The savage smear campaign to which Islam and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have recently been subjected in some sections of the American media has served both to deepen and widen the misunderstanding of the Kingdom and Islam, especially in the US but also in the West in general. The prevailing Western view of Arabs and Islam is a factor that determines the Western view of Arabs and Islam in the American media; it is an important source of the misunderstanding.
As Edward Said has said, it is impossible for any researcher or for the Western media to write of Arabs or Islam or even to imagine them outside the preconceived limits set by Western ideas of Arabs. This also represents the new conservatives’ central frame of thinking in the United States — and provides the moral dimension of America’s hegemony and an introduction into the American political decision-making related to this region. These decisions are not made in a vacuum but are instead based on inaccurate decisions on the state of the region, its traditions, habits and culture. The American political mind tends to deal with Arab reality on the basis of inaccurate assumptions — unfortunately however, to too many of the American political decision-makers, these assumptions appear to be facts.
The Western researcher, politician or media looks at Arab and Islamic societies from what is called an “Essentialist” view based on two principal ideas. First is the myth of fixed traits and permanent features. In this myth, Arab and Islamic societies are ruled by unchanging permanent features — East is East and West is West and each have their own fixed and permanent features.
Arab-Islamic culture is one that is incapable of change and innovation. One of the most prominent Orientalists in the US, Gustav von Gronbaum, finds no difficulty in portraying Islam as anti-humanity and unable to change or gain self-knowledge or objectivity. He says, “It is essential to realize that Islamic civilization as an entity does not share our principal aspirations. It is unconcerned with studying the cultures of others as an end in itself or as a means to an improved understanding of their natures and history. If this were true of modern Islam, one might link it to Islam’s turbulence which does not allow it to look further than itself unless forced to do so; this, however, goes back to the past and one may link it to the anti-human tendency of this civilization.”
This sort of fundamentalist and racist thinking, based on the myth of the existence of an outright contradiction between two opposites that have no common denominator, has affected ideas on Arab and Islamic societies. Therefore, many modern Western researchers are comfortable recycling this train of thought with the aim of proving the imaginary and politicized contradiction between what they think is fundamental in their personal identity and what is fundamental in Arab-Islamic culture.
P.J. Valikiotis does not hesitate to presume that the contradictions between Western and Arab civilization are sharp and eternal. Judith Miller does not hesitate to assume that Islam is incompatible with human rights. Daniel Pipes uses the term “fundamentalist Islam” and “Islam” interchangeably. He also makes a comparison between “fundamentalist Islam” on the one hand and communism and fascism on the other. He says: “While fundamentalist Islam differs in its details from the utopian ideology, it is very similar in both scope and aims. Like communism and fascism, it portrays a pioneering ideology and a comprehensive program for human betterment and for building a new society and dominating it completely and setting up cadres ready and eager for bloodshed.”
In his work, “Islam and Liberal Democracy,” Bernard Lewis considers the problem of the Middle East does not rest on the extent of the compatibility between fundamentalism and liberal democracy, but on the possibility of the existence of any such compatibility between liberal democracy and Islam itself.
The second issue is the presumption of knowledge of Arab and Islamic societies and what is involved in portraying Western and racist generalities as objective realities. These presumptions drive the researcher, politician as well as the Western media into believing that he is thinking or planning or writing based on the realities of those societies, unaware of the bias or the results of this politicized message that is characterized by regurgitating stereotypes.
Unconsciously people become prisoners because the trap they fall into is an ideological one rather than a physical one. They believe that they are thinking and acting and writing on the basis of the objective realities of Arab and Islamic societies when in fact they are thinking, acting and writing based on their view or understanding or imagination of those societies.
The Western understanding of Arab and Islamic societies rests on ignoring that people are the ones who make human history and consequently we must look to understand other societies and cultures from the idea that they are cases for interpretation and not objective realities and accepted facts. There is no objective understanding independent of the ideological view of the makers of such knowledge. Understanding is a result of human explanation inextricably linked with the political-cultural context which produced it. Further, the prevalent Western understanding of Arab and Western societies which rests on the supposition that it is a clear example of those societies, ignores the reality that we live in a constantly changing world and limits the mind with chains of stillness and immobility. In reality nothing exists which is incapable of change and development. The presumption, or perhaps more aptly the myth, that Muslims are enemies or are potential enemies may not be true and even if it were true for an instant in time, it might change in the next. Western stereotypes harden other realities and widen the gap between the mental picture and reality.
In conclusion, despite the fact that the Sept. 11 attacks are considered crimes against humanity, undertaken by terrorists claiming to be Muslims, the Islamic countries are also victims of terrorism. The dominant West should not be a prisoner of its own fundamentalist view of Arab and Islamic societies.
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(Dr. Khaled Al-Rowaitea is a Saudi academic. He is based in Riyadh.)
