The Confused Wayward Orientalist

La mort de Sardanapale by Eugène Delacroix, or
Sensual Oppressed Ladiez and Violent Menz: the Middle East in a Nutshell, Y'all!

As many of you might know, my life calling is to scour the Internet for articles and cute animal pictures. And one of my favorite things to do—besides showing dog photos to my roommate to try and convince her that we should get a pet—is to become overly aggravated about offensive articles on a) women and b) the Middle East. Articles about idiotic Republican policies are a close third... and often tied to the two aforementioned topics.

For example, this perfect illustration of modern-day Orientalism is the sort of news that will send me down an inevitable spiral of angry ranting ("An Oriental adventure"? "The history and the culture of the region"? Monolithism much??? ARGH MY BLOOD PRESSURE).

But of course, not all articles on the region fall into the sort of oversimplifications barely worth the exertion of rolling one's eyes. Much of the news coming out of the Arab world deals with death, destruction and oppression, as if nothing positive and empowering ever came out of the Middle East. The early days of the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions* might have been a short truce, if only because the Western media thought this meant the whole Middle East was going to become more like "us."

I have written in the past about my fear that, by writing this blog, I would either contribute to the vast canon of negative clichés on Lebanon and the Middle East, or go too far in the other direction and gloss over the problematic aspects of Middle Eastern cultures. This has led to numerous occasions when my feminist and anti-colonialist/orientalist beliefs have felt at odds.

Stories about violations of women's rights abound from every part of the globe, but when they originate from the Middle East, the condemnations of such acts are all too often tinted by racism, Islamophobia and, yes, sexism. The use of expressions like "honor killing" [Warning: picture of a dead body at the link] appeals to the tired trope of Muslims/Arabs (the concepts often used as synonyms) as backwards, uncivilized beings. In the afore-linked case of a Lebanese teenager killed by her brother, honor killings are no longer seen as an extenuating circumstance in the Lebanese penal code—but the use of the expression still triggers visceral reactions. (It can also be noted that "crimes of passion" were a similar concept in France, although also no longer recognized legally speaking.)

Similarly, the story of a Saudi preacher who tortured and killed his five-year old daughter and has been fined for the crime (Note again the use of the loaded term "blood money"), is a tragic example of a man treating his family members as property with quasi-impunity in a system where this kind of mentality is encouraged. And while this story shocked and disturbed me, so did the comments in response to it. While I am opposed to Saudi Arabia's Wahabbi system—and let's be clear, patriarchy and religion being used as tools of oppression anywhere—the thought that this is the kind of story that will be spread far and wide by neo-cons and Islamophobes to justify their continued hatred of "them medieval Ay-rabs" also makes me sick to my stomach.

This dilemma has also been illustrated by the fascinating debate on Jadaliyya regarding a song by Palestinian hip-hop group DAM on honor killings** and how by pushing a pro-women's rights message, the song is also peddling essentialist notions on religion, culture, and the women-as-helpless-victims trope, while ignoring the Israeli occupation as an added layer of oppression. (Feminists! Forever arguing amongst ourselves!)

So how do I reconcile my "need" to defend the Middle East against negative clichés with the necessity to have serious discussions about the violations of basic human rights? Seems like I still haven't found the answer to that question. Excusing misogyny in the name of cultural relativism or colonial traumas is infantilizing, offensive and simply not an option. And it is not my role to prescribe solutions to problems whose complexities I cannot fully grasp in societies not my own.

What needs to be told about the Middle East are not just the sordid stories, but the uplifting ones as well, whether it be the Tahrir Square bodyguards in Egypt or the regionwide movement for an uprising of women—stories of solutions by local people who are not acting because they want to emulate the West, but because they want a better society on their own terms. And I hope that as long as the debate is thriving here, what others might think across the globe doesn't really matter.


*My hatred of the term "Arab Spring" will most likely be the topic of a future post.
**Thanks to my friend C. for sharing a French article on the topic :)