism. Edward Said's book 'Orientalism' exposed the inherent perceived prejudices towards Arabs and Muslims in the works of leading writers and intellectuals who would class themselves as Orientalists. He argued that the portrayal of the Orient in novels and other published material in Europe and America was intended to provide the legitimacy for colonialism. This line of argument was reinforced in Said's later books, such as 'Culture and Imperialism' and 'Covering Islam' (Othman, 2003). However, this refutation of Orientalism did not go unchallenged, with Orientalists launching a defence of their approach against the aforementioned academics. Rather than delving into the numerous arguments posed by the advocates and opponents of Orientalism, my article aims to provide an insight into the re-emergence of Orientalist perceptions of the Middle East post-9/11. I also intend to provide an intellectual framework for a constructive discussion and debate about the way forward for the Middle East from the predicament it is in today. Problems exist in all states, whether the problems are related to social relations, economics, or politics and the Middle East is no exception; it deserves objective analysis, approach and study in order to understand the truth of the situation.
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