The image of the Arab in the West

Edward Said is one of the greatest contemporary thinkers. Born in Palestine, he became a professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University.

One day, while browsing his books in the Columbia University bookstore, I came across none other than Edward Said sitting next to me. He took me to his office at the University, and from then on, we maintained an intense correspondence.

As an admirer of his work, especially his classic book Orientalism, I tried to bring him to the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre. But he fell ill and passed away, unable to fulfill his wish to come to Porto Alegre.

In this book, he strongly criticizes the image of the Orient forged by the West, demonstrating how the Orient, as such, does not exist; it is an invention of the West. To such an extent that he includes geographical and cultural realities as distinct as Japan, Egypt, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia.

Since the Second World War, he argues, the Arab Muslim has become a figure in American popular culture, politics, and the business world. France and England no longer occupy center stage in world politics. The American empire has taken that place from them both.

The Arab became a stereotype of a nomad riding a camel. After 1973, this image came to represent something more threatening. Caricatures depicting an Arab sheikh standing behind a gas pump appeared repeatedly.

Besides being anti-Zionist, the Arab is also an oil supplier. In films and on television, the Arab is associated with debauchery or bloodthirsty dishonesty. No individuality, no personal characteristics or experiences appear.

A Columbia College course guide states that one in two Arabic words is related to violence. An article in Harper's magazine was even more offensive and racist, claiming that Arabs are basically murderers and that violence and deceit are in Arab genes. One book asserts that "few people in the Arab world even know that there are better ways to live."

The Arab world today, says Said, is an intellectual, political, and cultural satellite of the United States. The Arab and Islamic world is still a second-rate power in terms of cultural production, knowledge, and scholarship.

While there are a large number of organizations in the United States dedicated to studying Arabic and the Islamic East, there is no organization in the East dedicated to studying the United States, by far the largest economic and political influence in the region.

Said concludes that the failure of Orientalism was both human and intellectual. He ends his text by stating: “If knowledge of Orientalism has any meaning, it is as a reminder of the seductive degradation of knowledge, any knowledge, anywhere, at any time. Today perhaps more than ever.”