Occidentalism: demolishing the hegemonic narrative or reproducing it?

We are at a point where the atmosphere of the Al-Aqsa Flood forces everyone and everything to be re-evaluated, re-understood, and understood within this context. Is this not, in fact, precisely what the fundamental prerequisite of understanding requires? After all, we cannot perceive or understand anything independently of our experiences with it. However, when the subject is Orientalism or Occidentalism, our understanding of them enters a realm that is overwhelmingly context-dependent.

Samsun University hosted a wonderful one-day symposium on a concept that ought to be most affected by the atmosphere of the Al-Aqsa Flood—one whose comprehension becomes even more meaningful in this context and through which we can reopen accounts regarding many of our existing perceptions. The subject of the symposium was Occidentalism, otherwise known as Western Studies.

If you recall, two years ago, we discussed a symposium announced for the first time in Turkey under the title of Occidentalism at Siirt University, led by Prof. Dr. İhsan Süreyya Sırma and presided over by Prof. Dr. Cemalettin Erdemci and Prof. Dr. Fadıl Aygan.

Occidentalism is a domain of thought, reaction, sentiment, or literature opposing Orientalism, which worked as the "scouting party of colonialism" in Cemil Meriç's famous description. It certainly harbors an implicit desire for revenge, yet it is also a phenomenon that cannot be ignored as an academic subject. Just as Westerners have been interested in the East, Easterners have had—and will continue to have—an interest in the West, even if not in the same form and structure. However, perhaps the most fundamental insight Edward Said demonstrated in his groundbreaking work is that the very concepts of "East" and "West," along with Eastern and Western identities, are inventions and products of the Orientalist discourse.

That is to say, knowledge about the East brought the East into existence as a discipline of knowledge by objectifying it, naming it, and attributing various qualities to it for the sake of classification. Subsequently, knowledge about the East gave rise to the well-known discourse. Conversely, the perceptions, knowledge, and discourses directed toward Europe from the geography they designated as the East produced the concept of the West accordingly.

For this, of course, they first had to accept that they were Easterners. In Turkey, even Muslims placed great value on describing their own identity as Eastern, thereby giving significant credence to this discourse. Anti-Westernism was expressed in the name of an Eastern identity. The ideal of the "Great East" (Büyük Doğu) was continuously cultivated as an identity and a movement. In doing so, it was overlooked that throughout history, Muslims established one of the strongest and most enduring civilizations in Andalusia, at the westernmost edge of the known Western world of that era.

If Orientalism is the scouting party of colonialism, what we as Muslims must do in response is certainly not to practice Occidentalism as the scouting party of our own colonialism. According to Islam, both the East and the West belong to Allah, and Muslims can be Easterners or Westerners. Besides, the questioning or pursuits of Occidentalism make no such claim. On the contrary, the concept opens up an important space for reflecting on ourselves and the Other, harboring questions that will lead to fruitful conclusions.

In his opening speech at the symposium, Prof. Dr. Mahmut Aydın, Rector of Samsun University and a prominent historian of religions, sought to frame the issue through the differences between Muslim, Jewish, and Christian beliefs rather than an East-West axis. Responding to the orientalist discourse shaped under the influence of the former two, which characterizes Islam as a "religion of the sword," he introduced a groundbreaking approach: The effect of the sword occurs in all conquests and expansions; what matters is how this sword was used—whether it was used to destroy the different and the "other," or to accept and protect them. When you make the comparison in this way, it becomes crystal clear that Jews and Christians both used the sword more extensively and used it solely to destroy the "other" without ever accepting them. Islam, on the other hand, offered people the option to live their faith freely under the protection and guarantee of its sword.

At the symposium, where I also gave a talk titled "Does Occidentalism Dismantle the Hegemonic Narrative or Reproduce It?", the intellectual depth and performance demonstrated by participants from various universities in Turkey addressing the topic further reinforced the optimistic observations I have frequently found myself expressing whenever the subject of universities comes up recently. I cannot mention the contributions of all participants in detail, but simply conveying the titles of their papers here will give an idea. Presentations that truly broadened my own horizons were delivered under the following titles: Dr. Ahmet Demirhan, "Orientalism, Occidentalism, and Europe as a Problem"; Dr. Abdullah Metin, "A Discipline Seeking Its Course: What Occidentalism Is Not"; Prof. Dr. Ali Utku, "Modernizing Ideological Proposals in the Late Ottoman Period and Occidentalism"; Assoc. Prof. Dr. Peyami Safa Gülay, "Does Philosophy Begin in the 18th Century? The Racist History of Philosophy"; Assoc. Prof. Dr. Fatma Kızıl, "Hegemonic Discourse in Academic Islamic Studies in the West"; Dr. Fatma Sayın, "The Problem of Double Representation in the East-West Encounter: A Philosophical Reflection on the Works of Osman Hamdi"; Assoc. Prof. Dr. Adem İnce, "Dilemmas of Occidentalist Kemalist Rhetoric: An Analysis of the Effort to Create a Ghost Nation"; Dr. Vefa Can Kaya, "The Occidentalist Discourse of Left-Wing Kemalism: The Examples of Attila İlhan and Niyazi Berkes"; Dr. Yaşar Yeşilyurt, "Taha Abderrahmane and Occidentalism: A Moral Critique of the West"; and Dr. Hasan Harmancı, "Kemal Tahir and Abd al-Rahman al-Sharqawi on the Issue of the West."

Undoubtedly, Muslims' perceptions and knowledge of the West have been deeply influenced by their experiences. Very different winds are blowing now compared to those of the past, when they were caught in the currents of inferiority complexes, defensive rhetoric, and the shadow of images depicting backward Muslims and an advanced West.

The effect of the winds blowing after 1967 prompted Edward Said to write his work Orientalism through the lens of Palestine, turning the orientalist narrative upside down. 46 years have passed even since that book. Today, there is an intellectual accumulation and horizon that surpasses Said, criticizes him, and pushes beyond him. Furthermore, today we stand at a completely different historical horizon; subjected to genocide with the unlimited support of the US and Europe, it is not only Gaza or the Palestinians—the West is also destroying its own image and perceptions of itself. Currently, there is an exposure of a Crusader-Zionist image of the West submerged under the rising waters of the Al-Aqsa Flood, where all its masks have fallen. Our science regarding the West that will emerge within this horizon—that is, Occidentalism—will not take shape independently of this consciousness.