The Continued Relevance of the Lewis Versus Said Orientalism Debates and the Need for a New Approach to Middle Eastern Studies

The Same Old Story: The continued relevance of the Lewis versus Said Orientalism debates and the need for a new approach to Middle Eastern Studies Joshua A Earn A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honors in Religion WILLIAMS COLLEGE Williamstown, MA May 24, 2004 I am truly grateful to everyone who has made my four years at Williams incredible. I want to specifically thank Professors Denise Buell, Michael MacDonald and James Robson for their help and input on different aspects of this project. Also thanks to the Religion Majors of 2004 for making sure my third chapter made sense. Thanks to Mom, Dad, Seth and Katie, without whom I surely would not have finished my thesis. Most of all, all thanks in the world to Professor Bill Darrow, not just for his help on my thesis, but for his patience, luridness, wisdom and guidance as my professor, advisor and employer over the last four years. I doubt I would have graduated or finished this thesis without his support. And I am certain I would not be who I am if I had not worked with him. Introduction On September 25" 2003, Edward Said, a professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University passed away from cancer at the age of 67. Born in Palestine he moved to the United States at young age and became one of the most prominent pro-Palestinian voices in North America. His involvement in Middle East discourse was not limited to Palestine. He was also immensely concerned with the manner in which the Western media, Western scholars, Western politicians and everyone else in the West understood the entire Arab world. He is perhaps best known for his 1978 book Orientalism in which he challenged the West's entire understanding of the Arab Muslim world. Exactly a year before Said's death, Bernard Lewis was likely workmg on his September 27th,2002 Wall Street Journal article entitled Time for Toppling, which called for the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq (Lewis 2002, A14). Lewis, the Cleveland Introduction Page 2 E. Dodge Professor of Near Eastern Studies, Emeritus at Princeton University was born in England in 1916 and moved to the United States in 1974. Edward Said, unquestionably, disagreed with Lewis's Wall Street Journal editorial, but that was not even close to the first time the men would have disagreed. The rift between these two scholars dated back almost thirty years. In an article in The New York Times in 1976 Edward Said reviewed The Cambridge History of Islam saying that "not only does [it] radically misconceive and misrepresent Islam as a religion; it also has no corporate idea of itself as a history. Of few such enormous enterprises can it be true as it is of this one that idea and methodological intelligence are almost entirely absent from it" (Said 1976, BR4). In this scathing review, Said suggested that "perhaps these failings of the 'Cambridge History' can be traced in part to its senior editor's feelings about Islam" (Said 1976, BR4). The editor, of course, was Bernard Lewis and this began a sort of academic struggle that went on for years. A Showdown in the Wild "West" Almost exactly a decade later, Said and Lewis faced off in person at the twentieth-anniversary meeting of the Middle East Studies Association of North America which Said has said was "a bit of mano a mano between the senior British Orientalist and myself." Similarly, Lewis opened the discussion with reference to his colleague who had termed the debate the "shoot-out at the MESA coral." In comparison to their published works of confrontation, the face to face meeting between Said and Lewis was actually introduction Page 3 rather tame. For the most part, the two scholars stuck to their message. Nonetheless the tension between the two men's standpoint was blatant. (Said and Lewis 2001, 291) Lewis went first in the debate he claimed focused on a "serious matter which is of vital concern." Lewis did not see the discussion as a battle of political opinions regarding the problems in the Middle East in which one of the scholars would be seen as correct. In a rare bit of modesty Lewis admitted "I think we all know that nothing which we say or do here this morning is going to have the slightest effect in the Middle East. We can change nothing. We can't even change each other's opinions." Instead, Lewis believed the importance of the discourse that went on came down to the self reflection that needed to take place by scholars of Middle Eastern Studies. Lewis said "what we can and should discuss is ourselves, our own role, our own duty as scholars, our duty toward our discipline, toward our colleagues, toward our students, toward the mcdia and beyond the media, toward the general public." (Said and Lewis 2001,291) What is this duty? Lewis believes the duty of a scholar requires a certain conduct which includes "such values as civility, trying to maintain a decent level of debate to cool rather than heat passions, to persuade rather than to shout down an opponent." He adds these "are values worth preserving and ones which we as professional scholars in particular owe to the society which employs us." Lewis considers the Middle East an especially difficult discipline in which to carry out this duty due to its complicated relationship with the West. On the one hand, he knows it is obviously "different than a situation which we study a part of our own." However, on the other hand, Lewis claims unlike "India or China" with whom Western connections are relatively new, "the connection between the Western world and the Islamic world go back to the very Introduction Page 4 beginnings of Islam and have been shaped by a whole series of events, particularly by the see-saw conflict between the two worlds." This combination of difference and familiarity causes troublesome cultural understanding because we try to understand others in our own terms; for example we call the Qur'an "the Muslim Bible" and believe that an important political term such as "revolution" would have the same "resonance in Islamic society" as it would in Western society. The result of this problematic "situation is often that we resort on both sides.. .to stereotyped images and explanations." (Said and Lewis 2001) These stereotypes are certainly not ideal for Lewis, however he fears the alternatives that are offered. He recognizes that stereotypes often result from the scholarly values that he deems essential, but notes "the answer to a stereotype is not, of course, a negative stereotype." Using the example of the stercotype of rampant sexuality going on "inside the harem" Lewis argues "you do not refute the myth of the subjugation of women by insisting that women have rights far beyond those claimed now." I am certain that most would agree that the answer to a stereotype is not a different stereotype; however, one cannot help but feel that Lewis is malung excuses for his own stereotyping without providing an acceptable alternative. (Said and Lewis 2001) Edward Said did not go so far as to suggest that the answer to a stereotype is in fact an opposing stereotype, however, one of his main points at the MESA conference was that there were at the time six "essential thematic clusters in [the] media coverage of the Middle East." These six thematic clusters portray Middle Eastern Arabs and Muslims as being: supported by the Soviets, zealous fundamentalists, backwards due to their tribal history, hostile to the "civilized and democratic West," anti-Semitic, and from the home Introduction Page 5 of the evil PLO led by Yasir Arafat. Said basically argues that all the major American news publications and broadcasters, present the Middle East using these stereotypes and thus, though is it not ideal, some negative stereotypes providing an opposing image, would be better than the singular vision that Americans receive." The other central point in Said's discussion is that these media portrayals are a result of the scholars of the Middle East. He lists off a plethora of scholars, whose names are still at the center of Middle Eastern discourse, such as Lewis, Daniel Pipes and Norman Podhorentz, who he claims "are responsible for the entire gamut of media representations of the Middle East." He wonders how "these scholars continue to practice their art while remaining hostile or at least antithetical to and substantially reserved, about its central object: the religion and culture of Islam." Said agrees with Lewis that "the duty of scholars is to act in the interest of truth and justice and fairness and honesty." The problem he has with scholars of the Middle East is that they are not doing that. Instead, he concludes "scholarly expertise on the Middle East has paid a very high price for its entry into the mainstream media and the halls of policy. It has sacrificed information on what goes on in the Middle East.. .almost completely. It has sacrificed understanding and comparison totally." (Said and Lewis 2001) Overall, both men in the debate made several strong arguments and remained mature and civil. For anyone familiar with the relationship between Said and Lewis, the fact that both men made several strong points in a head to head debate is actually rather surprising. The fact that the debate remained rather friendly is not just surprising, it is The publications include, the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Atlantic Monthly, Foreign Affairs, the New Yorker, the New York Review of Books and many others As the meeting occured long before the rise of CNN, Fox News and other cable news channels, it was quite the indictment of the American Media that Said lists off, CBS, NBC, ABC, and PBS as the TV outlets responsible for these images since they were basically the only source for news at the time.

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