It is a real find, unquestionably; ‘Occidentalism’ is a word with the potential to become fashionable. Diverse social and cultural phenomena have invited the invocation of the term. Most commonly, however, occidentalism means "the imaging and imagining of ‘the West’". It is in this sense of occidentalism that James Carrier (anthropologists’ representations of ‘the West’), Chen Xiaomei (Chinese representations of the West) and Nasib S. El-Husseini (Arab understandings of the West) - to name the most conspicuous - have conducted very interesting research.

Three years ago, the Anglo-Dutch Sinologist Ian Buruma and the Israeli philosopher Avishai Margalit entered the fray of occidentalism studies with an article in the New York Review of Books. In their article, they defined occidentalism as an anti-western ideology shared by a number of aggressive, irrational death cults that the world has witnessed in recent history, such as Nazism, Japanese nationalism and other fascisms during World War II, the madness of Pol Pot and, in a milder form, Marxism in general. According to the authors, what the world is witnessing today in Islamic radical violence, is a re-incarnation of that old, irrational hatred of the West.

In slightly adapted versions the article has been republished in numerous languages, and now there is a book: Occidentalism - The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies. The core message has remained unchanged. Indeed, the book is mostly an elaboration on the theme set forth in the article.

In a sense, the authors understand occidentalism to be a reversed Orientalism-according-to-Edward Said, only worse. Occidentalism is based on the perceived need to distance oneself from the Other, in order to claim a sense of superiority. In the case of occidentalism, that Other is the West.

So what does the occidentalist view make of the West? Margalit and Buruma identify four overlapping animosities at work in occidentalism. First, there is the dismissive attitude to The City, understood to be a rootless agglomeration of arrogant and cold materialists, as opposed to rural men, who are firmly in tune with nature and tradition, whose blood and sweat have mixed with the soil of the land, which they plow and know as their own.

Secondly, occidentalism is opposed to ‘the mind of the West’, in particular against its science and rationalism. Thirdly, there is the disgust with the bourgeoisie: the mediocre men of no principle but the quest for profit and ease. Lastly, there is the hatred directed against the ‘Infidel’. (This last element is new to the book: in the article the fourth element of occidentalist, hatred was reserved for Feminism.) Thus identified, the authors then forage through history on a search for conflicts, violence, and ideologies that exemplify one of more of these animosities. This, in a nutshell, is the theory and the method of Occidentalism - and both spell trouble.

Resentment against ‘the city’ is a rather universal phenomenon, which is as old as the city itself. In the French countryside, les Parisiens are considered poor Frenchmen: they don’t eat properly, they don’t talk comme il faut, they’re arrogant - and that is not even counting the abundance of immigrants. From personal experience, I know that Dutch villagers often stick to the notion that the cities are places where violence, corruption, prostitution and generally unorthodox behaviour are rife, and where ‘anything goes’.

In a way, it would be difficult to contradict them. A 'Gay Pride Parade' in Erpskwerps simply won’t happen, it takes place in Amsterdam, London or Tel Aviv. Yet it does not become clear as to how and why Margalit and Buruma understand this primordial, anti-urban sentiment to be an element of Occidentalism. To them, it is significant that Maoist terror, directed against the cities and seen as the ultimate victory of the rural over the urban, was also directed against the West. Thus, anti-urbanism can be considered an ingredient of occidentalism - or so it seems.

The aversion against the ‘mind of the West’ consists of a hostility against the Enlightenment-borne phenomena of modern science and rationalism. Here the authors incriminate all romanticists who regret the Entzauberung der Welt, as potential Occidentalists. Elsewhere, T.S. Elliot’s Choruses from ‘The Rock’ is cited, where Elliot’s annoyance with the godlessness of the ever-growing city of London, suddenly becomes suspect. By the same token, Dostojevski’s representation of a scientist West is drawn into the odious sphere of occidentalism. These notions (and dismissals) of a rigidly rationalist, soulless West are not far from radical islamist views of the West -- that is, if we follow Margalit and Buruma -- as they make the analogy to try and strengthen their thesis.

In their treatment of the occidentalist hatred directed against the bourgeoisie, the authors are no less indiscriminate, as they compare Nazi writings and Japanese Kamikaze testimonials to islamist declarations. The occidentalist glorification of self-sacrifice and unconditional loyalty to the higher purpose (i.e. the Volk, Führer, God) is contrasted with the selfish, comfort-seeking bourgeoisie, who are considered incapable of even understanding the notion of glory. In an apparent likening of ‘the West’ to capitalism and liberal democracy, the authors concede that capitalism and liberal democracy never pretended to be heroic creeds. This lack of apparent heroism invites the scorn of the aforementioned critics to the West, but also informs the Talibanesque cliché that goes ‘We shall prevail for we love death, where [the Westerners] love Pepsi Cola.’

Lastly, there is the hatred of the Infidel. Here, Margalit and Buruma do not shrink from heading straight to the Lord. Think of Babylon, Sodom and Gomorra, the abodes of unbelief that so famously met with the Wrath of God. It bears no surprise that the jealous God does not care for those who deny Him, but it is not clear why Margalit and Buruma bring Him to the fore. Perhaps it is in order to show that this component of Occidentalism is as old as God’s word itself, but this cannot be said with certainty. In any case, Osama bin laden is evidently hell-bent on fighting people he refers to as infidels, which completes the occidentalist circle. Occidentalism, then, is the hatred of a West, perceived to be a perverted, soulless and weak bastion of unbelief. The authors contend that the present anti-westernism that emanates from ‘a significant proportion of the Muslim world’ fits this definition.

So is all criticism of the West and things Western occidentalism? Is every romantic, every anti-capitalist and every fundamentalist an occidentalist? The authors warn that this is not so. The difference is in the presence or absence of bitterness and rancour. For bitterness and rancour, so the authors suggest, lead to the dehumanisation of the West. In other words, Occidentalism is not simply a critical mode of thought, but a hatred that does not acknowledge its Western enemy’s humanity. Ostensibly, but again it cannot be said with certainty, it is according to this criterion that Occidentalism does cover Nazis, Japanese nationalists, Islamic radicalists and Dostojevski, but not T.S. Elliot or God.

Now, how solid is this theory of an anti-western ideology of hatred? The answer to this question requires some understanding as to what counts as ‘the West’. Margalit and Buruma don’t really bother with it. In one place they let capitalism and liberal democracy take the place of the West, in another, the United States are representative. Then there are the examples from the biblical past, where Babylon appears to function as some sort of ‘proto-West’, under attack by an occidentalist God.|

What the authors have done, is simply to scan history for defiant responses to a whole array of developments which they associate with their own ephemeral notion of westernness. Responses to urbanisation, imperialism, growing wealth, Enlightenment, capitalism, secularism - they all fit into the repository of occidentalism. The authors have thus created a hopelessly wide heading. That is a pity, for occidentalism in the sense of ‘imaging and imagining the West’ is an interesting field of research, and of growing importance. It is therefore all the more regrettable that the aforementioned studies into this field have apparently been lost on Margalit and Buruma, for nothing suggests that they have taken note of them.
Then what is the use of this find? Potentially, it is of great political use. After all, all criticism of America, the West and ‘modern’ thoughts can now be filed under one and the same heading: the dangerous, dehumanising and irrational hatred of the West. Although Margalit and Buruma warn against such abuse of their argument, this warning does not convince. For they too belittle the more concrete grievances people might hold against the West:

“ [A]nti-Americanism is sometimes the result of [American] support of..., say,...Israel,...or of whatever goes under the rubric of ‘globalisation’.
Some people are antagonistic to the United States simply because it is so powerful,... or resent the U.S. for helping them (sic), or feeding them(sic), or protecting them(sic), in the way one resents an overbearing father. But whatever the U.S. government does or does not do is often beside the point. [Occidentalism refers] not to American policies, but to the idea of America itself ”.

The notion that the essence of (islamic) anti-westernism has no link to concrete Western policies, is not new. The historian of Islam, Bernard Lewis, known for his politically colourful analyses (always in favour of right-wing America and Israel), wrote exactly the same in his article The Roots of Muslim Rage (The Atlantic Monthly, 1990). Although it does not appear in the bibliography, there is more that suggests that Margalit and Buruma have made ample use of this article.

Margalit and Buruma promise to deliver a deeper insight into the hearts and minds of people varying from Hezbollah leader Nasrallah to al-Qaida’s Bin Laden, by illustrating their feeble theory with Chinese revolutionaries, Japanese imperialists, Nazis, romanticists and God. However, in their attempt to ground occidentalism historically, the authors end up shoving animosity towards the West under a make-shift rubric of pathological hatred. Consequently, Occidentalism is not just a disappointing academic exercise but also an all too useful political tool. It is not to be hoped that the concept of occidentalism as used by Margalit and Buruma becomes fashionable, for there is no lack of bromides as it is. More importantly, it would be dangerous to think that one’s enemies live in an impermeable bubble of irrational hatred, where one’s own actions remain unnoticed.

This article is translated and adapted by the author for publication at RISQ from an earlier version published in the Dutch periodical Eutopia.

© Robbert Woltering