Orientalism in the News

The inimitable Glenn Greenwald, in his blog on Tuesday, points out a frightening piece of Orientalism spewed by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, reported in The Sunday Times. What so appalled Greenwald--quite understandably--was the following comment by Blair:

I was stopped by someone the other week who said it was not surprising there was so much terrorism in the world when we invaded their countries (meaning Afghanistan and Iraq). No wonder Muslims felt angry.

When he had finished, I said to him: tell me exactly what they feel angry about. We remove two utterly brutal and dictatorial regimes; we replace them with a United Nations-supervised democratic process and the Muslims in both countries get the chance to vote, which incidentally they take in very large numbers. And the only reason it is difficult still is because other Muslims are using terrorism to try to destroy the fledgling democracy and, in doing so, are killing fellow Muslims.

What’s more, British troops are risking their lives trying to prevent the killing. Why should anyone feel angry about us? Why aren’t they angry about the people doing the killing? The odd thing about the conversation is that I could tell it was the first time he had even heard the alternative argument.

There's just so much wrong with this comment that it's hard to know where to begin. Greenwald has done an admirable job detailing the grotesquely imperialistic worldview that Blair's statement reveals, and I would encourage everyone to read his entire post. For my purposes, however, it's sufficient to focus on one aspect: orientalism.

The term "orientalism," most famously articulated by the late Edward Said, refers to the grand narrative that Europeans told themselves about the "orientals" of the Middle East, that those peoples, mostly Muslims and Arabs, were irrational, effeminate, ungovernable, childlike, and inferior. Having thus created a self-contained representation of the "oriental," Imperial Europe could justify its colonization of the Middle East as bringing superior European values to inferior beings. As but one grand experiment in Orientalist thinking, we have Iraq, which Britain colonized, and, when finally driven out in 1958, left a mess in its wake. Fifty years later, Britain decided once again that Iraqis were incapable of governing themselves, and regime change was in order; Britain is once again occupying Iraq, and Iraq is once again a colonial disaster that a majority of Iraqis now say is even worse than Saddam Hussein's brutal regime.

What, then, of Tony Blair's comments? He says that the person he was speaking to had probably never even considered his argument. I would guess that that's because his argument is too stupid to give any serious thought to. Would we really expect Iraqis to be happy that Blair removed a brutal and dictatorial regime? Perhaps we would, if nothing else had changed. But other things did change: even notwithstanding the Iraqi regime was itself a product of Britain's long history of imperial domination, the answer is still "no," because the cost of removing that regime was too high.

We might well ask the following of Tony Blair: if England invaded the US; and then banned both the Democratic and Republican parties (justified because neither of them has positive approval ratings); and then banned the military; and then banned the police; and then let everyone out of jail (in fairness, it was Hussein, not Blair, that did this, as part of his last-ditch effort to forestall an invasion); and then bombed infrastructure so that medical care was unavailable, unemployment was 60%, electricity (including for air conditioning and refrigeration) was available only one hour per day, sewage covered the streets, and clean water was available only sporadically; and at the end of 4 years was still occupying the country while having killed somewhere between 2.5% to 4% of the population (roughly the equivalent of a 9-11 every two-and-a-half days, or 8-12 million Americans); would we be happy about it? And if everything wasn't going swimmingly, would we blame it on Americans?

I doubt many Americans would be happy with this situation. But Blair seems to believe Iraqis should be grateful for exactly this situation. He seems unable to comprehend that he might have something to do with the disaster that is Iraq. On the contrary, he's the noble Englishman who can do no wrong. Therefore, if there's anything wrong in Iraq, it must be Iraqis' fault. And why shouldn't he blame the victim? After all, it's quite convenient to do so when the victim is either dead, dying, or too busy trying not to get blown up to be heard.

This is the beauty of orientalism. It means Tony Blair doesn't have to worry about what the people he speaks for think, or what they want, or how many of them die. All that matters is that they should be grateful.

Introduction, virtuality, exceptionalism

Greetings, gentle reader. My name is Asim, and I'm a doctoral candidate in American Studies. My main research interest is cyberculture (and media studies more generally), but I'm also interested in race/racism/slavery, and religion in American culture. I received a master's degree in economics here at Maryland, and I'm currently directing a group in AMST called The Project on Religion, Culture, and Globalization.

In her last post, Jo mentioned the connection between our real and virtual worlds, and specifically Linden dollars. On a related note, the Chronicle of Higher Education reports that the virtual community known as Second Life suffered a pecuniary--both real and virtual--loss, as the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's commercially-run island was "bombed."

My first thought was to ask "why?" Why would someone attack a virtual island? Indeed, why do we have virtual islands in the first place? What do we get from them? Why do people go there? What does this all mean? Of what relation are the virtual and the real? To what degree are they overlapping? I once heard Deepak Chopra say on TV that we don't experience reality, but only our perceptions of it--but if that's true, does it follow that there's there no difference between the virtual and the real? Is the real collapsing into the virtual? Or vice versa?

I don't have answers to these questions. In fact, I'm not even sure I'm asking the right questions. All I'm sure of is that ABC is out some (real) money.

In other news: one of the first things I learned about in American Studies was the trope of American exceptionalism, which is, roughly speaking, a fixation on what makes America not just unique but superior. At its worst, American exceptionalism is an ideology of national and racial self-aggrandizement that was (and still is) used to justify all sorts of horrible treatment of people deemed inferior. I was reminded of this as I came across a most remarkable piece of American exceptionalism in yesterday's Washington Post. Under the hopeful title U.S., Iran Open Dialogue On Iraq, we have this statement from "U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan C. Crocker":

"This is about actions, not just principles, and I laid out to the Iranians direct, specific concerns about their behavior in Iraq and their support for militias that are fighting Iraqi and coalition forces," he said. Crocker said he did not present a dossier of evidence, but he impressed upon his Iranian counterpart that the United States was "looking for results" and wanted "a change in Iranian behavior."

The first question one might ask about this exchange is perhaps the most obvious: why is there a US Ambassador to Iraq? The US is, after all, occupying Iraq, while Iraq's "government" apparently does not even control Baghdad, much less the country. As for the charge that Iran is supporting the insurgency, as Juan Cole has repeatedly and convincingly explained on his excellent blog, that's highly unlikely. The reason is simple: Iran is a Shia Muslim country that supports the current Shia Iraqi government. The insurgency is based in the Sunni areas of Iraq, and includes some of Iran's enemies, among them Sunni groups (like al-Qaida, which finally found space to operate in Iraq after the US invasion created a power vacuum), and members of Baath Party. This would be the same Baath Party that controlled Iraq during its war with Iran. Indeed, the US not only supported Iraq during its war with Iran, but also quashed Iran's complaint to the UN that Iraq was using banned chemical weapons. So, Iran clearly has no desire to fund the insurgents, and no need to fund the Shias in Iraq, some of whom control militias powerful enough that their death squads have been able to murder Sunnis with impunity.

Crocker's comments, while ridiculous, point to an important aspect of our government's position regarding Iran: it's basically an essentialist position, one in which Iran is essentially and inherently evil--it is, after all, a member of George W. Bush's "Axis of Evil"--and the US is inherently and exceptionally good. That's why, in this view, the US has the right to label entire nations "evil." That's why it has the right to attack and occupy Iraq, and then repeatedly, and without apparent irony, accuse Iran of meddling in Iraq's internal affairs.

I suspect members of the Bush Administration are not so blinkered that they can't see the inconsistency of their position. But the fact that they keep repeating it indicates that they think it'll still play well with Americans, that they can invoke American exceptionalism to obscure the illogic of their foreign policy. It could be, of course, that referring to the Bush Administration's ideology as exceptionalism is to overstate the case; it could be merely bluster. But either way, it's reiterating a long history of saying "you have to do what we say because we're us and you're not."

It's worth noting that our government's contradictory behavior--on the one hand insisting that Iran is intractably evil, and on the other engaging in dialogue with it--is itself probably a result of a simple-minded approach rooted in the notion of America as a mythic force of, as George W. Bush often says, "freedom and democracy." Having thoroughly bad-mouthed Iran, anything less than continued brinksmanship will be seen as backing down in the face of evil. But Iraq is a mess, and the US needs all the help it can get. And so the tough-guy talk continues, even while dialogue finally begins.

It's also worth noting that the American Studies Association in 2006 called for "the end of the war and the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq." When I first read this resolution, I have to admit I was a bit surprised that an academic organization would take such a position on a political issue. I'm not sure, in retrospect, why I was surprised. But whatever the reason, it's clear to me now that the ASA's opposition to the war is not an ideological position, but an academic one. Just as geological evidence leads geologists to support evolution and not creationism, so too historical and cultural evidence leads Americanists to oppose the war. I have no doubt that there's much disagreement about the war among American Studies students and faculty, but on the whole, I can't find fault with the ASA's opposition to the war. Indeed, most Americans would now seem to agree with that position.

When worlds collide

It had to happen. Online gamers can now get a VISA credit card which earns World of Warcraft gametime. Three years ago there was a  student in my AMST 201 making about a thousand dollars a month in his spare time creating and then selling characters on Everquest. I realized that anyone who thinks online entertainment is just a hobby for nerds is missing the emergence of an entirely new society, complete with subculture, politics and its own economy. So here is one more point of connection between the "real world" (if credit can be considered real compared to cash) and cyberculture. What I want to know is how soon will I be able to get a rewards card that earns me Linden dollars?

Introduction and notes from Town Hall

Hello everyone, my name is Mateo. I am currently wrapping up my second year as an MA student in American Studies. My areas of concentration are Science, Technology & Society (STS) and Feminist Technoscience studies. My Master’s Thesis (which is slowly coming together) is on the political history of gerontology/ethnogerontology and Alzheimer’s disease. I will be graduating this spring with hundreds of other happy people.

Background:
I came to the University of Maryland after graduating from Oberlin College with a degree in chemistry and working in the Bay Area for several years. My first job after college was in the pharmaceutical industry as a medicinal chemist. I synthesized anti-retroviral drug candidates for HIV-1 and Hepatitis C. After a couple of years, I got sick of the industry, and started working at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) as a qualitative interviewer.

During this time I also worked with the California Prison Focus (CPF). My work focused on health care in men and women’s maximum-security prisons. I was responsible for acquiring information about the various anti-retroviral drugs inmates were being prescribed. While working with CPF, I visited several of the California prisons and conducted in-depth interviews with transgender and non-transgender men and women. I ran a monthly radio show with a local California radio station on various aspects of the California Department of Defense (CDC).

Notes from Town Hall: Friday 04.27.07 from 11.00-12.30

Last Friday a handful of American studies graduate students (GSAS), Professor Jo Paoletti , and Dr. Nancy Struna came together to discuss current departmental matter. The meeting provided a great opportunity to hear about departmental plans (for the future) and graduate student concerns.

Professor Nancy Struna discussed the department's new strategic plan. In general, the plan consists of the following four components:

1. Down Size

The department plans to reduce the number of graduate students admitted into the Ph. D program. The goal is to bring in five Ph. D students every year. This is part of a university wide effort to downsize the graduate student body and raise the quality.

2. Graduate Student Funding

Professor Nancy Struna has submitted a grant proposal to improve funding packages for American studies graduate students. The money will be used to provide an incoming graduate student with a fellowship and half time TA ship (similar to CRGE)

The department is also trying to raise the stipend for at least one of the existing fellowships offered to incoming graduate students.

Note on funding: The state of Maryland only gives the department enough money for two fellowships and 4.5 assistantships.

3. New Faculty
Next year we will have two new faculty members joining our department. Our new faculty members will have joint appointments in LGBT studies and Women Studies. The two new faculty members are Dr. Christina Hanhardt (Ph. D., American Studies, NYU) and Dr. Jeffrey McCune (Ph. D., Performance Studies, Northwestern University). For more details check out the American Studies website: http://www.amst.umd.edu/NewsEvents/newhiresrelease.htm.

4. Center for Leadership and Organizational Change

Priority has been given to developing a center for the study of everyday life. The center will be a resource for post docs., graduate students, undergraduates, and faculty members. The content focus will be on social justice issues within and outside of the University. At the moment, potential funding sources for the center are being researched.

Issues and Concerns

In addition to all of the exciting news, we also discussed graduate student concerns and issues. Here are some of the issues raised by graduate students at the meeting:

1. Student engagement and professionalization

-Why are graduate students not involved?
-How do we get people to initiate projects and increase a sense of community within the department?
-Why are AMST graduate students not doing more?

Popular Theories/Speculative answers to these questions

-graduate students in AMST are not “pro-active” enough
-a combination of internal and external factors (funding, personalities, multiple interests, work)
-people are too busy
-people are doing a bunch of stuff but most of us are scattered all across campus
-it is a departmental problem
-things have actually improved in the last two years, it is not fair to blame everything any single factor (especially overworked graduate students)

2. The need for a Graduate Student Handbook
-A very smart graduate student brought up the need for an American Studies graduate student handbook!

Why?
-students should know about insurance cost
-fellows should be informed of the need to pay taxes

In short, there is a lot of information that graduate students need to know, but don’t get until the last minute. The handbook would be a valuable resource for incoming and existing graduate students.

3. Seminar Series
-faculty and students would like to revamp the faculty student seminar series next year

4. Plans for the new center
-How will our center be unique, yet compatible with other existing research centers/programs (CRGE, Latino/Latina studies, LGBT, Driskell Center, Asian American Studies)?

Announcements

Professor Jo Paoletti has received a grant from the Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) to create a writing rubric.

Congratulations Professor Paoletti!!!! This is really fantastic!

My comments…

I chose to make this my first entry because I think it is important to be informed about the resources available in our department. I left the meeting feeling a bit frustrated with the lack of communication among graduate students. I know of several people in the department who are doing some really great work. Surprisingly,there is a sense that American studies graduate students are “not doing enough.”

I think the main issue here is lack of communication among graduate students, not lack of motivation. It sometimes feels as though we all live in our own little worlds…and in many ways I guess we do. I am not sure this can change completely. We simply cannot attend every talk, meeting, movie screening, or cultural event on campus. We have to pick and choose carefully how we spend our time and energy. On the other hand, I think we can easily be more strategic about circulating information about the cool stuff we are doing.

I think it is important to have some sort of forum dedicated to ‘making public’ all of the great things American Studies graduate students are involved in. I hope that this new bog might provide a low-pressure environment to engage each other.