While reading Cold War Orientalism, I couldn’t help but think of today’s political climate and the “re-Orientalism” taking place, not only with the Middle East, but between China and the US as well. After President Obama’s trip to China last year, for example, he said in a speech: “The United States respects the progress that China has made by lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. Just as we respect China’s ancient and remarkable culture, its remarkable achievements, we also strongly believe that the religion and culture of all peoples must be respected and protected, and that all people should be free to speak their minds. And that includes ethnic and religious minorities in China, as surely as it includes minorities within the United States.” The entire speech had the dynamic of “our culture is ‘good’ and ‘free’” while tacitly saying China’s is ‘bad’ in the sense that the people are ‘not free’. In this excerpt and other parts of the speech, the eloquently veiled anxiety over China’s success in bringing people out of poverty and growing their economy was quickly followed by a cultural distinction of difference. That is, the rhetoric of this speech incorporates so many tropes of what we consider an “Orientalist” text: the “us/U.S. versus them” rhetoric, the term “ancient culture” which used to be used in Orientalist texts to comment on cultures lacking technological advancement, but has now been reformatted to discuss the backwards ideology of the Chinese people. Klein’s discussion of the Truman Doctrine speech, particularly her quote: “In it the president cast the postwar situation as a worldwide struggle between ‘free peoples’ who believed in ‘individual liberty’ and ‘totalitarian regimes’ that ruled through ‘terror and oppression’” reminded me of Obama’s speech, and made me think about how little progress we seemed to have made (especially now, when our country can fight with China over a visit with the Dalai Lama.)
The thing I was most intrigued by was Klein’s discussion of “global imaginaries” because it highlighted the fact that the Cold War completely revolutionized the way in which we define and discuss war: in terms of ideology. We do not have Crimean Wars, WWIs, or WWIIs, we have “War on Terror.” The entire process of warfare now has an imaginary or aesthetic quality to it. Terrorism is a perfect example of this. 9/11, for example, is particularly poignant because of the narrative that we ascribe to it—the fact that American planes were used against the American people, that American flight-training programs may have trained the people who later attacked us, the significance of 9-1-1, the idea that the two tallest buildings in the US fell and that they represented American commerce, trade, and progress, etc. We now battle with beliefs.
I think you are absolutely right to point to modern examples of imagined shared relationships. It made me think of Althusser's definitions of ideology, and more specifically how politicians use to term to talk about (as you pointed out) the "war on terror" as an ideological war. Within the confines of Althusser's definition of ideology, the material existence of the ideology always operates within the within an apparatus and its practices.
ReplyDeleteIn some ways, these ideological approaches to war only exist because we are constantly forcefed the Fox News jargon about it. 24 hour news channels, newspapers, everywhere we look we are trapped in Pascal's formula for belief. 'Kneel down, move your lips in prayer, and you will believe.' This sort of imagined space is it's own ISA. like you said, a fantasy... and one in which we are constantly swimming.
For Klein, that seems to have softened the imperial impulse in Asia. For me, it seems a more insidious fantasy of denial and distancing the middlebrow from the atrocities of American/non communist Asian relationship. Are imagined educations enough? Althusser might suggest that there is no other kind.
Love the connection to modern times. Would love to see this turned into a bigger project.
ReplyDeleteIssues your post made me think of:
how much of China we consume in terms of products, culture, and culture as a product.
how we're willing to set aside our ideology if its financially inconvenient though i suppose if we're talking about china, it would be financially disastrous.
where does the brow system come into this imaginary aesthetic?
work it Joy!
The Dalai Lama has had financial backing from the CIA since the 60s and support for Tibet is still seen as Cold War maneuvering on the USA's part.
ReplyDeleteThe re-orientalism effect seems more like a result of the culturalization of politics. What used to be economic and political politics (focused on things like exploitation, justice, land rights, etc) has now shifted to questions of tolerance and accepting other cultures. This seems like a way of sentimentalizing neoliberalism.