IT may be argued that the term “Orientalism” may refer to the discovery, recording or imagining of the East by European travelers during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. More specifically, one important sense of “Orientalism” relates to that specific kind of distorted “Western literary discourse” about the East whether in prose or poetry. According to many post-colonial critics, the study of the East by numerous European travelers, anthropologists and writers during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries “paved” the way for its colonization by Western powers. Thus, as in the late Edward Said’s Book Orientalism (1978), the Palestinian-American author traces the creation of Western discourse about the West.
However, there is currently a similar “discourse” in the making which is about the West created by Middle-Easterners! It is a negative and hostile discourse against Western cultures and civilizations adopted earlier by Pan-Arab political writers and commentators during the 1950s and 60s. The revival of such anti-Western discourses in the Middle East “paves” the way for the spread of a culture of violence, hostility which is threatening to engulf our entire middle-eastern region. To face such escalating phenomenon there is really a need to launch a more effective international forum to address this problem because many middle-eastern local attempts seemed to have failed to do so!
Hostility toward non-Arab and non-Muslim cultures either through subjective and quasi-journalistic analysis of what happens in the middle-east or the continuation of biased Arab media coverage in the region creates a disastrous combination of violence and extremism. Though many pro-Western educated Arab intellectuals are still trying to spread the word of peace, cultural cooperation between East and West, nevertheless they continue to be targeted, discriminated against and robbed of their basic right of freedom of speech. The culture of fear, religious extremism and more frequently violent reactions to local events is basically a direct result of anti-Westernism.
It is not enough to once in a while hold a forum about inter-cultural dialogues between the East and West in the region attended only by audience of “experts” in the field. Open-minded and enlightened Western and Middle Eastern intellectuals can surely add a powerful drive to the process of democratization of the region. However, there is a need to “reach out” to the typical Middle Eastern communities and individuals and to analyze the primary causes for the apparent rise in extremism in our region. Poverty, lack of education, bad governing, unfair media coverage and weak local economies are only the tip of the iceberg and other causes of extremism need to be examined more closely.
For example, one other reason for the rise of hostility, violence, intimidation of cultural and racial minorities motivated by religious extremism in any human society is the lack of sufficient educational programs about the importance of “diversity.” Many if not most educational curriculums in the Arab countries covering subjects from primary to middle school continues to adopt conventional pedagogical techniques. A typical Arab educational institution may offer the most advanced and recent scientific curricula while at the same time maintain part of it to demonize the “other,” the non-Arab or non-Muslim and sometimes the Arab pro-Western intellectual. Even though many current day Arab societies are different from what they used to be during 1950s and 60s, however, due to many cultural reasons the “other” has always been associated with the West.
Dr Khaled Aljenfawi
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