Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies

In this short, but insightful, book Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit argue that in many parts of the non-Western world there is such loathing of everything associated with the West - especially America - that anyone living such a lifestyle is inherently depraved and somewhat less than human. This dehumanizing view of the West, as seen by its enemies, is what the authors call Occidentalism. It is the reverse side of the idea of Orientalim described over twenty-five years ago by Edward Said. According to Said, the Orientalists constructed accounts of the East as a place where life was cheap and inferior to that of the West. These narratives served to justify Western domination. Occidentalism, however, goes a step further: whereas, the Orientalist wished to subjugate and colonize, the Occidentalist wishes to destroy. This is a book about ideas rather than policy. It deals more with why they hate us for what we are, rather than why they hate us for what we do. The authors describe a "constellation of images" of the West by which its enemies demonize it. They (the enemies) see the West as " a mass of soulless, decadent, money-grubbing, rootless, faithless, unfeeling parasites." The originality of this study comes from the discovery that many of the negative images that the present-day Islamists have of the West are derived, paradoxically, the West itself. The authors see a "chain of hostility" that goes back two centuries. The anti-Western impulse begins with Herder and the German romantics as a reaction to the rationalist, universalist ideals the Enlightenment and the materialism of the budding capitalist economy. Anti-Westernism was also the driving force of the slavophiles of late nineteeth century Russia; it was a reaction to encroaching modernization coming from the West. In the twentieth century, Nazi Germany and a militant Japan railed against, not the modernization that came from the West, but the destruction of their indigenous cultures, being overrun by the decadence and depravity of the West. This anti-Westernism again rears its ugly head in the late twentieth century during the Cultural Revolution in China and, again, in the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge. These where particulary murderous attempts to root out Western influence. The Occidentalist of today is exemplified by the Islamist suicide bomber. Buruma and Margalit discuss four images of hatred that run through these movements of the last two hundred years: 1} the cosmopolitan city with its rootless, greedy, and decadent citizens; 2) the bourgeois merchant, seeking only profit and comfort, as opposed the self-sacrificing hero of the Occidentalist; 3) the Western mind, using only the faculties of science and reason, and neglecting faith; 4) and last of all, the infidel, the unbeliever, who must be crushed to make way for the true believers. In Occidentalism's present-day manifestation, religion plays a central role. The jihadis of today hate, not only the West,

When receiving this book, I saw a small book with only 150 pages with a lot of line spacing and I was expecting a quick read, especially because this is a book that is on the bestsellers list for foreign affairs books. But after starting, that turned out to be quite a wrong impression, because it is quite a terse book, drawing heavy on history of philosophical ideas. But that also made it quite interesting. The thesis of the book is that the perceived clash of civilizations, the West against the anti West (Islam), is a clash of ideas that is also found inside our own history and society. The Islamist are, whether they admit it or not, influenced by the West in that they borrow and use our own internal enemies. For example the old notion of the romantic rural as opposite of the harsh cite life or the brutal heroic idealist grandeur against the mediocrity reasoned life. To understand the current conflicts both external and internal, this is an enlighten read. But this is not a book about the current world politics or an in depth description of Islam (I would recommend Bernard Lewis for that) nor does the book provide much practical solutions. The book is more a collection of philosophical ideas that describe the common cultural conflict between the modernity and its enemies, as an other reviewer wrote the book is a bit fragmented and could use some polishing. But never the less, I found it worth the read.

A terse but brilliant book tracing the various strands of anti-Western ideology, many of which originated in the West itself. These ideas eventually penetrated Asia and the Middle East, where they were incorporated into supposedly authentic Eastern thought. How ironic that the fiercest anti-Westerners in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, China, Japan, etc., owe such a huge intellectual debt to the very thing they hate so passionately.Mind you, the authors are NOT claiming that all (or even most) criticisms of the West are illegitimate or the product of irrational hatred. Contrary to what some reviewers have said, Buruma and Margalit define Occidentalism fairly clearly. It is an ideology that condemns Western civilization in toto, as inherently diseased, and advocates its complete destruction. It is characterized by an implacable hatred for a whole spectrum of modern developments that (rightly or wrongly) are associated with Western civilization: democracy, technology, individualism. The fact that this ideology is muddleheaded and borrows much from what it most hates does not make Buruma and Margalit's thesis muddled: It is simply a paradoxical fact about this ideology. (By the way, it is NOT "simply conflating enemies of the past and present" to point out Islamism's heavy borrowings from European fascism. The authors are, among other things, trying to dispell certain popular misconceptions and clarify the nature of a movement that has long been mistaken, particularly by many scholars [cough, cough, John L. Esposito] in our Middle Eastern Studies departments, as a misguided but proto-democratic grassroots phenomenon; or by many Christian and Jewish bigots as an inherent, ineradicable part of authentic Islam.)

The book deals with the misconceptions about the West that are held by the East and its title is deliberately chosen to contrast with Orientalism, the misconceptions of the West about the East. People of the East tend to view the West as materialistic and devoid of spiritual values. A major contribution of the book is to point out that such preconceptions are not limited to radical Islamists but have a long history in Europe. German Romantics of the 18th and 19th century felt the same way about France and England, the Russian slavophiles of the 19th century felt the same way about estern Europe, and so did Japanese intellectuals in the first half of the 20th century. The book points out that such views are often held by those defeated in a war and/or left behind in economic development so there is an element of sour grapes in the emphasis on the "spiritual" and the "heroic."The book has six chapters with the longest one dealing with the views of the East on the Western Cities that are seen as symbols of greed and corruption. Other chapters deal with the contrast between (western) merchants and (eastern) heroes, the effect of religious ideas and the views on women. In case it shows how the views of radical Islam have been influenced by Europeans. That connection offers an explanation for the support radical Islam has been receiving amongst intellectuals of the left: "Far from being the dogma favored by downtrodden peasants, Occidentalism more often reflects the prejudices of urban intellectuals, who feel displaced in a world of mass commerce."The final conclusion is that "... the West is not at war against Islam. Indeed the fiercest battles will be fought inside the Muslim world." The fault lines in the war of ideas "do not coincide with national, ethnic, or religious borders." Also that the revolution of radical Islam "will have to be halted, preferably not by outside intervention, but by Muslims themselves."I would like to add that, ironically, the tirades against materialism and self interest are often found in societies that are oppressed with most people living in poverty with a tiny minority holding all the wealth.

In their concise, insightful and slim volume, Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit retrace the intellectual roots of Occidentalism from the Enlightenment all the way to the present. In their view, Occidentalism is not a uniquely modern or Islamic invention, but really "a tale of cross-contamination, the spread of bad ideas" from West to East and often back again. The book is well paced, interesting, and not too much on an extremely complex topic. It provides an excellent introduction to this subject, and covers considerable breadth to frame their ideas about the history and scope of Occidentalism. Watching images from the middle east flash across the television screen, I have often been baffled and amazed about the motivation of terrorists. This book sheds important light on their worldview, making their ideology both accessible and understandable to the general reader for the first time. Finally, the authors should be commended for their serious, thoughful insights on this subject. This is not a volume of apologists of terror; but an excellent study of just what makes those people tick, and of how bad ideas of both East and West contaminate one another to create the toxic, dehumanizing and often terrorist ideology of Occidentalism.