Dueling Orientalisms

Libya flag seen during pro-Bahraini demonstration, Baghdad's Sadr city (Stringer Iraq/Courtesy Reuters, "After the Arab Spring on TheAtlantic.com," March 28, 2011, by Steven Cook, CFR Blog)

We have charges of Orientalism from all sides now, at least from the pundits.  Juan Cole notes that when he praised the translation of Thomas Jefferson into Arabic in a new edition, "Journalists [asked] me if there isn’t something Orientalist or imperialist about translating Americana into Arabic."  Cole responds, "translation of the great works of Western literature has been central to the Arab renaissance and modern Arab culture....  [Only] [w]ith the rise of Arab nationalism and Muslim fundamentalism from the 1950s forward, Washington was often seen as being on the wrong side of history by Arab authors, and that sentiment discouraged translation, especially of political thought." ("Thomas Jefferson in Arabic," 04/08/2011, by Juan Cole, Informed Comment)

Bernard Lewis, Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University, evidently "regards a dash toward Western-style elections, far from representing a solution to the region's difficulties, as constituting 'a dangerous aggravation' of the problem, and fears that radical Islamic movements would be best placed to exploit so misguided a move." (Abdurraham, below, citing "A mass expression of outrage against injustice," by David Horovitz, Jerusalem Post, 25 Feb. 2011)

Najla Abdurrahman compares the argument that Arabs are not ready for democracy because they are either tribal, responding to sub-national loyalties, or likely to be influenced by supra-national, pan-Arab loyalties, (or pan-Muslim, see the Libyan-Iraqi-Bahraini loyalty in the photo above) as reminiscent of the earlier Orientalists.  Abdurrahman notes, "The 18th century English Orientalist Sir William Jones, writing from British colonial India, once argued that 'a system of liberty, forced upon a people invincibly attached to opposite habits, would in truth be a system of tyranny'."  ("Libya: Making something out of nothing," by Najla Abdurrahman, Al Jazeera, 07 Apr 2011)

While Orientalism-bashing is a game that all can play (and have done so ever since Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 1979), it is hard not to share Abdurrahman's outrage. We tend to be willing to speak in the name of the masses, "the silent majority," and we tend to explain them in terms of the last uprising.  That is, the people are tribal; the people are given to extremism, etc.  The people are seeking what they say they are seeking might be another meta-narrative imposed from without. But at least it is one that takes what people are saying on the streets, on the walls, and on social media seriously.