Brittany Amerson History 105-Stratton Clash of Civilizations Essay

Magic flying carpets. Men in little vests with head wraps playing on a flute to charm a cobra into coming out of a woven basket and dancing for an audience. Veiled women belly dancing for a crowd. While these portrayals may be true sometimes, the majority of the time this is not the case. These images portraying the Middle East as a mysterious, barbaric and exotic land are the results of Hollywood, not the truth. Orientalism defined as a system of representations framed by a whole set of forces that brought the Orient into Western learning, Western consciousness, and later, Western empire, is the way the United States and the Western world view the Middle East is used as a tool to justify the way the United States treat and handle problems with the Middle East.1 However, Orientalism does go both ways, as the Middle East and parts of Eastern Asia have a distorted view of the West, especially the United States. Regardless of the opposing views of one another Orientalism plays a huge role in in many of the conflicts between the Western world and the Middle East, as orientalism gives justification to rash decisions on both sides. For a good amount of time, the Middle East was portrayed as a magical and exotic place. Looking at paintings one notices the women are sultry and seductive, veiled and very scantily clad.2 Men are depicted to be wearing garments that resemble skirts and dresses; an image that is

Said, Edward W. 1979. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books. Jean-Leon Jerome, An Almeh with pipe, 1873. Painting.

quite foreign considering the traditional clothing for men in the West are pants.3 The people would participate in activities that would not happen in the West, like snake charming.4 The main portrayal of the people of the Middle East was that they are different, unique. Though the Middle East are Muslim nations and people of the West were quite aware of this fact, it made no significant difference besides the distinction that the peoples of the Middle East were different from those in the West. However the fact that there was no conflict cannot be dismissed, as this was not the case. The main shift in how the West especially the United States viewed the Middle East came after the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Twin Towers. After this tragedy an enormous surge of prejudice and hate towards Muslims and Arabs emerged. A country that acknowledged the differences between their nation and those of the Middle East began to group all Muslims together and labeled them as terrorists. This sudden change of perception became justification for many Americans to spew hateful words and participate in hate crimes towards Muslims. The widespread belief that the Middle East was this newfound evil gave way for the popular support of the War on Terror, in which many Americans believed that the United States was going overseas to kill and stop the terrorists that reside in the nations of Iraq and Afghanistan, though not all citizens of these nations are terrorists. Though the fact is that terrorists belong to the group al-Qaeda, a majority of Americans did not care, as the new perception of the Middle East was that they were evil and bad. This became the new Western side of Orientalism.

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Jean-Leon Jerome, Whirling Dirvishes, 1899, Painting. Jean-Leon Jerome, The Snake Charmer, 1870, Painting.

The Middle Easts and Eastern Asias view of the West specifically the United States has always been a negative one. Christians are viewed to be selfish and greedy.5 The East believes that Christians need to realize that people are starving, babies are parched and that nations are overwhelmed by their poverty while the West is only concerned with their material goods and the latest fashions.6 The East views the United States as a world superpower with a hunger for world domination and control, one that will not help those that view the world differently than they do.7 Like the citizens of the United States began to justify war against the Middle East by claiming religious and cultural differences, Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri did so as well, allowing a cultural difference to be the basis behind declaring war on the United States. 8 A majority of peoples from the East share this perception of the United States. Many believe that America is only interested in affairs that benefit them and that America does not get involved in world conflicts to bring freedom and democracy to other countries to solely benefit the country, but the United States gets involved in world conflicts that they can manipulate and eventually get something worthwhile out of. This is the justification the Middle East uses to defend attacks on the United States, as they are trying to take down a world power that is seen as a threat to not only their nation, but to the world on a large scale. Orientalism, though it started off as just a distorted perception of those in the West and those in the East now has become a justification for acts of violence directed towards the other.
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John Perkins Civilization on Trial, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2004), 46.
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Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, 46. Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, 46.

"The Clash of Civilizations?" Al Jazeera English, last modified September 5, 2011, http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/2011/09/201195123534582358.html (accessed October 23, 2012).

Middle Eastern Muslim countries view predominately Christian nations as the enemy, and when it comes to the United States, they view the citizens are greedy and selfish, and believe that they only want to benefit themselves. Due to the recent terrorism committed by al-Qaeda on the United States, many citizens view the Muslims as being evil, bad and if they are not the terrorists personally, they are supporters of terrorists. Orientalism has played a substantial role in the conflicts between the Middle East and the West, especially the United States because it became the justification both sides use to back up their violent acts of aggression towards each other.