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Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemiesby Ian Buruma, Avishai Margalit |
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This "grandly illuminating study of two centuries of anti-Western ideas" (Foreign Affairs) traces the historical roots of a virulent set of stereotypes about Westerners and the West, a cluster of notions and prejudices that Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit call Occidentalism. The path does not lead back to Islam but, in fact, back to the West itself. From nineteenth-century Germany and Russia to twentieth-century Japan, China, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East, Buruma and Margalit track the spread of these noxious ideas. Drawing on their formidable range and gift for synthesis to place modern terrorists in a long continuum of enemies of Western liberal society, Buruma and Margalit have written a book of extraordinary clarity and wide-ranging relevance.
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Superficial -  |
Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies Review |
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Occidentalism as defined by the authors is the dehumanizing picture of the West painted by its enemies (Islam, Japan before WW II).
Occidentalists see the West as the root of all what they consider as `evil': industrialization, capitalism, economic liberalism, the Enlightenment, tolerance, the separation of Church and State, rationalism, science, democracy, individual freedom, secularism, cosmopolitanism. In their analysis, the authors fail to take into account a crucial factor in the history of mankind: power. All the described `evils' of the West are in fact frontal attacks on those in power in the Orient and on their social and ideological power base. Occidentalism as defined in this book is nothing else than a counter-attack, a self-defense of the all powerful in the Not-West. Heroic sacrifices, like kamikaze attacks or suicide bombings, are not for the members of the power top, but for commoners (see the remarkable movie `The Ants' by Kaoru Ikeya). By the way, `power' is another word for `survival'. As an example, the average lifespan at the beginning of the 20th century of `The People of the Abyss' ( a slum in London described remarkably by Jack London) was 29 years. This book stresses also the antagonism between the habitants of the `Sinfulle Citie' (E.J. Burford) and the rural population. But the cities developed because of the huge inflow of rural people searching for food and work (survival). This book is also partly out-of-date. It accepts uncritically the highly controversial official version of the 9/11 events. The Taliban were created by the West and continue, at least partially, to collaborate with western secret services. For the murder of W. Rathenau, see W. Engdahl. For the history of the Third Reich see G.G. Preparata. This book has not the high standard of Ian Buruma's other work. I cannot recommend it. |
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A mish mash of ideas about anti-western feelings. -  |
Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies Review |
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This is an appealing and timely subject, especially with Islamic fundamentalists running around and setting off bombs. Buruma and Margalit argue that this Western anti-Western feelings originated in Europe itself and spread through to Russia and China, and then the Middle East. This is a short book, and they cover this anti Western thesis broadly. This results in some uneven thoughts about what they are trying to prove. Broadly speaking, there may be some truth to their assertions, but such a short book will not prove their thesis.
This is a thought provoking book. However, the focus is too broad, and the evidence might be skimpy. German fascists, nihilists, anarchists, Islamic fundamentalists, Japanese nationalists, and others might be anti-Western, but the link to each other is tenuous at best. |
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A Disappointment -  |
Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies Review |
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As an answer to or critique of Edward Said's highly (and some might say perniciously) influential 1978 book _Orientalism_, this falls way short. Given the title, I assumed that was what I was in for when I started reading the book, but then saw that Said is not indexed in this thin volume. How does one explain this shortcoming? Surely the authors are familiar with Said. It is inconceivable that one not deal with him in a book of this sort.
As other reviewers have pointed out, the thesis is too broad and poorly developed to be really meaningful. Although Imperial Japanese ideology and Islamic imperialism are certainly fit subjects in and of themselves to discuss within this conceptual framework, one can't be expected to treat both of these phenomena adequately within the confines of a book which is less than 200 pages in length. The authors should have honed this down to a much narrower focus. Having said all that, the reason I titled my review "A Disappointment" is because I am more or less sympathetic to the objective of this book, which is not to deny that Western racism and imperial superiority has informed the explotation of non-Westerners, but to show that certain imperial attitudes in "the Orient" have in many ways existed long before "the West" came together as a force in the world, and have also informed "Oriental" depredations against Westerners. If you want to read a book which really addresses "Occidentalism" at length, you would do well to start with Efraim Karsh's "Islamic Imperialism" (published by Yale UP), which is a real eye-opener. |
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Two wrongs don't make a right - |
Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies Review |
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Having read Buruma's Murder in Amsterdam, I was disappointed by what amounts to little more than a cut and paste attempt to explain militant views toward the West over the years. For lack of a better word, he Margalit call these militant views "Occidentalism," which doesn't really seem to fit. If we look at "Occidentalism" as the flip side of "Orientalism" then one would expect a little more academic grounding to these extreme views. Instead, Buruma and Margalit draw from sources of far right literature of various cultures to piece together an anti-Western philosophy that has emerged over the years. They sample Imperial Japan, Nazi German, Stalinist Russia, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the Wahabbist government of Saudi Arabia, to name a few. At 176 pages, minus index, it is by no means exhaustive, as was Said's polemic on "Orientalism." What we get here is a narrow sampling of extremist views toward North America and Europe, which has come to represent the West.
The authors seem to feel that these views are largely a product of extreme nationalism, which tries to give itself legitimacy by villifying the "other." They explore some of the metaphysical aspects of this xenophobia, by looking into the origins of Manichaeism, and the creation of a bi-polar universe. But these are for the most part shallow references, meant more to elicit discussion than to offer a serious study. There isn't much exploration into the roots of these extremist views, such as the reaction to Western imperialism over the years or the continuation of neo-colonial attitudes in the Middle East and Africa, which gave rise to al Qaeda and other radical Islamic groups. Instead, Buruma and Margalit choose to focus on the propaganda of the East, and how it has come to be such a dominant force in Eastern nationalist politics. The book lacks a solid focus, as was the case with Murder in Amsterdam, which revolved around the death of Theo van Gogh, presenting both sides of the cultural divide and how extremist views on both sides often lead to violent confrontations. |
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Brilliant -  |
Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies Review |
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This is a brilliant book and a helpful opposite to 'orientalism' which argued that the 'bad' West dared to judge other cultures. Here we see that the world also judges the west and is racist against westerners and de-humanizes them based on false assumptions. But the most incisive comment of the book is showing that most anti-western views are themselves products of the west's own pre-occupation with self critique and are also products of wars of ideas within the west. For instance the ideas of the German intellectuals in the 19th century that claimed that the 'bad civilized' west was destroying the German soul later transmogrified itself to others. The Romanitc 'return to the communal land' also influenced others. The Soviet struggle against the west helped inform others that the west was not the 'best'. In addition old extreme anti-secular notions among Catholics and others helped influene Islamism. This is not to blame the west, once again, for why people hate the west. However it makes an interesting point. By hating the west, those who hate in fact accept the west and are themselves products of the west, thus Islamism as a political ideology is baseically western. Those intellectuals who condemn the west are usually educated in the west, thus they are also western and their condemnation is begetted by western concepts of self-critique. To be truly anti-western one must forget the west, brilliant.
Seth J. Frantzman |
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