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Class Prep
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Colonialism, Orientalism & Modernity
- In our last class, we began to consider how people deal with difference. A German woodcut of American "Indians" depicted their barbarism and immaturity, while a Spanish newsletter pictured Tenochtitlan as a kind of European city with Europeans conversing peacefully in the foreground. These two tendencies—making over the unfamiliar "other" in terms that are either repugnant or recognizable—are common enough. We often pre-judge the unfamiliar to render it familiar. In that mental make-over, we may project our fears onto the other, making them our polar opposite (as in the German woodcut), or we may project our utopian ideals and wishes on them (as in the "noble savage"), or we may ignore and replace the other as if they were entirely invisible (as in the Spanish woodcut). All of this is easier than engaging in the difficult and long-term work of truly encountering and empathizing with the other, and of analyzing our own motives for rendering them as we have (as the Germans and Spaniards had political, economic and religious motives for portraying the Indians as they did).
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- Today's journal asks you to consider the West's biases against their "others." In the post-9/11 world, one of the most obvious "others" is radical Islam, though of course some people drop the "radical" and imagine Islam as the enemy. That prejudgment, often made in the absence of any substantial encounter with real Muslims, has a long history in the West. In the image from an early 20th-century French magazine above, the Ottoman Sultan Abdülhamid II, who ruled from 1876 to 1909, is caricatured as the "Red Sultan" because of the state-sponsored ethnic bloodshed during his reign. The ethnic bloodshed is a fact; but what fictions about Muslims does the image also convey? Does it share any judgments about the west's "other" with the woodcuts we looked at in our last class?
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If you're having trouble "seeing" the stereotypes, consider these additional images. To the left is a painting by the French artist Henri Regnault, "Execution without Judgment under the Moorish Kings of Granada" (1870). It's a Frenchman's interpretation of how justice worked on the Iberian peninsula before the Reconquista. Consider the topic, the composition, the implications of this painting, and then analyze what it shares in common with the image of the Red Sultan above. Or take a look at the poster to the right. It was for an August 2009 referendum on prohibiting the construction of new minarets in Switzerland. What fears about the Islamic other does it perpetuate or depend upon?
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- These impressions or stereotypes are not innocent of political, economic, religious and cultural motives or results. They function in particular political contexts to persuade Europeans to take a stance toward Islamic countries or Islamic immigrants within their borders. They are part of a wider phenomenon referred to as "orientalism," that is, the western perception of the near and far east. And they functioned in part to legitimate western colonialism and aggression against those countries. The west has seen itself as modern, civilized, democratic, ruled by law, peaceful, transparent, masculine; it has seen the Islamic other as primitive, barbaric, despotic, ruled by emotion, violent, secretive, feminine—thus in need of the west's guidance.
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- Today's readings from Anouar Abdel-Malek and A. L. Tibawi represent early challenges to European and North American stereotypes. Writing in 1963 just after the post-war independence movements in many former European colonies, these scholars take westerners to task for framing "the east" in ways that legitimated political and economic colonization. Abdel-Malek lays out a general challenge to orientalism, while Tibawi focuses on the west's misconstrual of Islam and the Qur'an.
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- As you read about the various responses, try to identify the western stereotype or action which the interpreters are rebutting, or the aspect of modernity that they are negotiating. Team questions break out as follows:
- Team 2: What western stereotypes of the Muslim "other" do both Abdel-Malek and Tibawi offer? (reflection)
- Team 3: Tibawi discusses the stance of the westerners to the Qur'an across several centuries. While western scholars aim for objectivity, Tibawi argues that they are not objective when it comes to Islam. From pp. 62-74, be able to describe how western views of the divine origin of the Qur'an and Muhammad's call, an account of Muslim origins, the comparative religion approach, and the current call to "reform" Islam reflect old polemics against Islam. What western presumptions about "sacred scripture" do these approaches reveal? (interpretation of scripture)
- Team 4: How do the stereotypes of Muslims, of Muhammad, and of the Qur'an relate to European treatment of the indigenous peoples of "Latin America" or to earlier historical moments that we've studied? Tibawi criticizes an approach we have taken to the Qur'an (pp. 63-5) when we examined Jesus and the Mahdi in Muslim tradition. (historical comparison)
- Team 1: Can we engage traditions other than our own without stereotyping them? Is objectivity possible, or desirable? Are you aware of other examples of European countries or the United States presuming a kind of cultural superiority to an allegedly inferior Islam, or vice versa? What areas of life does this occur in (politics? economics? law? religion? education? gender relations? science?)? (ethical evaluation)
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- Assigned Readings
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- Secondary:Anouar Abdel-Malek, "Orientalism in Crisis," and A. L. Tibawi, "English-Speaking Orientalists," in Orientalism: A Reader (ed. Alexander Lyon Macfie; Washington Square, New York: New York Univeristy Press, 2000) 47-76 (Camino)
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- Slides from Lecture
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- Further Reading
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- Cragg, Kenneth. The Qur'an and the West. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2005.
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- Said, Edward. Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World, rev. ed. New York: Vintage, 1997; original, 1981.
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- --------. Culture and Imperialism. New York: Vintage, 1993.
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- --------. Orientalism. New York: Vintage, 1978.
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- Schaar, Stuart. "Orientalism at the Service of Imperialism." Race and Class 21:1 (1979) 67-80. Reprinted in Orientalism: A Reader (ed. Alexander Lyon Macfie; Washington Square, New York: New York University Press, 2000) 181-93.
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- Tibawi, A. L. "On the Orientalists Again." The Muslim World 70:1 (1980) 56-61. Reprinted in Orientalism: A Reader (ed. Alexander Lyon Macfie; Washington Square, New York: New York University Press, 2000) 172-7.
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- --------. "Second Critique of English-Speaking Orientalists and Their Approach to Islam and the Arabs." Islamic Quarterly 23:1 (1979) sections II-V. Reprinted in Orientalism: A Reader (ed. Alexander Lyon Macfie; Washington Square, New York: New York University Press, 2000) 145-71.
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- Links
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- Sources
- Photographs all found on Felix Conrad, "From the 'Turkish Menace' to Exoticism and Orientalism: Islam as Antithesis of Europe (1453–1914)?", EGO (European History Online) (March 14, 2011), online.
- The Ottoman Sultan Abdülhamid II.
- Henri Regnault (1843–1871), Execution without Judgment under the Moorish Kings of Granada, oil on canvas, 1870; source: © Bildagentur für Kunst, Kultur und Geschichte; Musée d'Orsay, Paris.
- Poster for the referendum on prohibiting the construction of new minarets in Switzerland in August 2009, graphic, unknown artist; source: Initiativkomitee "Gegen den Bau von Minaretten."
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