Latest news with #Orientalism
Al Jazeera
10-07-2025
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
Progress, Secularism and the Orientalist Gaze
Centre Stage Olivier Roy, a professor of Orientalism, joins Centre Stage to talk about the roots of Orientalism and the enduring myth of how only the West represents progress. From colonial-era narratives to modern-day politics, Roy explores how the Global South is still perceived through a Eurocentric lens — and what that says about our civilisation, modernity and the West's ongoing struggle with pluralism. This episode is produced in partnership with the International Conference on Orientalism, an intellectual and academic platform that brings together leading scholars in the field to foster informed dialogue towards a balanced civilizational engagement. Video Duration 20 minutes 47 seconds 20:47 Video Duration 24 minutes 13 seconds 24:13 Video Duration 17 minutes 38 seconds 17:38 Video Duration 23 minutes 28 seconds 23:28 Video Duration 20 minutes 11 seconds 20:11 Video Duration 24 minutes 25 seconds 24:25 Video Duration 18 minutes 40 seconds 18:40
Asharq Al-Awsat
06-07-2025
- Asharq Al-Awsat
UAE Heritage Conference Recommends Documentation of Travel Literature
The "Second Heritage Conference," organized by the Sharjah Institute for Heritage has issued several scientific and cultural recommendations to enhance studies on travel literature and representations of the "other" in popular heritage. The conference held under the theme "Popular Heritage Through the Eyes of Others" took place at the Arab Heritage Center in the university city of Sharjah, Emirates News Agency (WAM) reported Saturday. Participants urged a reevaluation of the writings of travelers and Orientalists using contemporary scientific criticism methodologies, WAM said. They advocated for analytical comparisons between groups of travelers from various geographical regions and similar time periods to derive a more realistic portrayal and compare it with available local studies, it added. According to WAM, the attendees stressed the need to establish practical laboratories for translating Western research and studies on travel literature and forming scientific committees to review untranslated travel accounts, particularly Russian works. Among the recommendations was the proposal to extend the conference from two to three days and to publish the presented research in a scientific book. They also suggested creating an online library featuring works of travelers and Orientalists, along with a specialized database for researchers and translators in this field. The recommendations further called for stimulating critical studies addressing representations of the "other" in popular heritage through various approaches, including anthropology, semiotics, narratives, and post-colonial studies. Additionally, they highlighted the need to examine the interaction between oral and narrative cultures as described by travelers, questioning the ideological and epistemological backgrounds that shaped their representations and deconstructing the positions of self and other in their writings. "The recommendations from the Second Heritage Conference embody our vision at the Sharjah Institute for Heritage, which aims to establish awareness of the importance of reading popular heritage from multiple perspectives, especially through the writings of travelers and Orientalists,' said Chairman of the Sharjah Institute for Heritage Dr. Abdulaziz Al Musallam. 'Through this conference, we sought to initiate a critical intellectual dialogue with these records, opening new horizons for understanding the self and the other, and enhancing the presence of our heritage in the global cultural sphere with a scientific spirit and objective approach,' he added.
Saba Yemen
25-06-2025
- Politics
- Saba Yemen
How did orientalism approach Al-Mutanabbi?
Amman - Saba: Jordanian researcher Hamza Amin explores in his book "Al-Mutanabbi in the Mirror of Orientalism" the study by French Orientalist Régis Blachère on Al-Mutanabbi, which examined the poet's personality, his poetry, and the social, political, intellectual, and ideological circumstances of his time. According to the Omani News Agency, the author explains that he chose Blachère's perspective because it extended to redrawing the historical, political, and intellectual frameworks in which Al-Mutanabbi operated, then meticulously rearranged his poetic history without overlooking the key artistic features of his poetry. Amin clarifies that Blachère's perspective represents the Western view of an Arab literary and critical phenomenon. Blachère's work was distinguished not only as that of a researcher but also as an Orientalist who applied the same analytical tools to Arabic literature as he did to foreign literature—an approach that may sometimes lead to confusion in conclusions and judgments. In his introduction to the book, Dr. Ghassan Abdul Khaliq notes that researcher Hamza Amin engaged with two highly "ambiguous and complex" issues: Al-Mutanabbi on one hand and Orientalism on the other. Amin "spared no effort in shedding light on many of the ambiguities surrounding this complexity." According to him, Al-Mutanabbi "was, is, and will remain a continent shrouded in mystery," while Blachère "was, is, and will remain a controversial Orientalist—with his merits and flaws." The book consists of an introduction, a preface, two chapters, and a conclusion. The preface discusses the concept of the "mirror" as a means of reflecting the image of Al-Mutanabbi as portrayed by Blachère for the West. It then defines Orientalism and provides biographies of Al-Mutanabbi and Blachère, followed by an overview of Al-Mutanabbi's image among Orientalists. The first chapter examines Al-Mutanabbi's poetic history from Blachère's perspective, covering the ideological and intellectual currents that influenced the poet, the chronological/poetic framework of his work, and concluding with the poetic themes Blachère highlighted, such as praise, satire, description, love poetry, and wisdom literature. The second chapter focuses on the artistic features of Al-Mutanabbi's poetry from Blachère's viewpoint, emphasizing the key stylistic elements that shaped the poet's diwan (collection of poems). These include the obscure and the unfamiliar, Al-Mutanabbi's fondness for similes and metaphors, antithesis as a recurring phenomenon, and skillful transitions in poetry. The book concludes by highlighting Al-Mutanabbi's image as a critical phenomenon in the fourth century according to Orientalists in general and Blachère in particular. It presents several findings and recommendations, most notably that Al-Mutanabbi did not appear in Orientalist discourse as a singular figure but rather as multiple images, depending on each scholar's perspective and field. Some Orientalists emphasized his historical significance, others deferred his importance to geography, while some classified him among the genius poets. Whatsapp Telegram Email Print more of (International)
The Wire
10-06-2025
- Politics
- The Wire
What A Murder Tells Us About India's Hypocritical Treatment of Its Northeast
An illustration showing, from left, Sonam Raghuvanshi being brought into a Ghazipur hospital; relatives and friends of Sonam Raghuvanshi in a protest against the Meghalaya government, in Indore, Saturday, June 7, 2025; and the Meghalaya map. Real journalism holds power accountable Since 2015, The Wire has done just that. But we can continue only with your support. Contribute Now In Meghalaya, the last few days have been nothing short of a crime drama written consciously against the backdrop of the pristine, 'aesthetically pleasing' hills. A newlywed couple from Indore who arrived in the state for their honeymoon mysteriously went missing. The husband was soon found dead in a crevice in the hills, and a frantic search for the wife continued while calls for a CBI probe were heard. As CCTV footage, witness accounts and social media takes surfaced, one could almost hear suspenseful music in the background. Then the wife, along with three others, was arrested in Uttar Pradesh. She is now the prime accused in the case. While the possible explanations for the case still remain myriad, what is most appalling is that between the initial disappearance, and the woman's arrest, the case managed to put an entire state – in fact, an entirety of a notably marginalised region of India – on a public and media trial. The clarity facilitated by the woman's arrest has sparked a notable outrage against this unwarranted defamation that is likely to damage the state's tourism industry. This presumptuous hypocrisy of not just the Indian mainlander but also of a major national news portal was called out even during the initial stages of the case by the likes of Meghalaya journalist and Padma Shri awardee Patricia Mukhim, who criticised a Times of India article that had irresponsibly labelled the hills 'crime-prone.' TOI appears to have now edited the online version of the article. Edward Said, through his theory of Orientalism (1978), suggests that one of the modes of upkeep of a lopsided power dynamic between an oppressor and the oppressed is the synthesis of a romanticised and 'exoticised' image of the oppressed through a process which he calls 'orientalism'. The chief characteristic of orientalism is that it establishes prejudices about and against the oppressed via their cultural representations which are synthesised and presented by the oppressor themselves. This representation determines the power dynamic between the two classes as they engage. While Said's own work revolves around the specific dichotomy of the West and the East, this theory can no doubt be transplanted into this mainland-periphery relationship within India, and its historically lopsided unfolding. Until his wife's arrest, the public discourse around the Indore man's murder predictably saw the demonisation of Meghalaya, and the Northeast as a whole, as 'non-tourism-friendly', 'unsafe for outsiders', 'crime-prone', ' jungalee ' and 'brainwashed by Christian missionaries'. These accusations were ironically and arrogantly prefaced by the claim that the region is heavily tourism dependent. The Northeast has historically been treated as an exotic amalgam of the mystical, the natural and of 'simple-minded and backward' tribes by the mainland. Of course, there has not been any true engagement with the people of these lands – be it from podcasters accusing women from Mayong of turning men into goats, or Bollywood, where films show 'NE' written on the registration plates of vehicles in a film about, and set vaguely, in the Northeast. It is this exoticisation – now optimised through the powers of social media – that has triggered the idea that the Northeast is, or if not, that it must become a 'tourist destination'. Having lived in Meghalaya for a significant portion of my own life as an 'outsider', I find this idea nothing more than a clandestine attempt towards breaking the spirit of the Meghalayan people and their right to self-determination on economic and political terms. It also quite clearly contradicts the tangible realities of the state. As prominent literature about the region, such as Sanjoy Hazarika's Strangers of the Mist (2000) suggests, having been significantly starved of the ointment of social, political and economic attention unlike the country's mainland, the Northeast is recovering from the pangs of British imperialist plunder at a much slower pace than the former. This is one of the catalysts of dissent amongst various peoples of the Northeast against the Indian state itself. Also read: An Open Letter: 'I Have Small Eyes, Mr Prime Minister' Even without accounting for armed secessionist movements, and within the constitutional fold itself, there are indications that the region craves a more equitable protection of cultural and linguistic rights in face of continuing threats of their erasure, along with demographic changes. In Meghalaya, these include demands for an Inner Line Permit (ILP) system that makes the tracking of entry and egress of non-residents of the state a more transparent (and perhaps complicated) process. There is also a longstanding organised dissent against the Union government's railway extension plans into the state, led by major political organisations such as the Khasi Student's Union (KSU). Moreover, much of the state's and region's public memory retains the historically proven idea that the reaction of the Indian state to these concerns has generally been that of violence. In recent times, this has been coupled with a significant insecurity regarding the mainland-centric Hindutva agenda of reimagining 'tribality' as an offshoot of Hindutva, to make political inroads into the peripheral state. Speaking of Meghalaya as a 'tourist hotspot' is in the same ballpark as Donald Trump's declaration about 'wanting to turn Gaza into a luxurious tourist spot', and the frequent mentions of 'tourism' in post-Article 370 Kashmir. One senses a re-packaged imposition of the mainland's interests over the right of the Northeastern people to make their own political and economic, and therefore cultural, decisions. In fact, the almost neo-colonial characteristic of travel-influencing in the Northeast is palpable in people's phone screens now, as reach-hungry vloggers 'discover the undiscovered' with every other video, no differently from how Columbus 'discovered' America. 'Hidden gems' and 'secret spots' are unveiled and 'tourist spots' are manufactured in the aphotic parts of the region. This is, of course, also facilitated by private tour operators presenting sanitised clips of 'must visit' spots in the region as 'alternatives to international destinations'. Unintended consequences of this are microcosmic shifts from agrarian or natural resource-based economies in these places, to the more unpredictable and 'tourist-dependent' models of income. And of course, there is the mushrooming of 'concrete' structures in and around such spots and the ecological threat they bring. In a clear attempt to render it toothless, even the Northeasterner's anger becomes exoticised as a product of what the mainland portrays as their 'simplemindedness'. This idea legitimises mainland India's racially prejudiced 'we know what is better for them' attitude. Consequently, the image of the Northeastern people as 'mindlessly violent' and 'wild' tribals has been intricately embedded in the mainland's consciousness. Thus, when any tangible violence against the mainlander unfolds within the northeastern region, such as the case of the Indore man's murder, the quickest assumption is that it was inflicted by the local. And it must be noted that this is despite the fact that there are no real statistics to back up claims of any patterns of hostilities towards tourists in the state. In fact, as tourism gradually increases in the Northeast, instances of tourists not respecting the land have grown. For instance, in December, 2024, Akash Sagar, a social media influencer with 1.5 million followers on Instagram, uploaded videos of himself provocatively chanting 'Jai Shri Ram', and singing Hindu hymns inside the Church of Epiphany located in Meghalaya's famously 'cleanest Asian village', Mawlynnong. This led to criticism and an FIR. Similarly, in another incident in June, 2025, a local man was physically attacked by a group of intoxicated tourists from Uttar Pradesh. And yet, in these cases, national – and local –reports have had the decency to not speculate such incidents as indicators of stereotypical characteristics of tourists visiting the state. Meghalaya need not be at the beck and call of its tourism industry for its prosperity. There is no precondition to its existence that compels its people to turn every inch of their homeland into an amusement park for tourists from other states. Whether or not it is, and will be a tourist destination —and to what extent it will—depends significantly on the consent and mandate of its people, and not only on government policy and state highhandedness. It is of the utmost importance that the discourse, and the industry itself, de-centres the mainlander and makes it about the people of the state and their interests. Ayaan Halder is a poet, author and doctoral research scholar at the Department of Law, Gauhati University, Assam (India). He spent his childhood and teenage years in Meghalaya, and is still closely associated with residents of the state. The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.
Forbes
17-05-2025
- Politics
- Forbes
Will Donald Trump Change The Middle East?
PARIS, FRANCE - APRIL 10: Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman arrives at Elysee Palace ... More on April 10, 2018 in Paris, France. Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman, is on a three-days official visit to France. (Photo by Stephane Cardinale - Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images) It is likely that many of the people protesting for Palestine in US universities will have read Edward Said's book 'Orientalism', or at least will have an idea who he was. It is also likely that they will have heard of Donald Trump, whose ire at these protesters has led to an unexpected fiscal crackdown on many prominent US universities including Columbia, where Said used to teach (see our recent note 'University Challenge'). In brief, the tack of Orientalism was to criticise the construction of a superior, Westernised view of the Middle East (the term was coined by navigators in the US Navy), that is then internalised by members of the Middle Eastern elite. At this broad level the theory was attractive, but runs into many practical difficulties such as Said's downplaying the role of women, and the failure of many Middle Eastern countries to develop economically and to nurture the kinds of open society that Said liked to live in. As with many facets of the debate around the Middle East, 'Orientalism' has become a badge of honour for many, and a contentious identifier for others, and there is a risk that many people who hold the 'Orientalist' view, have not updated their outlook for say the rise of Al Qaeda in the broad region and the effective domination in the last decade, of Palestinians by Hamas. I doubt that Donald Trump has read 'Orientalism' (I think his speechwriter might have though) but in the light of the Western perspective of the Middle East, his visit to Saudi Arabia was striking in two respects. First, like any clever politician, he confirmed the view that several countries in the region want to have of themselves – 'this great transformation has not come from Western interventionists … giving you lectures on how to live or how to govern your own affairs. No, the gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so-called 'nation-builders,' 'neo-cons,' or 'liberal non-profits,' …instead, the birth of a modern Middle East has been brought about by the people of the region themselves' To a degree, Trump's view is not correct. The economies of the UAE and KSA were built on Western know-how (see David Mulford's 'Packing for India' for example), and many of the financial institutions at least have mimicked those in the US and UK. Also, a large number of army officers from the region have been trained in imperialist bastions such as Sandhurst. At the same time, the miraculous growth of these countries can be ascribed to local vision and leadership, on a scale only matched by Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore. And, consistent with the 'Orientalism' thesis, many people in the West do not acknowledge the rising institutional role that Abu Dhabi plays in the region, or the extent to which Mohammed bin Saman has become a hero for the youth in his country. In that regard, we might say that the model the Middle Eastern countries have followed is the 'Sinatra Model' ('do it my own way') with a slight American twist. The President's address struck a chord because in the Emirates and the KSA in particular, there is a growing pride and independence in what these countries have achieved economically, and on my last visit there a few months ago, I found that there was little patience on the part of government officials to for example, have EU regulatory standards imposed on joint investment projects. In a note I wrote at the time I flagged how locals had developed their own acronym of the West (W.E.N.A.), surely proof that the ideas in 'Orientalism' are dated. Trump's speech will be a big disappointment for those who believe in institutions and the idea of nation-building, and in that regard will turn on its head the efforts of so many in the State Department and other institutions. Neither does it augur well for current day American institutions. The speech also brings into focus what Prof. Afshin Molavi refers to as the existence of 'two Middle Easts', namely a geopolitical one (sustained by American defence agreements) and an economic one. Chillingly in the context of the annihilation of Gaza, the Trump speech has tilted the momentum towards the economic version, and I feel that many people in Europe vastly underestimate the focus that governments in the region have on the economic prize, as opposed to the humanitarian catastrophe. Various countries in the region from Qatar to Syria, may now find themselves the beneficiaries of Mr Trump's lack of attachment to history and the democratic model, and it is very likely that the region known broadly as the Middle East will be one of the very few in the world to profit from his presidency, and will spearhead a move towards a model of materialistic, technocentric non-democracies, that some of Mr Trump's supporters have in mind for the USA. The emergence of the 'Fourth Pole', a prospective multipolar zone that will become the beneficiary of trade tensions between the 'older' multipolar zones (US, EU, Asia), is still very much on track, but as it develops it will increasingly need institutions, markets, rules and means of binding people to the region, none of which Mr Trump can help with.
