Matt Zeitlin: Impetuous Young Whippersnapper

Kathy G suggests that had the American military been told to read Orientalism by Edward Said, as opposed to the anti-Arab filth that is The Arab Mind, perhaps things would have been different:

Yet at the same time, as Foucault noted, knowledge itself constitutes power relations. Books and ideas can have a profound impact. I don’t think it would have been quite as easy for the Bush administration to do what they did if racist, imperialist attitudes were not so prevalent amongst the military and foreign policy elites. And if those same elites had read Orientalism instead of The Arab Mind, I’m not so sure that said elites would have been quite so comfortable in their racism and imperialism. A powerful book, which Orientalism (which I have read) certainly is, and which The Arab Mind (which I haven’t read) apparently is as well, can change minds. It can persuade readers who have no fixed views on the subject, and strengthen the views of those who are already inclined to agree with the author.

If Orientalism had been widely read among the military and foreign affairs folks, perhaps the attitudes of some highly influential people would not have been quite so smug. Perhaps they would have entertained a few more doubts. Perhaps the thought of torturing their fellow human beings might have made them a bit queasy.

Although I have an quasi ironic respect for Edward Said and hold the view that the last few years have tragically vindicated Orientalism’s thesis (trust me, it’s very complicated) I think Kathy is ignoring how a more straightforward discussion of knowledge and power could explain why The Arab Mind found its way onto military reading lists. That’s because it’s a whole lot easier to launch a war against utter savages, as opposed to rather normal human beings whose reactions are very similiar to ours. I mean, anyone would know that breaking into people’s homes, taking the men out of the houses, humiliating them and forcing black hoods on their heads would anger your average European, but for Arabs, it would make them fear and respect us.

The Iraq War was what social scientists like to call “overdetermined” – it had a whole lot of caues, one of which was the Fouad Ajami-style depictions of Arabs as simplistic brutes who could be cowered into submission and parliamentary democracy. But I don’t think you needed that intellectual substructure for the war to happen, it was just one of many causes.

And on the subject of Orientalism more broadly, it’s odd how it’s come under such fearsome assault, as it’s thesis was being so decisively proven. That thesis, being “that when it came to “the East” scholarship itself had become a means of serving and legitimating imperial dominance over the Oriental “other.”” And so, more than 30 years after Said’s book we are in the midst of an imperial war in the Middle East, which was partially justified on the back of depictions of middle easterners as alien, other and totally opposed to the “West.”

And so, is Said being recognized as a prescient, far seeing public intellectual? Sure, those who originally read the book and subscribe to The Nation think he’s the shit, but in more conventional liberal circles, he’s the avatar of anti-American intellectuals that one can look really good loudly bashing. The Eustonite Left, Marty Peretz and that whole gang are only upping the ante in Said bashing. In the past few years, we’ve seen a a proliferation of anti-Said tracks. At least 1/3 of the issues of Democratiya - the Eustonite British politcal journal – have included some sort of denunciation of Edward Said. Many of his critics, who aren’t scholars of the Middle East but instead political opponents, point to Roger Irwin’s Dangerous Knowledge. While Dangerous Knowledge itself is a legitimate scholarly work that takes issue with Said’s treatment of specific Orientalists, especially those Germans who were actively opposed to Imperialism, it largely misses the forest for the trees. Although Irwin is certainly right that Said plays a tad fast and loose with the facts in order for them to fit his thesis, the basic thrust of Orientalism is undeniable: Western imperialism and Orientalist scholarship were “co-productive” in producing the conditions to subjugate the East. Daniel Varisco and Ibn Warraq  have also both written book length criticisms of Orientalism. Although Varisco is broadly sympathetic with Said’s political agenda and Warraq is incredibly hostile, it’s no surprise that Democratiya is trumpeting them as weapons to wield against the Saidite menace. Said’s ghost haunts more than just discussions of his own book. All of the hysteria we see surrounding Columbia’s Middle Eastern Studies Department and abominable treatment of Nadia Abu El-Haj can be explained as the expression of the endless frustration that “pro-Israel” types and conservatives felt at never being able to take Said off his pedestal.

This is not to say that I endorse all of Said’s political stands. On Israel, Kosovo and the first Gulf War, I think he was profoundly wrong. But on his main scholarly point, he was unfortunately correct.