Occidentalism - Buruma

The meaning of occidentalism is related to orientalism; it is basically the hatred or hateful stereotyping of the West. How the West is defined has changed depending on the year and the context but it is often typified by France, America, the Anglosphere, or all of them combined and more. This book seeks to explore the history of the concept and give us a better understanding of modern manifestations of it.

The book wasn’t arranged chronologically, but that is how I’ll address the topic. Occidentalism began in Germany in the late 18th century, when England and France were fast modernizing and liberalizing while Germany had not reached it’s final unification and was still quite medieval. Writers at the time accused the West of worshiping money, having no values, no love of country, and basically being morally inferior to the German spirit. This attitude was later emulated in Russia which was a bit later to develop. Ironically, the pattern seems to be that there is a conversation going on in these countries about the trade-off that modernization offers, and modernization always wins. Russia ended up giving communism a good try which was pitched as a way to modernize without the perceived drawbacks that were seen in the West, but eventually gave up on that. Japan also had this struggle and during the Meiji Restoration there were many discussions about trying not to lose too much of the ancient Japanese culture. They seem to have struck a good balance. China went totally in for the communist idea and deliberately stomped out as much ancient culture as they could which was an utter failure. Now they seem to be following Japan’s model of economic liberalism with cultural conservatism and adding techno-fascism.

The book’s main concern, though, being that it was published in 2005, is the trend of occidentalism in worldwide Islam and the growth of fundamentalism as a backlash. These extremists’ most hated enemy is the United States and the West, but even local government officials in their countries, like in Egypt or Pakistan, are seen is serious enemies. To the extremists, to even have laws and a government outside of Sharia is a form of idolatry.

This book feels a bit out-dated but it was worth the read. The author does a good job of zooming out and putting these movements into perspective. The movement feels very much like the change from hunter-gatherers to agriculturalists. Most must have scoffed at it at the time, but the agriculturalists were too strong and grew too fast. Hunter-gatherers had no choice but to either join them or live in poverty in the mountains. It will be interesting to see if the Islamists like those who came before them turn into what they hate, the West.