Challenging the New Orientalism: Dissenting Essays on the "War Against Islam" - Softcover

M. Shahid Alam

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7 ratings by Goodreads

9781889999456: Challenging the New Orientalism: Dissenting Essays on the "War Against Islam"

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1889999458 ISBN 13: 9781889999456

Publisher: Islamic Publications International, 2007

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Over the past few decades, a new form of Orientalism has been developing. As exemplified by Elie Kedourie and Bernard Lewis, it points to Islam as the West's archenemy. The rise of political Islam and its opposition to Western domination of the Islamic world are seen as evidence of a deep, abiding hatred of all things Western. Accordingly, the new Orientalists call for thorough reforms, among them regime changes, wars, and the imposition of 'democracy' on Islamic societies. They warn that if the West shrinks from this challenge, the Islamists will surely gain power and destroy the West. The essays in this book 'written after 9-11' dispute the new Orientalist presumption of an unchanging Islam, opposed to "Western" values and incapable of adapting to the modern world. The not-so-hidden objective of the new Orientalism is to promote acceptance of the US and Israel's imperialist push into the Islamic world as both a security imperative and a civilizing mission. Alam argues that the new Orientalist's claim of a categorical split between Islam and the West is based on a biased, inaccurate interpretation of history. While recognizing the political and economic failings of the Islamic world, Alam shows that they are legacies of two centuries of Western imperialism and are shared by all regions at the periphery of the prevailing global capitalism. If the Islamic world lags behind China and India, it is because of two factors that have given a new edge to Western involvement in West Asia and North Africa: oil and Zionism. In Alam's view, Israel is a powerful destabilizing force in the region, whose survival depends upon turning the Western-Islamic conflict into a hot war. Not surprisingly, many of the new Orientalists are strong partisans of Israel.

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About the Author:

M. Shahid Alam is Professor of Economics at Northeastern University, Boston. His previous books include Poverty from the Wealth of Nations (Macmillan, 2000) and Governments and Markets in Economic Development Strategies (Praeger, 1989).

Review:

M. Shahid Alam's enterprise of forcing "the legacies of history" into "the daylight of consciousness" in the West is informed by deep understanding of the cultural and economic history of Islamic and European societies, and of influential contemporary scholarship and debate. The analysis is careful and serious, and will be of considerable value to anyone concerned with the crucial and timely issues that Alam addresses, whether they come to agree with his conclusions or not. --Noam Chomsky, Professor of Linguistics, MIT, USA

In this original work, Shahid Alam confronts the problem of power with exceptional candor and courage. His is an eminently sane voice that is moral without being squeamish, pragmatic without being defeatist, and Islamic without relinquishing the reins of history. A highly cogent, enlightening and liberating vision of contemporary politics and morality! --S. Parvez Manzoor, eminent Muslim critic, Sweden

In the face of race-baiting, bigotry and official hysteria, M. Shahid Alam offers reason, analysis and genuine compassion for those who have been steamrolled by the imperial machine as it rampages across the globe. This urgent collection of essays proves that clear and courageous writing can still be a powerful force for change. --Jeffrey St. Clair, coeditor CounterPunch.Org

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