Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies (Hardcover)

by Ian Buruma (Author), Avishai Margalit (Author) "IN JULY 1942, JUST SEVEN MONTHS AFTER THE JAPAnese bombed the American fleet in Pearl Harbor and overwhelmed the Western powers in Southeast Asia, a..." (more)
Key Phrases: new jahiliyya, United States, New York, Unity of God (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist
Four characterizations of the West contribute to the anti-Western stance Buruma and Margalit call Occidentalism and are used to justify attacking individual Westerners as less-than-human beings. The West prefers the sinful city to the virtuous countryside; the West destroys heroism and replaces it with trading; the West thinks only of matter and not of spirit; the West worships evil. Buruma and Margalit argue that the first two of those conceptions, typical of secular Occidentalism, are themselves Western, products of European romanticism that early-twentieth-century Japan and Germany exploited to their own ruin. The third idea informs Russia's long struggle with the West but stems from German romanticism, in particular, with its sense of the wounded national soul. The fourth, peculiar to religious Occidentalism, animates radical Islamism but derives from the good-evil polarities of Persian Manichaeism that the young Augustine embraced. Buruma and Margalit conclude that these ideas' lives are "a tale of cross-contamination" that cannot be ended by answering anti-Western intolerance with more intolerance. A timely tract, brilliantly though broadly argued. Ray Olson
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Review
...an important book on a topic that deserves to be treated seriously by scholars and concerned citizens alike. -- Library Journal, March 15, 2004

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The (March 25, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594200084
• ISBN-13: 978-1594200083
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #481,966 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

61 of 71 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Under Eastern Eyes, September 19, 2004

By	Izaak VanGaalen (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

In this short, but insightful, book Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit argue that in many parts of the non-Western world there is such loathing of everything associated with the West - especially America - that anyone living such a lifestyle is inherently depraved and somewhat less than human. This dehumanizing view of the West, as seen by its enemies, is what the authors call Occidentalism.

It is the reverse side of the idea of Orientalim described over twenty-five years ago by Edward Said. According to Said, the Orientalists constructed accounts of the East as a place where life was cheap and inferior to that of the West. These narratives served to justify Western domination. Occidentalism, however, goes a step further: whereas, the Orientalist wished to subjugate and colonize, the Occidentalist wishes to destroy.

This is a book about ideas rather than policy. It deals more with why they hate us for what we are, rather than why they hate us for what we do. The authors describe a "constellation of images" of the West by which its enemies demonize it. They (the enemies) see the West as " a mass of soulless, decadent, money-grubbing, rootless, faithless, unfeeling parasites."

The originality of this study comes from the discovery that many of the negative images that the present-day Islamists have of the West are derived, paradoxically, the West itself. The authors see a "chain of hostility" that goes back two centuries. The anti-Western impulse begins with Herder and the German romantics as a reaction to the rationalist, universalist ideals the Enlightenment and the materialism of the budding capitalist economy. Anti-Westernism was also the driving force of the slavophiles of late nineteeth century Russia; it was a reaction to encroaching modernization coming from the West. In the twentieth century, Nazi Germany and a militant Japan railed against, not the modernization that came from the West, but the destruction of their indigenous cultures, being overrun by the decadence and depravity of the West. This anti-Westernism again rears its ugly head in the late twentieth century during the Cultural Revolution in China and, again, in the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge. These where particulary murderous attempts to root out Western influence. The Occidentalist of today is exemplified by the Islamist suicide bomber.

Buruma and Margalit discuss four images of hatred that run through these movements of the last two hundred years: 1} the cosmopolitan city with its rootless, greedy, and decadent citizens; 2) the bourgeois merchant, seeking only profit and comfort, as opposed the self-sacrificing hero of the Occidentalist; 3) the Western mind, using only the faculties of science and reason, and neglecting faith; 4) and last of all, the infidel, the unbeliever, who must be crushed to make way for the true believers.

In Occidentalism's present-day manifestation, religion plays a central role. The jihadis of today hate, not only the West, but the secular regimes - such as Syria and Egypt - of the Middle East as well. They despise even the Saudis for not being sufficiently pure. Ironically, Saudi Arabia is one of the primary sources of the Wahhabism practised by Osama bin Laden. Jihadis see the West as cowardly and fearful of death. They, themselves, love death and wish to inflict it upon as many others as possible. Their search for weapons of mass destruction makes them an extremely formidable enemy.

From this excellent little study, one can only speculate whether the Islamist Occidentalists will someday come to accomodate the modern secular world or succeed in annihilating it. It is safe to say that the struggle will not end anytime soon.

45 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Terse but Illuminating, April 29, 2004

By A Customer

A terse but brilliant book tracing the various strands of anti-Western ideology, many of which originated in the West itself. These ideas eventually penetrated Asia and the Middle East, where they were incorporated into supposedly authentic Eastern thought. How ironic that the fiercest anti-Westerners in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, China, Japan, etc., owe such a huge intellectual debt to the very thing they hate so passionately.

Mind you, the authors are NOT claiming that all (or even most) criticisms of the West are illegitimate or the product of irrational hatred. Contrary to what some reviewers have said, Buruma and Margalit define Occidentalism fairly clearly. It is an ideology that condemns Western civilization in toto, as inherently diseased, and advocates its complete destruction. It is characterized by an implacable hatred for a whole spectrum of modern developments that (rightly or wrongly) are associated with Western civilization: democracy, technology, individualism. The fact that this ideology is muddleheaded and borrows much from what it most hates does not make Buruma and Margalit's thesis muddled: It is simply a paradoxical fact about this ideology. (By the way, it is NOT "simply conflating enemies of the past and present" to point out Islamism's heavy borrowings from European fascism. The authors are, among other things, trying to dispell certain popular misconceptions and clarify the nature of a movement that has long been mistaken, particularly by many scholars [cough, cough, John L. Esposito] in our Middle Eastern Studies departments, as a misguided but proto-democratic grassroots phenomenon; or by many Christian and Jewish bigots as an inherent, ineradicable part of authentic Islam.)

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Required reading for understanding your world!!!, April 9, 2004

By	"ahugh81" (Hattiesburg, MS United States) - See all my reviews

In their concise, insightful and slim volume, Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit retrace the intellectual roots of Occidentalism from the Enlightenment all the way to the present. In their view, Occidentalism is not a uniquely modern or Islamic invention, but really "a tale of cross-contamination, the spread of bad ideas" from West to East and often back again.

The book is well paced, interesting, and not too much on an extremely complex topic. It provides an excellent introduction to this subject, and covers considerable breadth to frame their ideas about the history and scope of Occidentalism.

Watching images from the middle east flash across the television screen, I have often been baffled and amazed about the motivation of terrorists. This book sheds important light on their worldview, making their ideology both accessible and understandable to the general reader for the first time.

Finally, the authors should be commended for their serious, thoughful insights on this subject. This is not a volume of apologists of terror; but an excellent study of just what makes those people tick, and of how bad ideas of both East and West contaminate one another to create the toxic, dehumanizing and often terrorist ideology of Occidentalism.