Either the Civilized World or the Terrorists: Orientalism, Occidentalism and Decolonisation in the Middle East.
Does it make sense to talk of the ‘Middle East’? Explain why this is
Introduction
Everyone must choose. You’re either with the civilized world or you are with the terrorists. All in the Middle East also must choose (Bush,2004).
During the initial years of the Iraq War, George W Bush made it clear that there were only two paths the Middle East could take: towards the Western idea of democracy or terrorism. This illusion of choice eliminates the sovereignty of the region, which is parallel to what colonial powers did when carving and defining the region. This essay seeks to use postcolonial theory to argue how Orientalism created the region, but we can see decolonial movements as an attempt to liberate the definition of the term Middle East.
Colonial imagined geographies and Orientalism in creating the Middle East
The British coined the term ‘Middle East’ per the proximity to Europe. However, Alfred Thayer Mahan popularized the term. He first used the term in his article The Persian Gulf and International Relations in September 1902 for the National Review (Koppes,1976). Mahan defined the Middle East as the designated area between Arabia and India. While the term holds relevance in terms of the pre-imperialist history of the region as well as the geographical and cultural element being part of Islamic civilisation (Keddie,1973, the conceptualisation and definition of the term are still orientalist in nature. Orientalism is defined as the cultural expression and ideological representation of the East through the Western lens of the East or simply known as the ‘Occident’ (Said,1976). Therefore, this clear distinction between ‘middle’ and ‘eastern’ manifests a Eurocentric perspective as the region is not nuanced and independent but to Europeans, it is merely inferior (Lockwood,2009:pg98).
Orientalism and colonialism have a strong relationship, as Orientalism defined knowledge that defined and allowed the colonial expansion of the Middle East (Lockwood,2009). The strong relationship between the two rendered the people of the Middle East to be subalterns, as this relationship acted epistemic violence upon them. Epistemic violence is the asymmetrical obliteration of the ‘Other’ in its precarious subjectivity (Spivak,1988). A form of epistemic violence was calamitous promises. One instance was during the decline of the Ottoman Empire and the Arab Revolt. One of the influential figures during the Arab Revolt was Lawrence of Arabia. Lawrence mentions how the British betrayed the Arabian promise of self-governance, but we can argue that his self-serving nature of ‘liberation’ and how he manages and produces the Orient, in aid of the West, enabled the contradictory promises he made to the Arab people.
The Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916 entrenches the argument that the Middle East is a mere invention. The British and the French drew this agreement with the imperial powers and carved the region out of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the Arab Revolt. The British gained the territories of Iraq, Transjordan and Palestine while the French had their influence on Syria and Palestine (Syed,2021). The missing state of Kurdistan was one of the direct consequences of the agreement, which still troubles the region. The region of modern Kurdistan spreads across 4 countries: Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria. Across these countries, they have heavily oppressed the Kurdish people as they continue to struggle for their political and cultural rights. Based on this, it can also be argued that the geopolitical tensions in the region can be rooted in colonial legacies.
Orientalism was responsible for drawing the artificial borders because the agreement did create new internationally recognised territories, but it eliminated the linguistic, ethnic and religious differences due to the ignorance of the historical and contextual representation of Arabs. As a result, these constructions have amalgamated every diverse region into a singular entity which is Islamic and Arab in character. However, not every region is Arab in nature. For instance, Iran has been frequently misnomered as an Arab state despite speaking Farsi (Persian) and having a rich culture and history that pre-stems Islam. While the majority of the population follows Shi’a Islam, they have seen themselves tethered to both their own culture and their interpretation of religion.
The Balfour Declaration of 1917 paved the way for the existence of Israel in 1948 and the eventual expulsion and removal of rights for Palestinians to return to their homeland (Black, 2017). It also paved the way for the continuation of the Arab-Israeli conflict. This promise removed the participation of the Palestinian people which Edward Said referred to as a declaration made by a European power… about a non-European territory… in a flat disregard of both the presence and wishes of the native majority resident in that territory (Mabon,2017). The Balfour Declaration inherently constructed a region that ‘needed civilizing’ (Palestine Research Centre,2017).
While the Balfour declaration did initially include Palestinians obtaining some rights, Zionists requested it to be stripped. This ended up allowing the British to make decisions for the Palestinian people, rendering them to be subalterns. The Orientalist views of the British clouded their judgment of who deserved the land more: eliminating the existence of the native people, their culture and history in their land (Ibid). Herzl has often referred to Palestine as a plague-ridden, blighted corner of the Orient, to which the Jews, as representatives of Western civilization, would bring cleanliness, order and the well-distilled customs of the Occident (Ibid). This discourse continues when discussing the state of Israel and Palestine. During the speech made by Ursula Von Der Leyen for the 75th birthday of Israel, she mentioned that Israel made the desert bloom and that it is a vibrant democracy (Macdonald,2023) which merely proved the colonial vision of Palestine to be right.
Orientalism rendered the Middle East subalterned and dependent on the Orientalist for narrative. This has led to further interventions in the region during the collapse of both British and French imperialism in the region. In Iran, there was a case of gharbzadegi or Westoxification in English. The rule of Reza Shah Pahlavi led to modernisation by adopting Western values and traditions in exchange for the continued oil revenue for the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. In the 1950s, Mohammed Mossadegh was elected as the Prime Minister of Iran and he served the interest of the Iranian people by nationalizing their oil company but his policy did not sit well with the British and Americans hence they deployed the deposed Shah to regain power in Iran (Kinzer,2003). However, the Americans encouraged the continuation of the tyrannical regime via Operation Ajax, which sparked the Iranian Revolution of 1979 (Ibid). There is a heavy reliance on Orientalists to interpret the Orient for them (Said,1976). In this case, it stripped Iran of its capability to govern without foreign intervention.
Since the Iranian revolution and 9/11, they have interpreted the Middle East as a hostile region while the USA was interpreted as the harbinger of freedom and liberty for the suppressed under the traumas of Islamic rule (Khalid,2011). Orientalists argue that Islam has already brought trauma to Europe as the notion of Islam symbolized terror and barbarism (Said,1976, pg 59). Therefore, the conceptualisation of Islamic state terrorism like ISIS and Al-Qaeda has been interpreted as a product of the backwardness of Islam (Nkululeko,2018). As a result, the War on Terror enabled gendered Orientalism to construct Middle Eastern masculinities and femininities. Middle Eastern men had been portrayed as barbaric ‘deviant enemies’, while they portrayed Middle Eastern women as oppressed and in need of saving (Khalid,2011).
Even during the discourse of the Arab Spring, the repetition of the common narrative is that the Arab World is finally reaching modernity instead of their previous ‘despotic’ governments (Ventura,2016). However, this completely ignores the culpability of colonialism and how, as mentioned previously stripped Arabs of their independence which makes it difficult for them to perceive and they also cannot be protagonists as long as the Orientalist either decides to support them or fight against them, should they be perceived as a threat like ISIS (Ibid).
The West continues to influence the Arab nations in which the US isolates those who do not normalize relations with Israel. Additionally, the Iran Nuclear Deal is Orientalist as European nations called out Iran for not fully meeting the demands of the deal while European nations violate these terms (Entessar and Afrasiabi, 2020). This shows that the Orient is still the provider of knowledge in the region and dictating this knowledge to others.
The Attempts to Decolonise the Middle East.
However, it is highly inaccurate to argue that colonial legacies define the Middle East, as this narrative ignores how decolonisation and Occidentalism transformed the modern Middle East. Bhabha also argues that the colonists’ demand for narrative opens up a site of potential resistance which makes the colonial desires to shape the Middle East and strip the region of its independence unstable. Bhabha described this as sly civility. It is defined as carrying out acts of civil disobedience which masquerades as a form of civility (Ibid). This sly civility is a surreptitious act of violence that leads to the eventual formation of national identity and bourgeoisie and colonial mimicry that continues to impact the region. Therefore, it could be said that decolonial movements like pan-Arabism and pan-Islamism are forms of sly civility.
Pan-Arabism was a movement founded by the Egyptian president, Gamel Abdel Nasser. While many, especially Israelis, described Nasser as ‘the Hitler of the Nile’, the motivations for liberating Palestine from colonial influence and disapproval of colonial influence in the region, despite their nuances united all nations under Nasser. On the subject of Nasser, Egypt saw the nationalization of its economy under him. He attempted to change British investment to private property to redirect capital to industry, which ultimately failed (Salem,2018). As quoted by him, what was taken by force can only be restored by force (Nasser,1956). They proved this right as they humiliated Western powers during the victory of the Suez War in 1956.
Similar to the formation of pan-Arabism and the Arab League, pan-Islamism also served to rid the region of colonial influence by using religion to rid themselves of colonial legacies and Western influence. It can be argued that the Muslim Brotherhood is an attempt at decolonisation in Egypt. Hasan Al Banna envisioned a decolonial non-nationalist project that incorporated the snubbing of a supremacist nationalist identity and rejection of a Western nation-state model and the cultivation and dissemination of a comprehensive educational programme to instill deep, long-term political consciousness among its followers (Gani,2019). Similarly, during the Iranian Revolution of 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini was a proponent of Islamic anti-imperialism. After the revolution, they purged Iran of un-Islamic influences and enacted laws based on the Holy Quran. Not only did Iran become more Islamic, but it also became more anti-Western, especially Anti-American. This led to the hostage crisis, which was a protest against the Shah being allowed into the US for his medical treatment.
Despite both of the movements failing due to the difficulties in undoing colonial nationalism in decolonial movements (Gavi,2019), it can also be said that this is a Transnational form of solidarity, which transcends colonial borders and colonial legacies of separation. Even the Arab Spring can be argued as a continued attempt to liberate their respective nations from the colonial styles of governance that impact their nations.
Conclusion
As highlighted in this essay, the history of the Middle East pre-colonialism makes the region as Nikkie Keddie concluded in her article: the term continues to have valid meaning when taken as an approximate unit during the whole period from the Muslim conquest (Keddie,1973). Colonial powers forcefully stripped the Middle East of its independence and nuance and amalgamated it into a singular entity to make it simpler to dominate and exploit the region. Occidentalism has attempted to redefine its borders and make the term ‘Middle East’ a semi-formidable identity through colonial mimicry as it strove to be independent. However, no matter how much one tries to decolonise the term the Middle East, the Orientalist legacy of the region renders it to be a mere futile effort.
This essay was for a Y3 module: Politics and International Relations of the Middle East which was convened by Dr Julia Roknifard.
