Jessica's Islam, Media, and The West Blog

In a world as complex and diverse as ours, with people of all different races and backgrounds and constant war and fighting, scholars and historians are always trying to understand how and why these interactions work. Whether constructed or real, one of the biggest dichotomies in our past and present world has been between “The East” and “The West”. In 1979, Edward Said attempted to explain the interactions between these two spheres in his book called Orientalism, which described his theory of the same name.

According to Said, Orientalism is the lens through which people in the West view people from the East; in other words our pre-conceived notions about people in the “Orient” that are constructed rather than truthful. When Said talks about the Orient, he mostly refers to the Middle East. This lens that we see the Middle East through distorts it, and makes it appear different, threatening, and incredibly backwards. One of his other main arguments is that the reason why the West constructs these images is for purposes of power and hegemony or a “style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient.”(Said, 3). He says that there is an overwhelming tendency to emphasize the differences between the East and West instead of trying to understand the similarities, which is also for dominance purposes. In his writing, Said uses specific books to show that Western media is the vehicle for these dehumanizing and imperialistic generalizations about the Middle East. I feel that Said’s arguments about Orientalism are very convincing and have a lot of merit, especially in the context of today’s global conflicts and situations; however, I also want to point out some important things that Said does not take into consideration.

Said traces Orientalism back to the time of Europe and French colonization and imperialism, back to Napoleon and the beginnings of Western world dominance. I think this is very important because it fully emphasizes the notion that Orientalism is “a created body of theory and practice in which, for many generations, there has been a considerable material investment”(Said, 6) for the purpose of power, ideology, and dominance. In order to conquer and colonize, Europeans had to construct an image of people in the “Orient” that would justify their actions. This is not in any way unique to European imperialism in the Orient. The same tactic of creating an image of the “other” was used in the American slave trade, the colonizing of North America and numerous other situations. It is not surprising that these stereotypes that were constructed in the past have never gone away. Especially since Said argues that since World War II, America has taken over “Orientalism duties” from England and France.

A lot of examples, and maybe even proof, for Said’s arguments can be found when looking at American news media, movies, and foreign policy. The news media, especially since 9/11 has often been criticized for its portrayal of the Middle East. The stories that we see about people from that part of the world are always sensationalist and mostly have to do with acts of violence. Examples of every day life from the Middle East are never shown, so the picture that is constructed is of a brutal and savage people. For his article “Reel Bad Arabs”, Jack Shaheen watched 900 movies and studied how the Arabs and Muslims in each movie were portrayed. He concluded, “the moviemakers’ distorted lenses have shown Arabs as heartless, brutal and uncivilized religious fanatics”(Shaheen, 1), which definitely supports Said’s argument of how The West is taught to see the Middle East as beneath them. Perhaps the best example of rampant Orientalism is America’s war on the Middle East, specifically Iraq. America has occupied the country for 5 years now in order to oversee and direct the implementation of order and democracy. This explanation for the country’s occupation implies that the Iraqi people couldn’t do this for themselves; it also suggests that before the Americans came to reform, they were a barbaric and uncivilized person, which applies the legacy of Saddam Hussein to the entire country. When looking at these three short examples, it is easy to understand Said’s arguments about the way that the West views and perceives the Middle East.

I think that Said examines how the West views the East so thoroughly that he neglects to address the other stereotypes that exist throughout the world and tends to view it as a one-way street. The East also has certain perceptions about the West that aren’t necessarily true. The West is often described as immoral, highly sexual, materialistic and independent to the point of having no loyalty. It is difficult to do away with all these lenses that the world sees each other with because it is natural for humans to try to explain that which they don’t understand.

Said’s Orientalism also slightly falls into the trap of the “clash of civilizations” argument. In talking so broadly and generally about “The East” and “The West”, he fails to talk about the differences within each culture, which is interesting because that is what he is arguing against in the first place. He assumes that everyone in the West takes the portrayals that they find in the popular media, the news media, and political rhetoric and accepts them at face value. Various media studies have proven that this is not the case; people in the West are free to interpret the way that they want and many of them are smart enough to realize that the media has a certain way of looking at things. This obviously applies to the Middle East as well; not everyone sees the West as shallow and amoral.

The biggest problem with trying to explain the way the world works and the way that humans interact with each other is that there will never be a definitive answer. Said does an excellent job of getting the world to think about how and why we look at the world a certain way and how that might be problematic. Realizing this is the only way that things can begin to change.

It just took me around 5 hours to read "Palestine" by Joe Sacco in its entirety, but by the time I read the last page I had concluded that it was definitely worth all that time (even on my day off!). I felt the exact same way after I spent 8 hours reading both books of "Persepolis" so I thought I might use one of my blog entries to explore why I was so fascinated and intrigued by these comic novels.

I'm a dedicated reader by nature, but most of all I'm a sucker for narrative. Give me a great novel (even if it is around 700 pages, ahem harry potter ahem) and I could have it finished by the end of the day no problem. But give me a scholarly journal article or an academic investigation and my attention will wander off after approximately 5 minutes. Theory can be interesting- I wouldn't be able to be a Communications student if I didn't think so- but there is nothing like a story. Until this point in the class, we have been reading articles that try to figure out the Middle East and the way it is conceived by Westerners, and the way it works in the grand scheme of the world; it is useful to try and figure this all out but it's all theory and there is never any definite conclusion. I think that these narratives (and the one we will be reading for the next week or two) will definitely give us something that we've been missing- a first hand perspective.

"Persepolis" was incredible to me because it was the real life story of a young girl living in Iran. Being a girl who has just turned 21 and is only starting to figure her life out, it was so interesting to watch the transformation and evolution of Marjane. Through my avid reading I've read many American coming of age stories, but never one from a part of the world like Iran. It was very interesting to watch her deal with something that most girls from the U.S. don't have to deal with- reconciling her Iranian roots with her Western tendencies. I think in the end she was very successful in figuring out these two parts of her life. However, I wonder if this is really something that very many girls in the Middle East have to go through or if this was just a special case. Nevertheless, both of the books were very successful in giving me a fresh perspective. It was like a breath of fresh air! (I'm definitely sick of people like Bernard Lewis who think they've got it all figured out).

I had just as much fun with "Palestine" as I did with "Persepolis" but in a different way. "Palestine" didn't exactly include the lightheartedness and humor that "Persepolis" did but it definitely provided another fresh perspective. I previously didn't know much about Palestine and the Palestinian people, so I appreciated this attempt to explore these two things. This comic book brought me to a whole new world and I really enjoyed all of the different stories from the people that he meets. However, while this book was a firsthand perspective persay, I was careful to take it with a grain of salt because of who Joe Sacco is. Joe Sacco is not a native inhabitant of the Middle East- he is a journalist who has lived and worked in the West and went to Palestine with a specific desire to see it in a certain way. While I appreciated the information he did present, I kept wondering if there were things that he had left out to make his comic book more dramatic and intriguing. He is a journalist after all.

There's just something about comic books. I am definitely looking forward to continuing this unit of the class.

Oh yeah, here is a very cute and funny clip from the Persepolis movie which I hope to see sometime in the near future!

I live in a medium-sized suburban town (technically called a village) in Bergen County, New Jersey called Ridgewood. There is an east side and a west side of town (which has a lot to do with school districts) but the two parts are united in the middle with the "center of town". The center of town is a big long street called E. Ridgewood Ave which is physically wider than the other streets of town, similar to how Broadway was in the city. This is where all the cute boutique shops and all sorts of gorgeous restaurants are. There is also a large, open park and a train station at the top of the street. This is where all of Ridgewood's couples and families go at night on the weekends, and where teenagers hang out after school. A large volume of out-of-towners also flock to the restaurants for a nice night out.

I don't know much about the history of Ridgewood, but I assume that E. Ridgewood Ave. has always been the same. Ridgewood is a very family-oriented and community-oriented town so I think that Ridgewood is set up with this center of town to provide a communal spot for everyone to "meet up" and convene. It is a great way for the residents of Ridgewood to identify themselves and their town.

Jessica, before you started taking this course, if someone had asked you to describe the image that entered your mind when you heard the word Arab, what would you have said?
Let me start off by saying that I like to consider myself a very educated person. I believe that attending college in one of the biggest and most diverse cities in the world has given me a real world education that could be considered even more valuable than my academic education. I would never call my parents unintelligent but because of the opportunities I’ve been given, I am worldlier than they are. Despite this, whenever I heard the word Arab, I would picture a short, heavy man wearing a turban and a white garment, sporting thick facial hair and sometimes a sneer. It’s incredibly frustrating and embarrassing for me to admit this because I know this isn’t correct. My Uncle Magdy was born and raised in Egypt and he looks absolutely nothing like that. Yet for some reason, I completely failed at the word association game because I couldn’t stop this negative image from popping into my head.

Where do you think this image came from?
I know where this image came from and it’s pretty obvious- the media. Like most Americans, I’ve never been to the Middle East before. This means that understandably, most of my conceptions of what Arabs are like have come from movies, TV shows, and the news. Growing up, Aladdin was one of my favorite movies. Every image on the news of the Middle East is related to war and violence, considering the current state of foreign affairs. Taking into consideration Jack Shaheen’s “Reel Bad Arabs” article, it’s not surprising that that sort of image became ingrained in my subconscious.

You keep using the past tense. What has started to change this reflex representation of Arab people?
I have immensely enjoyed the graphic novels and first hand accounts that we’ve been reading in class. It is so refreshing to read something about the Middle East and Islam that isn’t coming from a scholarly or academic perspective. I feel like I’ve learned so much more by hearing from people that have lived their life in that area and can offer a different angle to see it from apart from the American news media. Even though I already knew these people existed, they are making that subconscious image of an Arab in my head much less defined (and to me that is a great thing).

Whenever ANY sort of media is focused around Islam and the Arab world, it is important to consider Orientalism. Do you feel these texts are Orientalist?
Orientalism is an incredibly important concept and I am a perfect example of its implications. It is hard to deny its existence in America and the West when you look at Arab representations in any form of media. We definitely see the Arab world through a certain lens. But at the same time, I think there is an accompanying risk of seeing every media text as Orientalist or rotating it to make it seem that way. When this happens, where can truth be found? Where do we look to if we want a true Arab perspective? I really don’t think that the graphic novels and first hand accounts that we have been reading are Orientalist. They don’t come from the West and they do a really excellent job of giving many different faces and personalities to the Arab people; faces and personalities that you would rarely ever see in American media. I also feel like there is something to be said about the format in which these perspectives are presented. They are graphic novels, blogs, and prose-like accounts. They are by pretty ordinary people that have the desire to express their feelings and their lives through art. Their motives are incredibly different from someone like Bernard Lewis, whose government position gave him an inherent agenda.

Can you give an example of one of the readings that you really felt wasn’t Orientalist?
While I was reading both of the Persepolis books, I knew I was getting something completely new. First of all, instead of reading a scholarly article written by someone in the West, I was reading the life story of a Iranian girl being raised during the revolution. Marjane’s family was very liberal for an Iranian Islamic family, yet they were still proud of and true to their roots. This at once defies the very concept that Orientalists have of the Middle East. The books also provide a huge cast of characters who really show the diversity of people living in Iran. There were liberal people like Marjane and her family, the Islamic extremists in the government, and in the middle were her friends who wanted to dress in modern clothing but still couldn’t let go of their traditional Muslim values. Marjane had a desire to live in the Western World but she still eventually came back to Iran because it held a piece of her. She reconciled these two halves of herself to achieve her self-actualization. She was anything but an Orientalist stereotype.

You say that these first hand Arab perspectives are a good way to overcome Orientalist representations but did you find any exceptions to this in your readings?
Yes, I actually did. While I really enjoyed Joe Sacco’s Palestine because it took me on a tour of a part of the world I really didn’t know much about, it did seem a little Orientalist to me. I think this is because it was only a first hand account in terms of location. Although he traveled to Palestine, he was still an outsider visiting from the West. Not only that, but as a journalist he had somewhat of an agenda. He looked at Palestine in terms of it being a good read. He even admits in the book that when he traveled to different cities, he was looking for specific people with specific stores (and they were often gruesome and fantastical). All of the Arabs in his book also had a very similar look to them. However, I think he did do a great job in giving a voice to the Palestinian people that might not be heard otherwise.

What about the other major theory of the Clash of Civilizations? Does that play into these graphic novels at all?
One of the major things that the Clash of Civilizations theory does is generalize and almost dehumanizes huge groups of people that are actually incredibly diverse. It pits broad groups in the world against each other and says that they are fundamentally at odds. It completely forgets about the differences within HUMANS, no matter what culture they come from. These graphic novels and other points of view pretty much do the opposite. We hear the voices of real people from the Middle East, not just the politicians that are presented on the American news. They emphasize the common people’s voice.

Do you think that you can extrapolate from these individual stories to a larger understanding of Iran, Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, and Islam?
I feel like they are very useful in understanding the people of these regions, and what they and their country have gone through. If we can’t believe them, and we can’t believe the American media and Western scholars, then where should we get our information? I do however think that you should read them with a critical eye, just like you would read anything else. You need to take into account that they are just one person among thousands and they have their own personal story. It would be the same for any part of the world. There are probably thousands of other personal and individual stories. But we can’t discount them because they tell us some very important things about countries and situations that we may never get to visit.