Occidentalism refers to a discipline that discusses the Western world (the Occident). In this context the West becomes the object, while the East is the subject. The West in the context of Occidentalism does not refer to the West in a geographical sense, but to culture or custom, especially covering the fields of thought, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, history, religion, colonialism, war, apartheid, and geography. It is not as popular as Orientalism in the general public and in academic settings. [1]
The term emerged as the reciprocal of the notion of Orientalism popularized by literary critic Edward Said, which refers to Western stereotypes of the Eastern world, the Orient. [2]
Different languages have different terms relating to Occidentalism and Westernization.
In Arabic, al-Istighraab (Arabic : الاستغراب, lit. 'Westernization') is a contemporary psychological, social, and cultural phenomenon. The individuals who embody it are characterized by their inclination toward, attachment to, and emulation of the West. It originated in non-Western societies as a result of the civilizational shock that befell it before and during colonialism. [3]
Ilm al-istighraab (Arabic : علم الاستغراب) means the 'science of Westernization' or 'Occidentalism'. It is opposite to the science of Orientalism. Dr. Hassan Hanafi said: "Occidentalism is the unraveling of the double historical knot between the self and the other... It is the elimination of the complex of greatness of the Western other, by transforming it from a subject in itself to a studied object... The task of Orientalism is to eliminate Eurocentrism and show how European consciousness has taken center stage throughout modern history, within its own civilizational environment." [4]
Al-Taghreeb (Arabic : التغريب) means 'Westernization'. It is "a cultural and political action carried out by officials in the West, most importantly Orientalists and Westernizers, aiming to obscure the features of the religious and cultural life of Islamic and other societies, and to force these societies to imitate the West and revolve in its orbit." [3]
In China, "Traditions Regarding Western Countries" became a regular part of the Twenty-Four Histories from the 5th century AD, when commentary about The West concentrated upon on an area that did not extend farther than Syria. [5] The extension of European imperialism in the 18th and 19th centuries established, represented, and defined the existence of an "Eastern world" and of a "Western world". Western stereotypes appear in works of Indian, Chinese and Japanese art of those times. [6] At the same time, Western influence in politics, culture, economics and science came to be constructed through an imaginative geography of West and East.
In Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of its Enemies (2004), Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit argue that nationalist and nativist resistance to the West replicates Eastern-world responses against the socio-economic forces of modernization, which originated in Western culture, among utopian radicals and conservative nationalists who viewed capitalism, liberalism, and secularism as forces destructive of their societies and cultures. [7] While the early responses to the West were a genuine encounter between alien cultures, many of the later manifestations of Occidentalism betray the influence of Western ideas upon Eastern intellectuals, such as the supremacy of the nation-state, the Romantic rejection of rationality, and the spiritual impoverishment of the citizenry of liberal democracies.
Buruma and Margalit trace that resistance to German Romanticism and to the debates, between the Westernisers and the Slavophiles in 19th-century Russia, and show that like arguments appear in the ideologies of Zionism, Maoism, Islamism, and Imperial Japanese nationalism. Nonetheless, Alastair Bonnett rejects the analyses of Buruma and Margalit as Eurocentric, and said that the field of Occidentalism emerged from the interconnection of Eastern and Western intellectual traditions. [8] [9] [10]
In art history, literature and cultural studies, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects of the Eastern world by writers, designers, and artists from the Western world. Orientalist painting, particularly of the Middle East, was one of the many specialties of 19th-century academic art, and Western literature was influenced by a similar interest in Oriental themes.
The "Clash of Civilizations" is a thesis that people's cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post–Cold War world. The American political scientist Samuel P. Huntington argued that future wars would be fought not between countries, but between cultures. It was proposed in a 1992 lecture at the American Enterprise Institute, which was then developed in a 1993 Foreign Affairs article titled "The Clash of Civilizations?", in response to his former student Francis Fukuyama's 1992 book The End of History and the Last Man. Huntington later expanded his thesis in a 1996 book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.
Eurocentrism refers to viewing the West as the center of world events or superior to all other cultures. The exact scope of Eurocentrism varies from the entire Western world to just the continent of Europe or even more narrowly, to Western Europe. When the term is applied historically, it may be used in reference to the presentation of the European perspective on history as objective or absolute, or to an apologetic stance toward European colonialism and other forms of imperialism.
Westernization, also Europeanisation or occidentalization, is a process whereby societies come under or adopt what is considered to be Western culture, in areas such as industry, technology, science, education, politics, economics, lifestyle, law, norms, mores, customs, traditions, values, mentality, perceptions, diet, clothing, language, writing system, religion, and philosophy. During colonialism it often involved the spread of Christianity. A related concept is Northernization, which is the consolidation or influence of the Global North.
Hassan Hanafi was a professor and chaired the philosophy department at Cairo University. He was a leading authority on modern Islam.
Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Kathīr al-Farghānī also known as Alfraganus in the West, was an astronomer in the Abbasid court in Baghdad, and one of the most famous astronomers in the 9th century. Al-Farghani composed several works on astronomy and astronomical equipment that were widely distributed in Arabic and Latin and were influential to many scientists. His best known work, Kitāb fī Jawāmiʿ ʿIlm al-Nujūmi, was an extensive summary of Ptolemy's Almagest containing revised and more accurate experimental data. Christopher Columbus used Al Farghani's calculations for his voyages to America. In addition to making substantial contributions to astronomy, al-Farghani also worked as an engineer, supervising construction projects on rivers in Cairo, Egypt. The lunar crater Alfraganus is named after him.
Arabization or Arabicization is a sociological process of cultural change in which a non-Arab society becomes Arab, meaning it either directly adopts or becomes strongly influenced by the Arabic language, culture, literature, art, music, and ethnic identity as well as other socio-cultural factors. It is a specific form of cultural assimilation that often includes a language shift. The term applies not only to cultures, but also to individuals, as they acclimate to Arab culture and become "Arabized". Arabization took place after the Muslim conquest of the Middle East and North Africa, as well as during the more recent Arab nationalist policies toward non-Arab minorities in modern Arab states, such as Algeria, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Bahrain, and Sudan.
Ian Buruma is a Dutch writer and editor who lives and works in the United States. In 2017, he became editor of The New York Review of Books, but left the position in September 2018.
Orientalism is a 1978 book by Edward Said, in which he establishes the term "Orientalism" as a critical concept to describe the Western world's commonly contemptuous depiction and portrayal of the Eastern world—that is, the Orient. Societies and peoples of the Orient are those who inhabit regions throughout Asia and North Africa. Said argues that Orientalism, in the sense of the Western scholarship about the Eastern world, is inextricably tied to the imperialist societies that produced it, which makes much Orientalist work inherently political and servile to power.
Oriental studies is the academic field that studies Near Eastern and Far Eastern societies and cultures, languages, peoples, history and archaeology. In recent years, the subject has often been turned into the newer terms of Middle Eastern studies and Asian studies. Traditional Oriental studies in Europe is today generally focused on the discipline of Islamic studies; the study of China, especially traditional China, is often called Sinology. The study of East Asia in general, especially in the United States, is often called East Asian studies.
Avishai Margalit is an Israeli professor emeritus in philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. From 2006 to 2011, he served as the George F. Kennan Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.
Ivan Vasilyevich Kireyevsky was a Russian literary critic and philosopher who, together with Aleksey Khomyakov, is credited as a co-founder of the Slavophile movement.
Gharbzadegi is a pejorative Persian term translated among other ways as 'Westernized', 'West-struck-ness', 'Westoxification'. The term implies both that Iran is "intoxicated" (zadegi) with the West, but also a victim of the West's "toxins" or disease. The "intoxication or infatuation ... impairs rational judgment" so that Iran is prevented from perceiving the danger of the object of its infatuation -- the toxins of the West -- "moral laxity, social injustice, secularism, devaluation of religion, and obsession with money, all of which are fueled by capitalism" and result in "cultural alienation." The term is used to refer to the loss of Iranian cultural identity through the adoption and imitation of Western models and Western criteria in education, the arts, and culture; through the transformation of Iran into a passive market for Western goods and a pawn in Western geopolitics.
Reset Dialogues on Civilizations is an independent, non-profit, and non-partisan international association founded in 2004 by Italian journalist Giancarlo Bosetti and Nina zu Fürstenberg. It is committed to fostering research and publications on cross-cultural and international relations, cultural and religious pluralism, advancements of human rights, and the evolution of democracy in different civilizational environments.
The Occident is a term for the West, traditionally comprising anything that belongs to the Western world. It is the antonym of the term Orient, referring to the Eastern world. In English, it has largely fallen into disuse. The term occidental is often used to describe objects from the Occident but can be considered an outdated term by some. The term originated with geographical divisions mirroring the cultural divide between the Greek East and the Latin West, and the political divide between the Western and Eastern Roman Empires.
ʿIlm al-Ḥurūf or the science of letters, also called Islamic lettrism, is a process of Arabic numerology whereby numerical values assigned to Arabic letters are added up to provide total values for words in the Quran, similar to Hebrew gematria. Used to infer meanings and reveal secret or hidden messages.
Abu al-Mu'in al-Nasafi was a Central Asian Hanafi scholar who is considered to be the most important theologian in the Maturidi school of Sunni Islam after Imam Abu Mansur al-Maturidi, provided a fairly detailed account of al-Maturidi Central Asian predecessors.
'Ala' al-Din al-Kasani, known as Al-Kasani or al-Kashani, was a 12th Century Sunni Muslim Jurist who became an influential figure of the Hanafi school of Sunni jurisprudence, which has remained the most widely practiced law school in the Sunni tradition.
Sadr al-Shari'a al-Asghar, also known as Sadr al-Shari'a al-Thani, was a Hanafi-Maturidi scholar, faqih (jurist), mutakallim (theologian), mufassir, muhaddith, nahawi (grammarian), lughawi (linguist), logician, and astronomer, known for both his theories of time and place and his commentary on Islamic jurisprudence, indicating the depth of his knowledge in various Islamic disciplines.
Abdul Jabbar Al Rifai is an Iraqi theologian, and professor of Islamic philosophy, born in Dhi Qar, Iraq, 1954. He obtained several academic degrees, including: a PhD degree cum laude in Islamic philosophy – 2005, a master's degree of Islamic Ilm Al-Kalam – 1990, a bachelor's degree in Islamic studies – 1988, and an agricultural art diploma in 1975. He has a philosophical vision on religious reformation and religious thinking approaches. "The Vatican's Pontifical Institute of Rome" devoted its yearbook to the Contemporary Islamic Issues Magazine in 2012, in recognition of its mission in building new Ilm Al-Kalam -study of fundamental Islamic beliefs and doctrines- and in the philosophy of religion in Arabic, and acknowledged it as the most important periodic publications specialized in religions in Arabic language. Al Rifai founded the Contemporary Islamic Issues Magazine and he is its chief editor. It is an intellectual quarterly magazine that focuses on building the philosophy of religion and the Modern Ilm Al-Kalam, founded around 25 years ago, and continues to be published today.
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