Article East and West. Dialogue or Monologues? GENEQUAND, Charles Reference GENEQUAND, Charles. East and West. Dialogue or Monologues? EU-topias, 2015, vol. 9, p. 9-18 Available at: http://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:133742 Disclaimer: layout of this document may differ from the published version. 1 / 1 WIDE ANGLE: East and West 9 East and West Dialogue or Monologues?* Charles Genequand Abstract / Resumen / Résumé / Sommario christianisme et de l’islam depuis les origines jusqu’à nos jours, en passant par l’époque médiévale, le texte interroge les malentendus et les préjugés The confrontation of Modern Western culture with that of the Middle culturels qui ont été forgés à travers les récits des voyageurs, diplomates et East sometimes appears to boil down to the conflicting theses of Edward religieux des deux cultures. Parmi les textes de la modernité qui reflètent Said and Samuel Huntington. The examination of a few texts in a longer d’une façon plus significative le débat sur l’Orient, figurent les réflexions chronological perspective reveals on the contrary that the opposition ser- des penseurs des Lumières comme Voltaire, Montesquieu, Rousseau et ved above all to the West in its efforts at self-definition, and that Easter- Volney et la diversité de leurs positions et arguments. ners also made their contribution to the enterprise. Through a historical review of different cultural representations about Christianity and Islam Il rapporto conflittuale tra laq cultura occidentale e il Medio Oriente from the origins to the present day, ranging from medieval times, the text potrebbe essere riassunto dalle teorie di Edward Said e Samuel Huntington, question misunderstandings and cultural prejudices that have been forged in apparente antagonismo. Tuttavia, la lettura di un insieme di testi da through the stories of travellers, diplomatic and religious of both cultures. una prospettiva storica più ampia rivela che tale antagonismo è servito Among the texts of modernity that most significantly symptomatize the alla cultura occidentale fondamentalmente per definire se stessa, e che debates on the «East», stand out the reflection of eminent thinkers of the l’Oriente ha contribuito a tale operazione. Mediante un excursus storico che Illustration such as Voltaire, Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Volney, and the prende in considerazione testi sulla Cristianità e sull’Islam, dalle origini diversity of their positions and arguments. fino all’attualità, passando per il Medioevo, il saggio interroga i malintesi e i pregiudizi culturali forgiatisi mediante racconti di viaggiatori, diplomatici La confrontación entre la culturaq occidental moderna y la de Oriente Me- e religiosi delle due culture. Tra i testi della modernità che sintomatizzano dio parece resumirse, a veces, en las teorías aparentemente antagónicas de in modo significativo il dibattito su «l’Oriente», speciale interesse rivestono Edward Said y Samuel Huntington. La revisión de algunos textos desde le riflessioni di pensatori eminenti dell’Illuminismo come Voltaire, una perspectiva histórica más amplia revela, sin embargo, que dicha oposi- Montesquieu, Rousseau y Volney, e la diversità delle rispettive posizioni. ción ha servido principalmente a Occidente en su intento de definirse a sí mismo, y que los orientales también contribuyeron a tal tarea. A través Keywords / Palabras clave / de un repaso histórico de distintas representaciones culturales acerca de Mots-clé / Parole chiave la Cristiandad y del Islam desde los orígenes hasta la actualidad, pasando por la época medieval, el texto interroga los malentendidos y los prejuicios Clash or dialogue of civilisations, Christianity, Islam, Edward Said, Samuel culturales que se han ido forjando a través de los relatos de los viajeros, Huntington diplomáticos y religiosos de ambas culturas. Entre los escritos de la mod- Choque o diálogo de civilizaciones,q Cristiandad, Islam, Edward Said, ernidad que sintomatizan de modo más significativo el debate sobre el Samuel Huntington «Oriente», destacan las reflexiones de pensadores de la Ilustración como Voltaire, Montesquieu, Rousseau y Volney, y la diversidad de sus posturas. Choc ou dialogue de civilisations,q Chrétienté, Islam, Edward Said, Samuel Huntington La confrontation de la culture occidentaleq moderne et de celle du Moyen- Orient semble parfois se résumer aux thèses conflictuelles d’Edward Said Scontro o dialogo di civiltà, Cristianità,q Islam, Edward Said, Samuel Hun- et de Samuel Huntington. Un examen de quelques textes dans une pers- tington pective chronologique de longue durée révèle toutefois que l’opposition a surtout servi à l’Occident dans ses tentatives de se définir lui-même, et * This text was delivered as the final lecture for the students of the Master’s que les Orientaux n’ont pas manqué de collaborer à l’entreprise.A tra- Degree in Interculturality, Communication and European Studies (2014-2015) at the vers une lecture historique des différentes représentations culturelles du Universitat de València on May 14th 2015. ISSN: 2174-8454 - Vol. 9 (primavera 2015), p. 9-18 ISSN: 2174-8454 - Vol. 10 WIDE ANGLE: Charles Genequand The debates on the dialogue of civilizations – or the lines quoted by Said, but above all in that he entirely lack of it – have concentrated over the past thirty overlooks the glaring Orientalist cliché which is the years around the two antithetical, and yet mirror-like, basis of the whole tragedy, namely that the Greeks won books by Edward Said (Orientalism, 1978) and Samuel because they love freedom, whereas the Orientals love Huntington (The Clash of Civilizations, 1993-6). The first subjection. This is best illustrated by another passage of denounces the colonialist attitude latent in all Western the same play. The scene is set in Persia where Darius’ writings on the East, specifically the Middle East; the mother is anxiously awaiting the news of the ongoing second advocates a new world order under the aegis campaign. She narrates the ominous dream she had the of the US along neo-conservative lines and found its previous night: disastrous application in the 2003 Iraq war. Although placed at the two extremes of the political spectrum, There seemed to come into my sight two finely dressed women, both look strangely alike in their relativistic essentialism. one arrayed in Persian, the other in Doric robes, outstandingly They are reminiscent of the Good and Evil Spirit of superior in stature to the women of real life, of flawless beauty, Zoroastrian cosmology who, it is said, were conceived and sisters of the same stock: one, by the fall of the lot, was a native and inhabitant of the land of Greece, the other of the as twin brothers. Although Said speaks of the Orient Orient (Barbarian). I seemed to see these two raising some kind and Huntington of civilizations in the plural, both are of strife between themselves; my son, perceiving this, tried to in fact mostly, almost exclusively in the case of Said, restrain and calm them, yoked them under his chariot, and concerned with the Islamic Middle East. The de facto passed the yoke-strap under their necks. One of them, thus identification of Islam and Middle East, by the way, is arrayed, towered up proudly, and kept her jaw submissively in harness; but the other began to struggle, tore the harness from not the least problematic feature of his book. In what the chariot with her hands, dragged it violently along without follows I will not attempt a critique of their theses, a task bridle or bit, and smashed the yoke in half. My son fell out. which has been carried out in great detail by numerous (trad. Sommerstein) authors, and would be impossible to realize within the time compass of a short article, but rather try to place It doesn’t take a Sigmund Freud to interpret the them in an historical and philosophic perspective. dream. Darius loses the war because his people, I would like to begin by letting poets speak, one represented here by a beautiful girl wearing Oriental from the West, one from the East. The first witness is clothes, willingly accept and even rejoice in slavery, Aeschylus, the founder, for us, of the tragedy. In his whereas the Greeks love freedom. In his Politics, about Persians, created in 472 BC, he relates the military disaster a hundred years later, Aristotle will give philosophical suffered by Xerxes at Salamis in 480. Said quotes from shape to this idea with his doctrine of the slave by this play a fragment of the choral song in which the nature, a nature which he ascribes indiscriminately to Persian courtiers lament the fate of the men who lost all Asiatic people. But the more interesting point here, their lives in a distant land, and comments thus: «What which has not been remarked so far, is that the two girls matters here is that Asia speaks through and by virtue are sisters. It vividly reflects the ambivalent attitude of of the European imagination, which is depicted as the Greeks towards their neighbours, at the same time victorious over Asia, that hostile “other” world beyond similar and irreducibly different. the seas. To Asia are given the feelings of emptiness, Less than a half-century later, Herodotus will give loss, and disaster that seem thereafter to reward Oriental in his «Enquiry» (Histôriê) a detailed account of the challenges to the West; and also, the lament that in some causes and history of the conflict between Greeks and glorious past Asia fared better, was itself victorious over Barbarians «in order that so the memory of the past Europe.» These remarks are particularly bizarre, not may not be blotted out from among men by time, and only in that there is no intimation of a glorious past in that great and marvellous deeds done by Greeks and ISSN: 2174-8454 - Vol. 9 (primavera 2015), p. 9-18 ISSN: 2174-8454 - Vol. WIDE ANGLE: East and West 11 foreigners (Barbaroi!) and especially the reason why they in Greece where she gives birth to a son, Alexander.