Job Discussion Forums

[007]

[Queen of Sheba]

This is good material. I prefer you this way 007.

[Cleopatra]

I wonder if we're not perhaps overusing the term "Orientalist"? If by the word we are referring to white folks who view the Muslim world from the vantage point of their own imagined superiority, and whose 'works' are replete with unexamined cliches about the pervasity of religion, 'honour codes' and female submissiveness in the Arab/Islamic world, then certainly the likes of Sasson and Seirstad fit the bill. However, the classic Orientalists of the 19th century were highly erudite and had excellent language skills. They also knew how to write. None of these things can be said for a WSJ hack like Brookes, a hospital administrator like Sasson, or a compound wife like McKay. Bernard Lewis might pass for an Orientalist in the classic mould, but the others are all merely opportunists with an eye for a quick buck. If it became lucrative and fashionable to, for example, write 'first-hand accounts' of the suffering of Palestians under Israeli occupation, you can be sure that all of them would be in Gaza quicker than you could say 'belly dance'.

[Queen of Sheba]

I agree at least the old-time Orientalists had some style and class, even if they were working for the enemy, which has consequently taken over as a result of those initial explorations into the Middle East. It�s been formulated into hatred and the WOMD you mentioned, and it must have been the grand plan all along.
1. Such simple natives.
2. How quaint that they admire my watch and car!
3. The ignorant bedouin are interesting to look at, like animals in the zoo, only better.
4. Let's see what we can take from them that would be of value.
5. If they won't give it up readily, we will take it by any means possible.

[Cleopatra]

You forgot perhaps the most dangerous "Orientalism" of them all. And I don't mean 'dangerous' in an abstract sense either. We're talking about the type of dehumanising stereotype that can - nay did - provide one of many bogus justifications for a war which killed, and continues to kill, thousands of innocent people. And that Orientalism is:

"Arabs only understand the language of force".

I'll leave you to figure out who the esteemed expert' in question was, adding only that a far wiser person recently pointed out that it appears increasingly obvious that the only language Arabs are incapable of understanding is that of force.

[007]