Wednesday, November 30, 2005

حركة التعليم المنزلي بالمجتمعات الغربية
بديل جذاب لمسلمي أمريكا
مقال بقلم: علاء بيومي

الناشر: مجلة المعرفة، الأول من ديسمبر 2005، حقوق الطبع والنشر محفوظة للناشر

نص المقال

الانتشار السريع لظاهرة التعليم المنزلي بأكبر الدول الغربية وعلى رأسها الولايات المتحدة - محور تركيز هذا المقال - خلال العقدين الماضيين يصعب إهماله من قبل الباحثين المتابعين للتطورات الثقافية والاجتماعية التي تمر بها المجتمعات الغربية خلال الفترة الحالية لما للظاهرة من معاني متعددة ومترابطة مع التحديات الثقافية والاجتماعية التي تواجهها تلك المجتمعات في أوائل القرن الحادي والعشرين

حجم الظاهرة ومدى انتشارها

من لا يدرك حجم نفوذ وانتشار حركة التعليم المنزلي بأمريكا فيمكن توعيته بأن عدد تلاميذ المنازل في أمريكا يتراوح حاليا بين 1.5 و2 مليون طالب، وهو ما يعادل 3 إلى 4 % من إجمالي عدد تلاميذ المدارس بأمريكا، و15% من عدد التلاميذ الأمريكيين الذين لا يدرسون بالمدارس العامة، ونسبة لا يستهان بها – يقدرها البعض بربع – الأسر الأمريكية التي لديها أبناء والتي لا تعمل فيها الأم خارج المنزل

أكثر من ذلك تشير الدراسات المعنية بهذه الظاهرة إلى أن حركة التعليم المنزلي تنمو بسرعة كبيرة، إذ يرى البعض أن عدد طلاب المنازل في أمريكا لم يتعدى 10 آلاف طالب في أواخر الخمسينات وأوائل الستينات من القرن العشرين، كما أنها لم تتعدى 50 ألف طالب في عام 1985، ولكن مع مدخل عقد التسعينات قفز العدد ليتراوح بين 250 إلى 255 ألف تلميذ، وخلال الفترة من عام 1990 وحتى عام 1996 تضاعف عدد تلاميذ المنازل ليصل إلى 700 ألف تلميذ، وهو ما يعني أن الظاهرة تنمو بمعدل سنوي سريع يصل إلى 15% سنويا

ناهيك عن نمو تأييد الرأي العام الأمريكي للظاهرة، إذ تشير استطلاعات الرأي العام الأمريكي إلى أن نسبة تأييد الأمريكيين للتعليم المنزلي في منتصف الثمانينات لم تتعدى 16%، في مقابل نسبة معارضة تصل إلى 73% من الأمريكيين مما يعبر عن الضغط النفسي والثقافي الكبير الذي كان يتعرض له الآباء الذين يريدون تعليم أبنائهم بالمنازل خلال تلك الفترة التاريخية غير البعيدة

ولكن نسبة التأييد سرعان ما ارتفعت لتصل إلى 28% في أواخر الثمانينات، وإلى 36% في عام 1997، في حين انخفضت نسبة المعارضة لتصل إلى نسبة 57% في عام 1997، وهو ما يشير إلى أن الرأي العام الأمريكي يسير في طريق المزيد من القبول بظاهرة التعليم المنزلي خاصة منذ النصف الأخير من الثمانينات والذي شهد قفزة في أعداد الأسر الأمريكية الراغبة في تعليم أبناءها بالمنازل، وهي الفترة التي شهدت – كما سنشرح بالتفصيل فيما بعد – زيادة اهتمام الجماعات الأمريكية المسيحية المتدينة بتعليم أبناءها بالمنازل مما أعطى الحركة قوة دفع كبيرة

هذا إضافة إلى قيام حوالي 20 ألف أسرة كندية بتعليم أبناءها بالمنازل، إضافة على انتشار الظاهرة في اليابان وفي دول أوربية وغربية أخرى عديدة


بداية عودة التعليم المنزلي في أمريكا

تشير الدراسات المعنية إلى أن عقد الخمسينات من القرن الماضي هي فترة عودة ظاهرة التعليم المنزلي للانتشار في أمريكا، وهنا تأكد الدراسات المختلفة على أن التعليم المنزلي ليس ظاهرة جديدة، فهو ظاهرة قديمة قدم الحضارة البشرية وذات تاريخ حضاري أطول بكثير من تاريخ نظام التعليم المدرسي العام الإجباري الذي يسيطر على النظم التعليمية حاليا في مختلف دول العالم والذي لم ينتشر إلا خلال القرن التاسع عشر الميلادي، وهي فترة قصيرة جدا مقارنة بعمر ظاهرة التعليم المنزلي التي كانت البديل الرئيسي للتعليم عبر العالم على مدى قرون والتي استطاعت إنتاج فلاسفة وعلماء وأدباء عظام يصعب على العالم إعادة إنتاجهم اليوم

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Saturday, November 26, 2005

الرأي العام الأمريكي والسياسة الخارجية: قراءة في استطلاعات حديثة
بقلم: علاء بيومي
نص المقال

لا ينبغي لمعارضي سياسة الإدارة الأمريكية الحالية تجاه الشرق الأوسط المبالغة في تضخيم تأثير معارضة الرأي العام الأمريكي لحرب العراق على سياسة أمريكا الخارجية

النصيحة السابقة هي – من وجهة نظري – الخلاصة الأكثر واقعية وموضوعية لنتائج بعض أحدث وأشمل استطلاعات موقف الرأي العام الأمريكي تجاه السياسة الخارجية الأمريكية في الوقت الراهن

ونقصد هنا - على وجه التحديد - الاستطلاع الذي أصدره مركز بيو لاستطلاعات الرأي بالتعاون مع مجلس العلاقات الخارجية في السابع عشر من شهر نوفمبر الحالي، والاستطلاع الذي أصدرته منظمة الأجندة العامة في يونيو الماضي ونشرت مجلة فورين أفاريز العريقة - الصادرة عن مجلس العلاقات الخارجية - نتائجه في عدد سبتمبر/ أكتوبر 2005

أسباب التفاؤل

معارضي سياسة الرئيس جورج دبليو بوش قد يجدون في الاستطلاعين السابقين أسباب عديدة تدفعهم للتفاؤل المبالغ فيه في بعض الأحيان، سبب ذلك قد يعود جزئيا إلى أن الاستطلاعين – تماشيا مع استطلاعات يصعب حصرها تجريها وسائل الإعلام الأمريكية بصفة يومية – يشيران إلى أن معارضة الرأي العام الأمريكي لسياسة الإدارة الأمريكية في العراق، وفي الشرق الأوسط، وتجاه العالم، وداخل أمريكا في ارتفاع

إحصاء منظمة بيو – على سبيل المثال – يشير في مقدمته إلى أن النخب الأمريكية المهيمنة على صناعة القرار والرأي العام أصحبت أقل مساندة لفكرة أن تلعب أمريكا دور "الأول بين متساويين" على المستوى الدولي، وهو ما يعني أن قادة الرأي العام الأمريكي يريدون من الإدارة الأمريكية أن تمارس سياسة خارجية أكثر تواضعا

وهنا يجب الإشارة إلى أن استبيان منظمة بيو قام باستطلاع أراء جماعتين رئيسيين، الجماعة الأولى تكونت من مواطنين عاديين، أما الجماعة الثانية فتكونت من قادة رأي وصناع قرار في مجالات الإعلام، والسياسة الخارجية، والأمن، والجيش، والحكومات المحلية، والأكاديميين والباحثين، والقادة الدينيين، والعلماء والمهندسين، والجيش

كما يوضح الاستطلاع أن 42% من الأمريكيين يرون أنه ينبغي على أمريكا أن تهتم بشئونها الداخلية وأن تترك لدول العالم حرية إدارة شئونهم الداخلية والدولية، وهي النسبة الأكبر من الأمريكيين التي توافق على هذه الفكرة منذ منتصف السبعينات والفترة التالية لحرب فيتنام

كما يرى 66% من الأمريكيين أن العالم أصبح أقل احتراما لأمريكا اليوم مقارنة بالماضي، وعندما سئل الاستطلاع المشاركين فيه عن الأسباب التي قادت لتراجع احترام العالم لأمريكا، قال 71% من قادة الرأي المشاركين في الاستطلاع أن حرب العراق هي سبب رئيسي في ذلك، وهي فكرة أيدها 87% من الجماهير التي شاركت في الاستطلاع

هذا إضافة إلى تراجع رضا الشعب الأمريكي (جماهير وقادة رأي) على سياسات إدارة الرئيس جورج دبليو بوش خلال السنوات الأربعة الأخيرة بنسب تتراوح بين 5-24%

فعندما سئل الاستطلاع الجماهير التي شاركت فيه عن مستوى رضاهم عن سياسات الرئيس جورج دبليو بوش عبر النسبة الأكبر منهم عن عدم رضاهم على سياسات بوش تجاه العراق (57%)، وتجاه السياسة الخارجية بصفة عامة (51%)، ونحو الاقتصاد (56%)، وبخصوص الهجرة (54%)

في المقابل عبر 52% من الجماهير التي شاركت في الاستطلاع عن رضاهم على سياسة الرئيس جورج دبليو بوش تجاه الإرهاب

كما عبر المشاركون في الاستطلاع (خاصة قادة الرأي منهم) بصفة عامة عن تشاؤمهم بخصوص نجاح سياسة الإدارة الأمريكية تجاه العراق أو تجاه العالم بشكل عام

استطلاع منظمة الأجندة العامة عبر عن نتائج مشابهة إذا عبر عن عدم رضا 65% من المشاركين فيه عن قدرة سياسات الرئيس الأمريكي على بناء علاقات إيجابية مع العالم الإسلامي، كما عبر 56% من المشاركين فيه عن اعتقادهم بالا تتمكن الإدارة الأمريكية من تحقيق أهدافها في العراق

لذا تنبأ الاستطلاع السابق بأن تضطر إدارة الرئيس جورج دبليو بوش إلى إدخال تعديلات على سياساتها تجاه العراق خلال عام على الأكثر استجابة لمعارضة الرأي العام الأمريكي المتزايدة لسياسة إدارته في العراق

كما تنبأت دراسة ثالثة نشرتها مجلة فورين أفاريز في عددها الصادر في أكتوبر/ نوفمبر 2005 لأستاذ علوم سياسية بجامعة ولاية أوهايو الأمريكية يدعى جون مولر بأن تصيب حرب العراق السياسة الخارجية الأمريكية بعقدة أشبه بعقدة فيتنام، وقد استند مولر في توقعه هذه على مقارنة موقف الرأي العام الأمريكي تجاه حرب العراق مع موقف الرأي العام الأمريكي تجاه حربي فيتنام وكوريا، حيث توصل من هذه المقارنة إلى أن عقدة العراق تسير على نفس مسار عقدة فيتنام بشكل يصعب تفاديه

أسباب الحذر

على الجانب الأخر احتوت الاستطلاعات لسابقة – إذا تمت قراءتها بحذر وموضوعية – على مؤشرات عديدة توضح أن النظرة السابقة هي نظرة مبالغ فيها، وفيما يلي الأسباب التي تدفعنا لهذا الاعتقاد

أولا: غياب الإجماع

الاستطلاعات السابقة تسير إلى أن إجماع الرأي العام الأمريكي على أمر ما بنسبة تفوق الثلثين أو أكثر هو أمر موجود وقائم في مجالات عديدة، ولكنه للأسف ليس قائما فيما يتعلق بسياسات الإدارة الأمريكية تجاه الشرق الأوسط

إذ يشير استطلاع مركز بيو إلى أن 84% من الجماهير الأمريكية ترى أنه ينبغي على الولايات المتحدة أن تحافظ على تقاربها مع أوربا الغربية، كما يرى 86% من الجماهير أنه يجب أن تضع الإدارة الأمريكية جهود الدفاع عن أمريكا ضد الإرهاب على قمة أولويتها، ويرى 84% من الشعب الأمريكي أن الحفاظ على الوظائف يجب أن يكون من أولويات الإدارة الرئيسية

وهذا يعني أن هناك إجماع واضح وقوي في أوساط الشعب الأمريكي على أولايات السياسة الخارجية الأمريكية، ولكن هذا الإجماع القوي غير قائم عند الحديث عن سياسات بعينها

فعند الحديث عن قدرة الإدارة الأمريكية على بناء ديمقراطية في العراق نجد أن 56% من الجماهير يوافق و37% لا يعتقدون ذلك، وعند الحديث عن تأثير قرار الحكومة الأمريكية بشن حرب عسكرية على العراق نجد أن 48% من الشعب الأمريكي مازال يعتقد ذلك في مقابل 45% يعارضون هذا الرأي، كما ينقسم الرأي العام الأمريكي على نفسه عند سؤاله حول ما إذا كانت الحرب على العراق ساعدت الحرب على الإرهاب، حيث يوافق ويعارض الرأي السابق نسبة 44% من الشعب الأمريكي

هذا يعني أن الشعب الأمريكي يفتقر للإجماع عن الحديث عن بدائل سياسية معينة، فالشعب الأمريكي يميل للتشاؤم بخصوص سياسة أمريكا الخارجية بشكل عام وتجاه العراق بشكل خاص، وهو تشاؤم يبدو في ازدياد ولكنه لم يصل لنقطة الإجماع بعد

ثانيا: الاستقطاب الحزبي والاحتقان الأيدلوجي

أحد أهم أسباب غياب الإجماع في أوساط الشعب الأمريكي تجاه سياسات الإدارة الأمريكية هي حقيقة تشير لها الدراسات السابقة مجتمعة وهي ظاهرة الاستقطاب الحزبي الشديد في أوساط الشعب الأمريكي

فدارسة منظمة الأجندة العامة تشير إلى أن 77% من الأمريكيين ذوي التوجه الديمقراطي يشعرون بالقلق من ارتفاع عدد القتلى الأمريكيين في العراق، في حين تنخفض هذه النسبة إلى 33% فقط في أوساط المساندين للحزب الجمهوري، وبفارق يصل إلى 44%

نفس الحقيقة يؤكد عليها تقرير مركز بيو الذي يقول أن "الخلافات الحزبية أكبر من الفارق بين الجماهير وصناع الرأي عندما يتعلق الأمر ببوش وسياساته"، ويشير الاستطلاع إلى أن 81% من الجمهوريين الذي شاركوا فيه عبروا عن رضاهم العام على سياسات الرئيس بوش في مقابل 15% فقط من الديمقراطيين الذي عبروا عن رضاهم على سياسات بوش بفارق يصل إلى 66%

ويعني ذلك أن الإدارة الأمريكية يمكنها أن تجد كثير من المساندة لمواقفها في أوساط الجمهوريين، كما أن يجد القادة الديمقراطيون المعارضين لسياسات الإدارة الأمريكية أنفسهم في موقف بالغ الصعوبة لصعوبة بناء الجسور مع القواعد الجماهيرية الجمهورية بسبب حالة الاحتقان الأيدلوجي البالغة الراهنة

ثالثا: عاطفية الرأي العام الأمريكي

يزيد من صعوبة التعويل على مواقف الرأي العام الأمريكي حقيقة هو أن الرأي العام الأمريكي مثله كشعوب أخرى عديدة يتميز بدرجة كبيرة من العاطفة والوطنية والرغبة في الوحدة عند الشعور بالخطر، وهو أمر يجب فهمه والتعامل معه دون لوم المواطن الأمريكي العادي عليه

فالشعب الأمريكي بدا أكثر تفاؤلا وعاطفية مقارنة بالنخب وصناع القرار المشاركين في استطلاع مركز بيو، فعندما سئل الاستطلاع المشاركين فيه عن مدى تفاؤلهم بخصوص قدرة أمريكا على بناء دولة ديمقراطية بالعراق عبر 56% من الجماهير عن تفاؤلهم وهي نسبة فاقت بكثير نسبة الفئات النخبوية التي شاركت في الاستطلاع كالإعلاميين والأكاديميين فيما عدا أفراد الجيش الأمريكي (64%)

كما أن الجماهير تساند أداء بوش بصفة عامة بنسبة (51%) تفوق مساندة أي فئة نخبوية أخرى للرئيس فيما عدا القادة الدينيون (55%)

كما يبدو الشعب الأمريكي مقارنة بصناع القرار والسياسة أكثر تأييدا لتشديد قوانين الهجرة مقارنة بقادة الرأي والسياسة، وأكثر خوفا من المعاهدات الاقتصادية الدولية، وأكثر إيمانا بأن قرار الحرب على العراق كان قرارا صحيحا وبأن الحرب على العراق ساعدت الحرب على الإرهاب

رابعا: فيما وراء العراق

عندما سئل استطلاع بيو المشاركين فيه عن تصورهم عن أسباب تدهور صورة أمريكا في العالم، ذكر المواطنين العاديين (في مقابل صناع الرأي والقرار) الذي شاركوا في الاستطلاع ما يلي

ذكر 60% من الجماهير أن سبب تدهور صورة أمريكا الرئيس هو ثروة أمريكا قوتها

ذكر 54% أن السبب هو الحرب الأمريكية على الإرهاب

ذكر 52% أن السبب هو نزعة أمريكا العسكرية

ذكر 39% أن السبب هو مساندة أمريكا لإسرائيل

ذكر 33% أن السبب هو مساندة أمريكا للنظم العربية السلطوية
ذكر 22% أن السبب هو تدين أمريكا

الإجابة السابقة استوقفت القائمين على الاستطلاع حيث حرصوا على الإشارة إلى قلة نسبة الأمريكيين العاديين الذين يعتقدون أن مساندة أمريكا لإسرائيل هي سبب في تراجع صورتها عبر العالم، خاصة وأن نسب كبيرة من نخب الرأي والسياسة الأمريكية رأت أن سياسة أمريكا تجاه إسرائيل هي سبب رئيسي لتراجع صورة أمريكا، حيث وافق على هذا الرأي 78% من الإعلاميين، و69% من خبراء العلاقات الدولية، و53% من السياسيين، و59% من الأكاديميين، و58% من القادة الدينيين، و72% من رجال الجيش الأمريكي

وهو ما يعني أن المبالغة على التركيز على موقف الرأي العام الأمريكي المعارض للسياسة الأمريكية تجاه العراق قد يشغل البعض عن ملاحظة موقف الرأي العام الأمريكي المحير تجاه قضايا عربية ودولية أخرى هامة

خامسا: موقف الإعلام الأمريكي مضلل

أحد أهم نتائج الاستطلاعات السابقة - من وجهة نظري - هو أنها كشفت عن حقيقة هامة وهي حقيقة موقف الإعلام الأمريكي بين نخب صناعة القرار والرأي العام بالولايات المتحدة، حيث يشير استطلاع مركز بيو على وجه الخصوص أن الإعلاميين والأكاديميين والعلماء بشكل خاص يمثلون جزءا من المعسكر الليبرالي بالولايات المتحدة، وذلك في مقابل نخب أخرى كالجيش والقادة الدينيين والسياسيين الذين يميلون نحو التيار اليمين المحافظ بشكل أوضح

وهذا يعني أن قراءة موقف الإعلام الأمريكي الذي يغلب عليه التوجه الليبرالي لا يكفي لمعرفة موقف الرأي العام الأمريكي بشكل عام تجاه السياسية الخارجية أو موقف النخب الحاكمة في الولايات المتحدة

فالإعلام الأمريكي ليبرالي التوجه، لذا يصعب على المتابع المهتم أن يتخذ من الإحصاءات والأخبار السلبية التي تنشرها وسائل الإعلام الليبرالية عن سياسة الإدارة الأمريكية الخارجية بصفة يومية مؤشرا على موقف الرأي العام الأمريكي من تلك السياسات

خاتمة

الحقائق السابقة ليست دعوة للتشاؤم من موقف الرأي العام الأمريكي أو لرفض العمل معه، فالعمل على تغيير موقف الرأي العام الأمريكي تجاه قضايا العالمين العربي والإسلامي ضرورة لا بد منها لتحسين العلاقة بين الولايات المتحدة والشعوب المسلمة والعربية، ولكن لكي يتحقق ذلك لابد وأن نبني مثل هذا الجهد على رؤية موضوعية للأمور تؤمن بضرورة خوض الطريق الصعب والشاق

أخيرا يجب الإشارة إلى تنبأ دراسات عديدة بأن موقف الرأي العام الأمريكي تجاه قضية العراق على وجه الخصوص وصلت لدرجة غير مسبوقة من عدم الرضا عن سياسات الإدارة الأمريكية الراهنة، مما قد يرغم الإدارة الأمريكي في الوقت المنظور على تغيير سياساتها، وهي تنبؤ إيجابي لمعارضي سياسات الإدارة الأمريكية تجاه الشرق الأوسط، يجب الاستبشار به دون مبالغة أو تفريط

Thursday, November 24, 2005

الفرصة: لحظة أمريكا المواتية لتغيير مسار التاريخ
عرض بقلم: علاء بيومي

الناشر: الجزيرة نت، 24 نوفمبر 2005، حقوق الطبع والنشر محفوظة للناشر

نص العرض

مؤلف كتاب "الفرصة: لحظة أمريكا المواتية لتغيير مسار التاريخ" والصادر عن مطابع بابليك أفاريز الأمريكية في مايو 2005 هو ريتشارد هاس مدير التخطيط في وزارة الخارجية الأمريكية خلال الفترة من أوائل عام 2001 وحتى منتصف يونيو 2003، حيث عمل مساعدا لوزير الخارجية الأمريكي السابق كولن باول

ويعمل ريتشارد هاس حاليا كرئيس أحد أعرق مراكز الأبحاث الأمريكية على الإطلاق، وهو مجلس العلاقات الخارجية، والذي يصدر مجلة فورين أفاريز الأمريكية المعروفة، وهي أهم مجلات العلاقات الدولية في الولايات المتحدة

أهمية الكتاب

أهمية هذا الكتاب تكمن – من وجهة نظري – في عاملين رئيسيين، أولهما هدف الكتاب وهو طرح مفهوم "الاندماج" كمفهوم إستراتيجي محوري يجب أن تصاغ السياسة الخارجية الأمريكية حوله، كبديل للمفاهيم السياسية الكبرى كالاحتواء والمواجهة التي صيغت السياسيات الأمريكية حولها خلال الحرب الباردة وبعدها

حيث يرى هاس أن الولايات المتحدة يجب أن تنتهز الأوضاع الدولية الراهنة في صياغة نظام عالمي جديد يقوم على دمج دول العالم المختلفة في نظام من القواعد والسياسات الدولية التي تضمن استقرار السلام والأمن والنمو الاقتصادي عبر العالم تحت قيادة أمريكية

أما العامل الثاني فهو ريتشارد هاس نفسه
للإطلاع على النص الكامل للمقال، يرجى زيارة

Saturday, November 19, 2005

طغيان البهجة على الثقافة الأمريكية
مقال بقلم: علاء بيومي

الناشر: تقرير واشنطن، 19 نوفمبر 2005، حقوق الطبع والنشر محفوظة للناشر

نص المقال

انتشار الشعور بالبهجة والمرح بالمجتمع الأمريكي أمر ملفت للنظر، فالزائر الأجنبي للولايات المتحدة يصعب عليه آلا يلاحظ ارتسام البسمة على وجوه قطاعات واسعة من الشعب الأمريكي كموظفي المحالات التجارية، وبين أبناء الطبقة الوسطى الأمريكية الذين عادة ما يبادروك بابتسامة في الطرقات، أو في الإعلانات وغالبية برامج التلفزيون الأمريكي

الظاهرة السابقة تبدو محيرة ومثيرة تدفعك للتساؤل حول سهر بهجة الأمريكيين؟ وأسباب ذلك الشعور؟ وكيف اكتسب الأمريكيون ابتهاجهم عبر التاريخ

في هذا الصدد نشرت دورية جورنال أوف سوشيال هيستوري (جريدة التاريخ الاجتماعي) الصادرة عن جامعة جورج مايسون الأمريكية في عددها الصادر في خريف العام الحالي دراسة متميزة لأستاذة الإعلام والثقافة بجامعة نيويورك تدعى كريستينا كوتشيميدوفا، وهي بلغارية الأصل

الدراسة تبدأ بمقدمة نظرية شبه منطقية تؤكد على أن الثقافات تفرض على أبناءها الالتزام بعواطف وأفكار معينة وبأساليب تعبير معينة عن تلك العواطف والأفكار، وإن الخضوع لثقافة ما لفترة كافية وبكثافة مناسبة قد يغير من فكر وعواطف الفرد بشكل يجعله خاضعا لتلك الثقافة دون أن يدري

فلو عاش الإنسان في ثقافة يغلب عليها شعور التفاؤل على سبيل المثال فإنه لابد وأن يعتقد بمرور الوقت بأن التفاؤل هو الشعور المناسب للإنسان وأنه ينبغي عليه أن يشعر بالتفاؤل مادام سليما نفسيا وعقليا، لذا يحرص هذا الفرد على تدريب نفسه على إظهار التفاؤل والشعور به إلى درجة أن هذا الفرد قد يحرم على نفسه الشعور بالتشاؤم على الرغم بأن قدر من التشاؤم قد يكون أمرا طبيعيا

هذا ما حدث في الثقافة الأمريكية – كما ترى كريستينا كوتشيميدوفا – والتي تعتقد أن التطورات المختلفة التي مر بها المجتمع الأمريكي منذ القرن الثامن عشر جعلت من البهجة العاطفة الأكثر شيوعا وسيطرة على الثقافة الأمريكية لدرجة أعجزت الأمريكيين على التعامل مع مشاعر الإحباط التي قد تصيب بعضهم ولدرجة جعلت من البهجة أداة قد تستخدم للإضرار بحقوق بعض فئات المجتمع وتوظيفها كأدوات لإسعاد الآخرين تحت قيود ثقافة البهجة الطاغية

الجذور التاريخية

تقول المؤلفة أن الثقافة الأمريكية في بداياتها – خلال القرن الثامن عشر – سيطر عليها شعور بالحزن والشجن – مثلها في ذلك مثل الثقافة الأوربية في ذلك الوقت، وهنا ترى المؤلفة أن انتشار الشجن خلال تلك الفترة ارتبط بانتشار ثقافة تؤكد على العواطف القوية الجياشة وعلى رأسها الحزن والبكاء الذي كان ينظر إليه على أنه علامة على الحكمة لذا مارسه السياسيون والجماهير على حد سواء

في المقابل ساهمت التطورات الاجتماعية والاقتصادية والفكرية التي مرت بها أوربا والولايات المتحدة مع تقدم القرن الثامن عشر في صعود ثقافة جديدة فضلت البهجة على الحزن كفضيلة بالمجتمع

فعلى المستوى الفكري والفلسفي قادت الحداثة إلى الفردية باحتفالها بالإنسان وبقدراته وبدعوتها للإنسان للسيطرة على ظروفه وقهر أسباب ومشاعر الضعف والحزن لديه

على النحو نفسه دعا مفكرو عصر التنوير الإنسان بالاهتمام بذاته والاعتناء بها ماديا وروحانيا والإصرار على تحقيق السعادة بالحياة الدنيا

على المستوى الاجتماعي، تقول المؤلفة أن الطبقة الوسطى الأمريكية (البيضاء) شعرت بالرخاء الاقتصادي والفرص المتاحة أمامها، وطالبت أبناءها بالتحكم في مشاعرهم كطريق لتحقيق النجاح، كما طالبتهم بالبهجة والتفاؤل والإيجابية والاستبشار بالظروف الجديدة، حتى أصبحت البهجة معيارا للانتماء للطبقة الوسطى التي أصبحت تنظر إليها كفضيلة ضرورية للحفاظ على التماسك واستمرار التقدم الاجتماعي

لذا انتشرت في أوساط الطبقة الوسطى الأمريكي مشاعر رافضة لليأس وللحزن وللدموع ولمن يعجزون عن مساعدة أنفسهم

أمريكا تخطت أوربا في البهجة

تقول كريستينا كوتشيميدوفا أن الأوربيين – الذين زاروا أمريكا – في أواخر القرن الثامن عشر وأوائل القرن التاسع عشر بدأوا يشعروا بأن أمريكا تقدمت على أوربا في ثقافة البهجة، وأنشغل بعضهم بمحاولة تفسير أسباب هذا التقدم، ومن بينها ما يلي

أولا: الأمريكان شعب حديث صاحب تاريخ قصير لا يمتلك الأشجان والأحزان والمآسي التاريخية التي تكتظ بها تواريخ وذاكرة الأمم الأكبر عمرا

ثانيا: الديمقراطية الأمريكية ومؤسساتها القوية والوفرة الاقتصادية أشعروا المواطن أمريكا بالاطمئنان والتفاؤل بخصوص المستقبل وبالراحة المادية وهي مشاعر ضرورية لمساندة الشعور بالبهجة

ثالثا: ثقافة الطبقة الأمريكية خلت من التأكيد المبالغ فيه على أساليب اللياقة التقليدية في المعاملة، إذ تميزت ثقافة الطبقة الأمريكية الوسطى (البيضاء) بقدر كبير من البساطة والمساواة والتخلي عن التعقيدات مما ساعد البهجة على الانتشار بأمريكا مقارنة ببعض المجتمعات الأوربية التي عرفت الطبقية والتقاليد الاجتماعية المحافظة

رابعا: تنتشر في المجتمع الأمريكي نوع من الفلسفة التي يمكن وصفها بالفلسفة الشعبية أو الجماهيرية وهي تركز بشكل عام من خلال سيل لا ينتهي من الكتابات على تسليح المواطن الأمريكي بالأفكار والأساليب الفكرية والحياتية المختلفة التي تساعده على الشعور بالبهجة بشكل مستمر، كالرياضة والتغذية السليمة والأفكار المساعدة

مخاطر البهجة على المجتمع الأمريكي

تحذر كريستينا كوتشيميدوفا في مقالتها من أن انتشار البهجة بالثقافة الأمريكية وسيطرتها كمعيار ثقافي وعلى رؤية المواطن الأمريكي لنفسه جعل منه أداة سلبية في بعض الأحيان

فعلى إحدى المستويات مثلت البهجة أداة استغلال للفئات الضعيفة كالنساء والطبقات الفقيرة كالعمال، إذا فرضت الثقافة على تلك الفئات إظهار البهجة حتى في الظروف القاسية ضد إرادتهم وضد مصالحهم حتى لا يتهموا بالفشل الثقافي أو بالفشل عن إظهار البهجة

ثانيا، البهجة بصفتها شعور غير قوي يعبر عن درجة متوسطة من السعادة ساهم في انتشار ثقافة أمريكية وقفت موقفا سلبيا من المشاعر القوية مثل الحب والخوف والغضب، إذ تسيطر على الثقافة الأمريكية المعاصرة فضيلة التحكم في المشاعر والذات، والتي تحتم على الأفراد التحكم في مشاعرهم وعدم الإفراط في التعبير عنها، والنظر بسخرية للمشاعر الجياشة كالحب على سبيل المثل

وللأسف أضرت هذه القيمة (التحكم في الذات) بمشاعر هامة وضرورية كالحب وجعلتها ينظر إليها كنوع من الضعف وعدم القدرة على التحكم في الذات الذي قد يؤدي للفشل، وقد ساعدت ثقافة البهجة في ذلك، لأن البهجة بصفتها شعورا ضعيفا غير جياشا ساعدت قيمة التحكم في الذات على الانتشار والسيطرة على ثقافة الأمريكيين

ثالثا، النظام الاقتصادي الأمريكي الرأسمالي احتفى بالبهجة كفضيلة وسعى لنشرها بالمجتمع واستغلاها لمصلحته مستخدما الإعلام كأداة، إذ استغلت الرأسمالية الأمريكية إيمان الأمريكيين بالبهجة في نشر ثقافة الاستهلاك على أساس أن استهلاك بضائع وخدمات الشركات الرأسمالية من شأنه أن يعزز بهجة المواطن الأمريكي

وهي فكرة نشرتها الشركات الرأسمالية الأمريكي من خلال سيل لا ينتهي من الإعلانات التجارية مستخدمة وسائل الإعلام الأمريكي ذات الانتشار الرهيب

أما الخطر الرابع لطغيان ثقافة البهجة فهو تحريم شعور الأفراد بمشاعر الضعف والإحباط، وهي مشاعر طبيعية قد يتعرض لها الفرد في فترات متقطعة عبر حياته

وللأسف يؤدي طغيان ثقافة البهجة على المجتمع الأمريكي إلى فشل الأمريكيين في التعامل مع الإحباط تعاملا طبيعيا يتناسب مع حقيقة كونه شعور طبيعي لا يجب تجريمه، لذا تكون النتيجة وقوع الأمريكي المحبط ضحية العقاقير الطبية المفرطة أو الممارسات غير السليمة صحيا كرد فعل لعجزه عن الاعتراف بشعور الإحباط في ظل رفض المجتمع بالاعتراف بهذا الشعور الطبيعي تحت وطأة سيطرة الشعور البهجة الطاغي

التأثيرات السياسية للبهجة

على المستوى السياسي تشير كتابات حديثة مثل كتاب "أمريكا مخطئة أو مصيبة: تشريح القومية الأمريكية" - الصادر في العام الماضي عن مطابع جامعة أكسفورد الأمريكية للكاتب البريطاني أناتول ليفين - إلى أن التفاؤل هو خاصية هامة من خصائص القومية الأمريكية حيث يقترن معها شعور المواطن الأمريكي بالرضا عن الذات وعن أمريكا كوطن ودولة وإيمان المواطن الأمريكي بصدق النوايا الأمريكي في غالبية الظروف

ويرى المؤلف أن هذه المشاعر قد تؤدي إلى وقوع الشعب الأمريكي فريسة سهلة الاستغلال من قبل بعض الإدارات الأمريكية التي قد تقود مشاريع سياسية مغامرة على المستويين الداخلي والخارجي تضر بمصالح المواطن الأمريكي الذي يبدو حريصا على التفاؤل وعدم التفكير السلبي

على الصعيد نفسه يشير أندرو باسفيتش مؤلف كتاب "النزعة العسكرية الأمريكية الجديدة" الصادر في عام 2005 عن مطابع جامعة أكسفورد الأمريكية في الفصل الرابع من كتابه إلى أن البهجة والتفاؤل والثقة في الذات والرضا عنها هي مشاعر هامة يحرص الرؤساء الأمريكيين على تأكيدها في خطاباتهم عند الحديث للمجتمع الأمريكي

حيث يرى باسفيتش أن الشعب الأمريكي بطبيعته يميل للرضا عن الذات والتفكير المتفاءل عن المستقبل، لذا يرى باسفيتش أن بهجة وتفاؤل الرئيس الأمريكي الراحل رونالد ريجان ساعدته في الفوز على الرئيس الديمقراطي جيمي كارتر والذي مال للتشاؤم والنقد مدفوعا باهتماماته الأخلاقية والفلسفية

ويعتقد باسفيتش أن تفاؤل ريجان أكسبه محبة الجماهير خاصة وأن ريجان سعى لأن يعيد للأمريكيين ثقتهم في أنفسهم التي افتقدوها بعد حرب فيتنام ومشاكل عقدي الستينات والسبعينات، ويقول باسفيتش أن الثقة التي بثها ريجان في الشعب الأمريكي كانت ضرورية لكي تتمكن أمريكا من خوض حروب جديدة كحرب العراق

أخيرا يمكننا أن نشير إلى أن الخلاف الحالي بين الديمقراطيين والجمهوريين حول حرب العراق يمكن النظر إليه كصراع بين البهجة والتشاؤم، فالديمقراطيين يسعون لكي يبرهنوا للشعب الأمريكي أن الإدارة الأمريكي فشلت في العراق، دون أن يبالغوا في نقدهم أو نبرتهم السلبية حتى لا يتهمهم الشعب الأمريكي بالتشاؤم

في الوقت نفسه تحرص الإدارة الأمريكية على إشاعة شعور بالتفاؤل حول مستقبل العراق في أوساط الرأي العام الأمريكي، وهو شعور يصعب نشره في ظل الأخبار السلبية على أرض الواقع

بقى لنا أن نشير إلى أن البهجة والتفاؤل سمات إيجابية راسخة بالثقافة الأمريكية وضرورية للحوار معه، فهي تفرض على أي طرف معني بالحوار مع الشعب الأمريكي أن يحرص على البهجة والتفاؤل لأن الشعب الأمريكي قليل الصبر على المشاعر السلبية

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

OCCIDENTALISM IN LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY EGYPT

A Study By: Alaa Bayoumi

Copyright © 2005 by Alaa Bayoumi. Don’t re-publish without Author’s permission.

Abstract

This new study argues that any policy seeking to reform Arabs’ perceptions of the US and the West should simultaneously attempt to promote democracy in Muslim societies, to reform Western foreign policies toward the Muslim world, to educate Muslims about the social and moral values of the West, and to spread a view of reform as a gradual, educational, and nonviolent process.

It analyzes the Occidental discourses of three intellectual leaders of late nineteenth century Egypt, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Qasim Amin, and Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi. It highlights four main factors that shaped the three writers’ views of the West.

These factors are: the way each writer saw reform as a process, the way each writer viewed the effects of Western foreign policies on the Muslim world, and the attitudes of each writer toward Muslim governments and toward the socially conservative Muslim masses.

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1: Critique of Contemporary Debate on Arab Occidentalism

Chapter 2: Circumstances of Late Nineteenth Century Egypt

Chapter 3: The Occidental Discourse of Jamal Al-Din Al-Afghani

Chapter 4: The Occidental Discourse of Qasim Amin

Chapter 5: The Occidental Discourse of Abdul Al-Rahman Al-Kawakibi

Conclusions and Policy Implications: Occidentalism in Late Nineteenth Century Egypt

Reference List

Chapter 1: Critique of Contemporary Debate on Arab Occidentalism

In the years following the tragic events of September 11, 2001, American media, public, and policy makers paid unprecedented attention to the way Arabs view America and the West, Arab Occidentalism. As a result, two main approaches crystallized to explain the nature and root causes of Arabs’ Occidental views and how such perceptions could be improved.

The first theory was that Arabs’ views of America and the West are encrypted in the Arab culture in general and in the Muslim religion in particular. It also posited that Arabs’ negative views of the West reflect the gloomy circumstances of Arab societies and scapegoat the West and its foreign policies for those circumstances. As a result, advocates of this theory argued that America and the West don’t have to change their current foreign policies in order to improve their image in the Arab world. Instead, they urged the West to focus its efforts on pressuring Arab governments to reform the conditions of the Arab societies and on educating Arabs about the West, its values, civilization, and foreign policies.

On the contrary, the second theory saw American and Western foreign policies as the main cause of Arabs’ anti-American and anti-Western perceptions, looked at current and future Western policies with suspicion, and urged America and the West not to intervene in the internal affairs of Arab societies because it regarded such intervention as the fundamental cause of Arabs’ discontent with the West.

In response to this debate, the current study intends to contribute to the general understanding of the nature and root causes of Arabs’ views of America and the West by analyzing the Occidental discourses of three intellectual leaders of late nineteenth century Egypt, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (1838-1897), Qasim Amin (1863-1908), and Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi (1854 – 1902). The Occidental views of these writers are important to our subject for at least four main reasons.

First, the three writers together constitute a group of three influential, diverse, and widely respected intellectual fathers of modern Arab thought and Occidentalism. The ideas of each of them helped lay the foundation for one or more of today’s most dominant Arab ideologies, such as liberalism, Arab nationalism, and Islamism and for the way the followers of these ideologies see America and the West today.

Second, the Occidental discourses of the three writers reveal important details about the nature and root causes of Arab Occidentalism. In brief, they reveal that Arab Occidentalism is something more than an automatic reflection of Arabs’ culture and internal circumstances or a mindless reaction to Western foreign policies toward the Arab world. Instead, they reflect Arabs’ search for reform and awakening. Such search, the study argues, dominated the thinking of the three writers and led them to manipulate their knowledge about the West in unique ways revealed by the study.

Third, the Occidental perspectives of the three writers demonstrate that any serious effort to improve the image of the Occident in Arabs’ eyes cannot depend only on fixing Western foreign polices or merely on reforming Arabs’ circumstances and on teaching Arabs about the values of the West. However, such an approach should include all three of those steps in addition to encouraging Arabs to seek reform in gradual, educational, and non-violent ways. This is because the Occidental discourses of the three writers show a clear connection, explained in detail later, between the spread of political, radical, and violent reform and the rise of anti-Western views.

Finally, the Occidental discourses of the three writers are uniform in their pronounced rejection of religion as the main basis of the conflict between the East and the West. In this regard, the study shows that the three writers belonged to a different era of modern Arabic thought, the late nineteenth century, when Arabs and Muslims were more willing to learn from the West and less worried about the threat posed by the West to their cultural and religious identities. This led Arab and Muslim intellectuals, such as the three writers studied here, to encourage their audience to learn from the West and to clearly state their beliefs that the conflict between the East and the West was more based on political and economic reasons than on religious and cultural ones. I believe that such views, if revived and promoted, should help reduce contemporary religious tensions between Easterners and Westerners.

In the rest of this introductory chapter, and before analyzing the Occidental discourses of the three writers in the following chapters, I will focus on highlighting the study’s main argument and methodology.

1) Critique of Contemporary Debate on Arab Occidentalism

The current debate about the nature and root causes of Arabs’ contemporary views of America and the West, Arab Occidentalism, gained rising importance since the terrorist attacks on Washington, D.C., and New York on September 11, 2001, which demonstrated to the American people and government that their country enjoys a generally negative image in the Arab world, from which the 19 hijackers came. In response, the American administration, pressured by the need to win Arabs’ support for the war on terrorism, launched several public diplomacy initiatives aiming to improve Arabs’ perceptions of America in particular and the West in general (U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy 2002; Djerejian 2003; Blinken 2002; Tolson 2003). In addition, countless books, articles, and public opinion surveys were released seeking to explain the nature and root causes of Arabs’ contemporary discontent with America and the West (Friedman 2002; Friedman 2004, Buruma and Margalit 2004; AbuKhalil 2004; Lewis 2003; Hirsh 2004; Huntington 2001, Warren 2004).

Although it may be difficult to draw generalizations about the main theoretical perspectives recently used to explain Arab Occidentalism in the American media and public circles, one can easily notice the influential presence of two contrasting approaches. The first approach is promoted by intellectuals who believe that Arabs’ attitudes toward America and the West mainly reflect the cultures and circumstances of Arab and Muslim societies. Some of these intellectuals see Islam as a religion that holds deep animosity toward non-Muslims and that seeks to obtain the submission of all other religions, by force if necessary (Hollander 2002:15; Fradkin 2001:28; Rollins 2001:27). They perceive Arab and Muslim societies as “sick” ones that failed to modernize themselves, leaving contemporary Muslims with nothing but a feeling of hatred and envy toward the powerful and more advanced West (Fradkin 2001:28; Rosworth 2001). They reject the notion that American foreign policy has contributed to Arabs’ negative perceptions of the United Sates. In contrast, they believe that America has often aligned itself with the interests of the Arab and Muslim worlds, which in response made America the scapegoat for the serious problems facing their societies, such as the lack of democracy, economic reform, and freedoms (Fradkin 2001:28; Rubin 2002:74& 81; Cornell 2002).

As a result, they believe that the West does not need to change its policies toward the Arab and Muslims worlds. Instead, they urge American and Western governments to pressure their Arab and Muslim counterparts to open the Arab and Muslim countries for political and economic reform. They also don’t mind increasing America’s efforts to educate Arabs and Muslims about its values, culture, and policies.

On the contrary, the second approach rejects the notion that Arabs and Muslims hate America because of its values or culture (Brumberg 2002:4; Telhami 2003; Andoni 2002). Instead, it focuses on America’s foreign policy, especially toward the Arab-Israeli conflict, as the major source of Arabs’ negative attitudes toward America (The White House Bulletin. 2002; Asali 2002:7; Fuller 2003:152). Followers of this theory criticize America for supporting several authoritarian regimes in the Arab and Muslim worlds, for imposing sanctions on Iraq during the 1990s, and for invading Iraq in 2003 (Robberson 2003; Talbot 2003:30). Some of them consider American foreign policy as a continuation of the policies of European colonialism (MacFarquhar 2003; Al-Barghouti 2003). They distrust America’s current intentions and interventions in the Middle East and believe that America’s policies in the Arab and Muslim worlds are based on America’s selfish political and economic interests rather than on the American values of freedom, human rights, and democracy (MacFarquhar 2003; Lynch 2003; Al-Barghouti 2003, Said Aug 2003, Said Jul 2003).

At the policy level, advocates of this theory believe that America’s image can only improve if America changes its policies toward the Arab and Muslim worlds, especially toward the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. They also mistrust America’s attempts to promote democracy and reform in the Muslim world and pay little interest to the need to educate Arabs about American and Western values and cultures.

The two previous approaches have many limitations. First, they provide two simplistic and dichotomous views of the nature and root causes of Arab Occidentalism. The first theory views contemporary Arab perceptions of America and the West mainly as mindless reflections of Arab history and culture, especially of the teachings of the Islamic religion, which the proponents consider to be inherently hostile to non-Muslim cultures, religions, and peoples. On the other hand, the second theory considers Arabs’ perceptions of America as a mechanical reaction to America’s foreign policies toward the Middle East.

Second, the first theory looks at Arabs’ views of America as if they are homogenous and stagnant, which leaves little room, if any, for explaining why pro-American and pro-Western attitudes may exist in the Arab world. It also fails to explain how Arabs’ perceptions of America change over time and across place. On the other hand, the second approach underestimates the influence of Arabs’ own circumstances and ideas on their perceptions of America and the West because it sees Arab Occidentalism primarily as a mere reaction to Western foreign policies.

At the policy level, the two approaches seem to be fixed to a limited number of inflexible policy options. In this regard, the first theory leaves little room for reviewing and reevaluating current American foreign policies toward the Arab and Muslim worlds although many public opinion surveys show that America’s foreign policies are concerning to large segments of the Arab and Muslim populations. On the other hand, the second theory does not provide many policy options other than the West’s need to change its own policies. It also denies, to some extent, Arabs’ need to be educated about Western values and cultures.

In addition to the previous problems, many of the contemporary writings on Arabs’ views of the West in general and of America in particular lack a deeper understanding of the historical roots of such views. Recent writings often focus on the period after the Second World War, if not on the last few years. Therefore, such writings neglect earlier stages, when America used to enjoy a different image in the Arab and Muslim worlds (Makdisi 2002; Prados 2001:2; Khalidi 2004:30-36). They also fail to offer a deeper understanding of the historical roots and development of Arab Occidentalism (Kinnane 2004:95).

2) Study Objective, Importance, and Main Arguments

In this context, the current study hopes to contribute to the contemporary debate on the nature and root causes of Arab Occidentalism by highlighting the Occidental discourses of three intellectual leaders of late nineteenth century Egypt, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (1838-1897), Qasim Amin (1863-1908), and Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi (1854–1902). Analyzing the Occidental views of these three intellectual pioneers should contribute to our understanding of Arab Occidentalism for five main reasons.

First, Egypt at the end of the nineteenth century was the birthplace of major political and intellectual movements that transformed Arabs’ modern views of themselves and the West. This is because the middle of the nineteenth century witnessed the rapid military and economic decline of the Ottoman Empire, the largest Muslim empire since the fifteenth century. This retreat weakened the Ottomans’ ability to defend the Arab and Muslim countries against the incursions of European colonialism, which succeeded in gaining control over the majority of the Arab and Muslim countries by the end of the nineteenth century. In response, Arab governments and intellectuals launched several political and intellectual reform movements, which laid the foundation for some of today’s most dominant Arab ideologies, Islamism, Arab nationalism, and liberalism, and transformed Arab’s perceptions of themselves and others.

There was no place in the Arab world at the end of the nineteenth century where these transformations and reform movements were more radical and influential than in Egypt. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Egypt went through a successful modernization process that improved the productivity of Egypt’s agricultural economy, introduced new industries, built a strong Egyptian military, opened Western-style educational institutions, sent Egyptians to learn modern sciences in Europe, and employed many Europeans in the Egyptian administrative system. Yet, Egypt’s progress was interrupted in the 1840s, after several major European countries allied with the Ottoman Empire to put an end to Egypt’s rising economic and military power. After that, Egypt went on a path of continuous economic and political decline that led to its colonization by the British in 1882.

However, despite its decline, Egypt was, during the second half of the nineteenth century, one of the most modernized Arab countries, with a relatively large number of scholars and strong Islamic institutions, such as Al-Azhar. This made Egypt the intellectual center of the Arab world, to which leading non-Egyptian Arab scholars, such as Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi, and non-Arab Muslim intellectuals, such as Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, migrated to live and spread their new ideas. At the same time, Egypt witnessed the birth and growth of one of the early nationalistic movements in the Arab world, as native Egyptian military officers and scholars, some of them educated in Europe, sought since the 1887s to build an Egyptian national front. That movement played an important and pioneering role in reforming Egypt and in resisting the hegemony of European colonialism.

Second, studying the Occidental discourses of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Qasim Amin, and Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi, will explain the way some of today’s most influential political and intellectual Arab movements, Islamism, Arab nationalism, and liberalism, see America and the West through the eyes of some of their most influential, diverse, and inspiring founders.

This is because each of the three intellectuals helped lay the foundations for one or more of some of today’s most dominant Arab intellectual and political movements. Afghani is considered to be one of the most powerful and influential Muslim intellectuals who lived in the nineteenth century. He is credited to be the founder of the Islamic reform movement that spread all over the Muslim world in the second half of the nineteenth century, as the chief agitator against the incursion of European colonialism into the Muslim world during his life, and as the founder of the national movements in several Muslim countries, such as Egypt, Persia, and Turkey (Imarah 1981). “Afghani,” Arthur Goldschmidt, Jr., (2002:180) noted, “pops up in almost every political movement that stirred in the Middle East in the late nineteenth century.”

The ideas of Qasim Amin and Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi were less influential during their lives compared with Afghani’s, but they were not less groundbreaking and inspiring for later Arab generations. Qasim Amin, a European-educated Egyptian lawyer, is famous for his Egyptian nationalistic attitudes and for promoting liberal values and ideas, especially regarding the importance of educating and liberating Muslim women. Amin’s liberal views that challenged some of the most dominant social taboos of his time made him a subject of strong critique during and after his life. Yet Amin is celebrated today by many liberal and conservative Arab thinkers alike as a major founder of Arab modern thinking, who devoted most of his writings to defending the rights of Muslim women (Imarrah 1989:13; Esposito 1995:58).

If the conservative social agenda of the Arab masses made Amin’s ideas less popular at his time, it was Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi’s pro-democratic ideas that led many Arab and Muslim governments to fight his ideas during and after his life. Kawakibi left at least two main contributions to modern Arabic political thinking. First, he is seen as one of the early Muslim founders of Arab nationalism, a cause that was initially championed by Arab Christian intellectuals against the Islamic nationalistic views spread by the Ottoman Empire. Second, Kawakibi wrote one of the most inspiring and celebrated books on the anatomy of tyranny and tyrannical rule in the Arab world. Kawakibi’s anti-authoritarian political views led to his persecution during his life and to the persecution of his ideas after his death. Yet Kawakibi’s ideas have continued to inspire the writings of many pro-democracy Arab intellectuals (Al-Hulu 2005; Al-Rabi’i 2004). Kawakibi’s ideas on the nature of authoritarian regimes have been regularly cited since the fall of the regime of Saddam Hussein, in 2003, which was seen by many Arab intellectuals as one of the most tyrannical Arab regimes (Dajani 2004; Jelbi 2003).

In addition, the Occidental views of the three leaders are not just influential; they are also diverse. Afghani was a religious leader who sought to motivate the Muslim masses and governments against the incursions of European colonialism in the Muslim world. Qasim Amin was a liberal nationalistic intellectual who focused on social and cultural reform and was willing to challenge the conservative agenda of the Muslim masses in order to promote his liberal views. Kawakibi spoke out strongly against Muslim governments while respecting the conservative nature of the Muslim masses.

There have been few studies that have focused on analyzing the Occidental views of the three thinkers. Those who study Afghani tend to focus on his influence on contemporary Muslim movements, although some highlight his critical views of the West. Those who study Qasim Amin usually highlight his defense of women’s rights. Those who study Kawakibi tend to focus on his arguments for Arab nationalism and against tyrannical rule. By focusing on the Occidental views of the three thinkers, this study hopes to explore new areas in the ideas and legacies of these three pioneers.

Third, by using discourse analysis, as utilized by Edward Said in his study of Orientalism and as later improved by post-colonial theory, to analyze the Occidental views of Afghani, Qasim Amin, and Kawakibi, the study hopes to provide a better understanding of the factors that shaped Arab Occidentalism, as it appears in the writings of the three intellectuals in late nineteenth century Egypt.

In this regard, the study argues that the Occidental discourses of Afghani, Qasim Amin, and Kawakibi, were part of a wider and more dominant Arab discourse on reform and awakening that dominated the thinking and writings of the three intellectuals and many other Arab and Muslim intellectuals at their time. These reformist discourses were shaped by the writers’ understanding of their circumstances and culture and of the process of reform and how it should be achieved, by their ambivalent attitudes toward the West both as an obstacle against reform that should be mocked and as a model for reform that should be mimicked, and by their attitudes toward and willingness to work with their contemporary authoritarian Muslim governments and economically impoverished, politically weak, and socially conservative Muslim masses.

To be more specific, the study argues that the Occidental discourses of Afghani, Qasim Amin, and Kawakibi, were clearly influenced by four main variables:

(1) The political circumstances of their contemporary Muslim societies. In this regard, intellectuals who attempted to work in unity with the tyrannical Muslim regimes were more likely to hold anti-Western views.

(2) The conservative culture of the Muslim masses. In this regard, intellectuals who were less critical of the conservative agenda of the Muslim masses held more anti-Western views. The study also shows that all three intellectuals held negative attitudes toward the nature of the Western individual in particular, who was seen as a selfish, materialistic individual.

(3) Western foreign policies toward the Arab and Muslim worlds. In this regard, all three intellectuals viewed Western foreign policies negatively.

(4) Reform and how it should be achieved. In this respect, intellectuals who saw reform as a gradual and educational process held more pro-Western views than those who saw reform as a political and radical process.

In addition, the thesis argues that the three intellectuals, to serve their reform agendas, mobilized the information they had about the West, used ambivalent discourses that sought to mimic and mock the West at the same time; and two of them used double discourses, one when talking to Muslims and another when talking to Westerners, in order to remain consistent before their Muslim audience.

This led to the crystallization of at least three distinct Occidental discourses. The first discourse, used by Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, sought to achieve reform by calling on the Muslim masses and governments to unite together against Western colonialism. This goal led Afghani to emphasize an image of the West as a threat to the unity and progress of the Muslim countries. At the same time, Afghani deemphasized his perception of the West as a model for intellectual and political reform in the Muslim world. Afghani’s Occidental discourse is discussed in detail in the second chapter of this thesis.

Qasim Amin, whose Occidental discourse is analyzed in the third chapter, despised politics, focused instead on social and cultural reform, and was willing to challenge some of the social and cultural taboos, which he perceived to be wrong, at his time. This led Amin to focus on the West as a model for social and cultural reform that should be mimicked. At the same time, Amin deemphasized the information he had about the negative aspects of Western civilization and the negative effects of Western colonialism on the progress of the Arab and Muslim societies.

The third Occidental discourse, used by Kawakibi and examined in the fourth chapter of this study, was very critical of the authoritarianism of the Muslim governments while being careful not to offend the conservative Muslim masses. This led Kawakibi to introduce the West as a model for political reform that should be mimicked. On the other hand, Kawakibi mocked the West at the cultural and religious levels.

The circumstances of Egyptian society in the second half of the nineteenth century, which shaped the former discourses, will be discussed in detail in the second chapter. I will attempt to show how Egyptians in particular and Arabs and Muslims in general came to realize, at the middle of the nineteenth century, the weakness of their civilization and to feel the need to reform their countries by democratizing their political regimes, reforming the thinking of the Muslim masses, and modernizing their economies and militaries. The chapter will also highlight some of the attempts that were taken to modernize Egypt and how these steps failed, because of internal and external obstacles, to change the conditions of the vast majority of the Egyptian masses, who remained economically impoverished, politically weak, and socially conservative.

I will conclude the study with a summary of the main characteristics of the Occidental discourses used by the three writers. I will pay special attention to the way they saw America in comparison with the rest of the West and to the way they saw the role of religion in general, and Islam in particular, in shaping the relationship between the Arab and Muslim world and the West.

Fourth, determining the main factors that shape Arabs’ views of America and the West should help us understand what is needed, at the policy level, to improve such perceptions. In this regard, I have highlighted at the first few pages of this study how the current debate on Arab Occidentalism has reached a stalemate because of its dichotomous nature. Alternatively, I will seek to build a more comprehensive policy approach toward improving Arabs’ views of America and the West. Such approach should be build on an inclusive understanding of the various factors that shape Arab Occidentalism.

Fifth, the study intends to highlight the way Islam appeared in and affected the Occidental views of each of the three intellectuals. This is because the role of religion, particularly Islam, in shaping Arab Occidentalism is widely disputed today. In this regard, it is important to remind the reader of how late nineteenth century Arab and Muslim intellectuals are viewed today. They, even the most religious among them, such as Afghani, are seen as liberal reformers, who sought to reinterpret the Islamic religion and traditions in a way that would encourage Muslim to learn form the West at as many levels as possible.

According to John Esposito (1992:55), late nineteenth century Arab and Muslim reformers, Afghani, Qasim Amin, and Kawakibi included, “did not seek to restore a pristine past but instead wished to reformulate [their] Islamic heritage in response to the political, scientific, and cultural challenge of the West. [They] provided an Islamic rationale for accepting modern ideas and institutions, whether scientific, technological, or political.”

In this regard, late nineteenth century Arab and Muslim reformers were different from their predecessors and their followers in some important ways.

Arab and Muslim reformers who lived earlier, during the end of the eighteenth century and the first decades of the nineteenth century, did not witness the full retreat of the Ottoman Empire. Thus, they were occupied with how to rebuild the Ottoman Empire and Muslim states to catch up with the West again. However, at the end of the nineteenth century, Arab and Muslim reformers realized that their civilization and societies were far behind the West. Therefore, this second generation of reformers focused their attention on reforming the thinking of their Muslim followers and on convincing them of the necessity to learn from the more advanced Western civilization.

On the other hand, reformers, who lived in the first half of the twentieth century and after were confronted with a different set of challenges. At that time, the West was not only a political and economic challenge; it was also a cultural and ideological one. This is because European colonialism, which led to the occupation of the great majority of the Muslim countries after the end of the nineteenth century, constituted a deep threat to the cultural and religious identities of the Muslim masses that were less connected with the Islamic religious and cultural traditions, compared with the Muslim masses at the end of the nineteenth century. In other words, late nineteenth century Arab and Muslim reformers were addressing Muslim masses that were not suffering cultural and religious identity problems. So, nineteenth century reformers focused all their attention on convincing their religiously rooted Muslim masses of their need to learn from Western political, scientific, and intellectual achievements:

Afghani was addressing people whose primary commitment was to Islamic values, and in saying modern Western virtues were to be found in Islam he was trying to attain Muslim acceptance of those modern ideas. …By the 1930s, Islamic liberals were writing for an audience educated in Western ways, and when they conflated Islam and modern values they were trying to reinstate Islam with that audience, and to build a type of Islam that their hearers would find as acceptable as they did Western values. Or else they were speaking to people torn between Islam and secular Westernized loyalties, and trying to indicate that their newer ideas could be reconciled with Islam. (Keddie 1978: XVII & XVIII)

However, when the Muslim masses started losing their connection with their religious and cultural traditions, after being occupied for decades by European colonizers, Arab and Muslim reformers had to focus on portraying the cultural and religious threat posed by Western colonialism to the Arab and Muslim identities. That threat increased after the decolonization of the Muslim countries in the second half of the nineteenth century, when post-colonial Arab and Muslim governments chose to follow secular Western ideologies, such as socialism, as their primary path to modernization. This choice led to a long wave of clashes, sometimes violent, between the Arab and Muslim governments and the pro-Islamic reformers and movements. This wave is still alive until today, and it is partly caused by the way the Arab and Muslim governments themselves, rather than the West, force Westernization on their masses.

In the aftermath of independence … [when] newly emerging states struggled to establish themselves, the West proved a necessary and often popular source and model. Although the independence struggle left deep resentment and scars, most rulers appropriated their colonial institutional legacy and ties. Modernization was imposed from above by governments and Westernized elites. European languages remained the second (and, among modern elites, often their preferred) language. In some countries European languages were the official language of the government, the courts, and university education. Modern bureaucratic, educational, and legal systems continued intact, as did trade and commerce. Islamic law was generally confined to the area of personal status and family law. …Individuals, countries, cities, and institutions judged themselves, and were judged, to be modern by the degree to which they were Westernized—in language, dress, manners, knowledge, organizational structure and values, architecture, and infrastructure. (Esposito 1995:67-68)


Today’s Islamic reform movements may share some common ground with Afghani, Qasim Amin, and Kawakibi, such as their respect for Islam as a religion and a way of life. However, contemporary movements depart from the three intellectuals in other aspects. In this regard, the current study intends to highlight some important statements that were made by the three intellectuals against using religion to fuel the conflict between the East and the West because such statements are not very common today.

This does not mean that none of the three writers expressed any anti-Western views that were religiously based or colored. Actually, as highlighted by future chapters, both Afghani and Kawakibi expressed some religiously negative views of the West. However, the three writers clearly expressed their beliefs that the conflict between the East and the West is motivated by political and material interests rather than by genuine religious ones. I believe that highlighting those positive statements should improve the Occidental views of those who follow and admire Afghani, Qasim Amin, and Kawakibi today.

3) Study Methodology and Main Concepts

This study will count on discourse analysis, as used by Edward Said in his study of Orientalism and later improved by post-colonial theory, to analyze the Occidental views of the three Muslim thinkers examined in this study. Toward this end, I will introduce, in the following paragraphs, an overview of how Edward Said and post-colonial theory used discourse analysis to study the way human groups see each other. I will conclude with a definition of Occidentalism and with some useful concepts that I will use throughout the rest of the study to analyze the Occidental views of the three Muslim thinkers.

1. Edward Said’s Use of Discourse Analysis

Edward Said’s writings on Orientalism not only gave the theory of Orientalism new and intellectually stimulating meanings; it has also transformed the way Western academia thinks of its approach toward studying the Orient in particular and other groups and cultures in general (Smelser and Baltes 2001: 10976). Said saw Orientalism as a Western “academic field of study and knowledge” that has the East as its subject. He also saw Orientalism as a “style of thought” that is widespread within the West and that adopts a dichotomous view of “the Orient” and “the Occident” and makes essential statements about the Orient. Most importantly, Said thought of Orientalism as a discourse that serves the interests of the European colonial powers by making the Orient more governable (Said 1979: 2-3; Prasad 2003: 10).

Since the late eighteenth century as a very roughly defined starting point Orientalism can be discussed and analyzed as the corporate institution for dealing with the Orient—dealing with it by making statements about it, authorizing views of it, describing it, by teaching it, settling it, ruling over it: in short, Orientalism as a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient. (Said 1979:3)

By defining Orientalism this way, Said offered scholars of cultural critiques numerous valuable theoretical tools to analyze the way human groups see each other.

First, Said separated ideas and images from the entities they claim to represent. He argued that the West constructed an image of the Orient that does not represent the real Orient, but reflects the way the West itself wants to see the Oriental other.

Second, Said exposed the relationship between culture and political interests on one side and scholarship and the movement of ideas on the other side. Said (1979:204) thought that Europe’s bias toward the East was “aided by general cultural pressures that tended to make more rigid the sense of difference between the European and Asiatic parts of the world.” He also believed that Orientalism was spread and promoted by the institutions of European colonialism that sought to develop a “a moral justification for colonialism” by portraying the East as a weaker and disadvantaged other waiting for a more powerful and civilized West to bring the Orient out of its dark ages (Prasad 2003: 12).

Third, Said offered some insights into the intellectual process through which a group of people can distort the image of another group. For instance, Said spoke about how the West reduced the Orient to a disadvantaged “other” that is structurally related to the West through a binary relationship (Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin 2000:24; Kennedy 2000:17). In the binary system, the West was always linked with the superior poles of the binaries, and the non-West was always linked to the inferior poles.

In addition to these valuable ideas, some analysts believe that Said’s most important contribution to the study of the way human groups see each other was his introduction of the concept of discourse as a main analytical tool that can be used to analyze the way European colonial powers influenced their colonies at the cultural level. According to Robert Young (2001: 384), before Said many theories, such as Marxism, provided strong criticism of European colonialism and its negative influence on the colonized nations at various levels. Yet those theories did not focus enough on colonialism’s cultural influence. Therefore, when Said introduced the notion of colonial discourse he presented “a conceptual general paradigm” that can be used to analyze the cultural side of colonialism and imperialism.

In this regard, Said suggested that colonialism was reflected in the various texts that European colonialism produced. Those texts were created by numerous institutions, within the colonial societies, to reinforce those institutions’ colonial tendencies and interests by creating an intellectual discourse that justifies colonialism. In other words, Said opened the door to studying colonialism through studying its texts, which were regarded by Said as reflections of the power the West has upon the Orient more than expressions of a Western desire to know the real Orient.

2. Critiques of Edward Said’s Orientalism

Said’s writings, especially Orientalism (1979), have generated many critiques (Young 2001:38-40). First, some scholars questioned the ability of the colonial texts to represent the history they claim to represent. This is because texts sometimes don’t tell the truth. In addition, real history sometimes does not get recorded in texts. Second, Said was often accused of looking at colonial discourse as if it were a unified homogenous text that crosses times and geographical locations. In doing so, Said was accused of not permitting the appearance of competing colonial or anti-colonial discourses within the colonial countries. He was also accused of being selective and of focusing on minor writings that prove his theory while neglecting other major writings that may not fit his paradigm. According to Gyan Prakash (1995:202), “the claim that many scholars and several strains within the Orientalist tradition escaped its pernicious prejudices and politics has been a persistent theme in the critique of Said’s work.”

At a more political level, some writers questioned Said’s motives and accused him of tactfully promoting a personal ideological agenda as a Palestinian refugee, who is seeking to over-blame and criticize the West because of its support of the state of Israel. For instance, Bruce Bawer (2002:629) saw Said as a “Palestinian spokesman” who viewed Israel as a “product of colonialism” and who over-criticized the West for being anti-Arab and anti-Muslim, using Western-developed standards of cultural critique while ignoring the “downside of recent Islamic history.” Said’s agenda, according to Bawer, led him to ask the West to “suspend judgment entirely” toward the Orient and to attack “the very notion of terrorism” as an “imprecise, ideologically charged, and—well—downright vulgar” concept. Said’s ideas, Bawer thought (2002:634), weakened the West’s ability to understand the real hatred that some Arab and Muslim groups have against the West. This led some writers, such as Charles Paul Freund (2001:63), to argue that Orientalist critique “does not fit the aftermath of the [9/11] attacks” because it neglects “the other side of the Orientalism coin: Occidentalism.”

3. Post-Colonial Theory Analysis of Occidentalism

It was Edward Said’s critique in Orientalism (1978) of the cultural politics of academic knowledge, from the basis of his own experience of growing up as an “oriental” in two British colonies, that effectively founded postcolonial studies as an academic discipline. (Young 2001:383)

Scholars, such as Robert Young (2001:383-394) and Valerie Kennedy (2000:111-120), believe that Said’s writings were very influential in establishing post-colonial studies because of several reasons. First, Said was very capable of introducing his ideas, on colonialism and on anti-colonial movements, in a theoretical framework that relates them to important Western analytical theories, such as structuralism and post-structuralism. Second, Said’s usage of the notion of discourse as a main analytical paradigm was intriguing and empowering to the field of cultural studies. Third, Said’s Orientalism was always seen as “theoretically and politically problematic” and it survived an unprecedented number of critiques. In this regard, the many critiques and debates that Said’s Orientalism has generated helped shape post-colonial theory. “In fact,” Young argued (2001:384), “postcolonial studies has actually defined itself as an academic discipline through the range of objections, reworkings and counter-arguments that have been marshaled in such great variety against Said’s work.”

Afterward, post-colonial theory had a life of its own and started to develop a number of key concepts that can be used to analyze the Occident’s views toward the Orient and vice versa. According to Robert Young (2001:57-61), post-colonial theory inherited several social and political movements that have been shaping European and world politics since the beginning of the 20th century. Although distinct, these movements share together a critical view of colonialism and imperialism and a general support for the liberation of the colonized nations and their cultures. One of these movements is Marxism, which, although being itself a Western product, included strong criticism of colonialism and imperialism, especially for their economic manipulation of the colonized.

After the Second World War, post-colonial theory sought to provide at least three main types of cultural critiques. First, post-colonial theory continued to analyze the imperial and colonial aspects of the Western and European cultures. Second, post-colonial theory supported the cultural decolonization of the Third World and stood by the newly independent nations in their attempts to empower their native peoples and cultures. Third, as many of the independence movements failed to substantially change the power structures in their societies or to achieve their full cultural and political independence, post-colonial theory continued to analyze the new forms of Western influence on the Orient.

In this context, post colonial theory developed several useful ideas and concepts for the study of the way Easterners see the West. These ideas and concepts were succinctly summarized by Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin in their book, Post-Colonial Studies: the Key Concepts (2000). This book provides many useful insights on how colonized people responded to colonialism. The authors speak about the resistance of the colonized people to their colonizers as a complex movement that included not just the rejection and mockery of the colonizer but also the appropriation of the colonizer’s language, ideas, and institutions in order to be able to fight its hegemony (p.14). They believe that the hegemony of the colonizer over the colonized people was not always achieved by military or other materialistic means. It was also achieved through ideological means, by persuading the colonized people to believe that the interests of the colonizers are the interests of all (p.116). In response, the colonized people sought to appropriate some aspects of the colonizer’s language, discourse, and institutions in order to empower themselves with the required means to resist the materialistically and culturally powerful colonizers (pp.19-20). As a result, the discourse of the colonized people toward the colonizers was in many cases an ambivalent discourse that included a “simultaneous attraction toward and repulsion from” the colonizers (p.13). This made the desire of the colonized people to mimic their colonizers not far from and sometimes mixed with their desire to mock and criticize it (pp.139-142).

These ideas, I believe, are very helpful for my analysis of the Occidental views of Afghani, Qasim Amin, and Kawakibi because the three of them, as the study argues, simultaneously saw the West both as a model for progress that should be imitated and a threat that should be mocked and rejected.

In addition to the previous important arguments, I would like to refer to the writings of Xuaomei Chen and Junhua Dia (2002) on Chinese Occidentalism. Junhua Dia believed that Orientalism and post-colonial theory unintentionally reaffirm some of the Eurocentric views that they claim to challenge because they were founded in Western and cultural critical theory. Therefore, Dia thought that any serious study of Occidentalism should be founded and rooted in the Orient itself and should focus on trying to understand the Orient’s own reasons to look at the Occident from certain perspectives. In this regard, Dia thought that Occidentalism was adopted by Eastern developing nations to achieve various reasons, such as affirming their legitimacy, constructing new ideologies and regimes, or even to oppress their own peoples. Dia and Chen define Occidentalism (2002:2) as a “discursive practice,” in which Oriental entities contrast themselves with the Western other to achieve their own goals.

Occidentalism is a discourse that has been evolved by various and competing groups within Chinese society for a variety of different ends, largely though not exclusively, within domestic Chinese politics. As such, it has been both a discourse of oppression and a discourse of liberation. (Chen 2002:3)

In this regard, Xiaomei Chen believed that at least two distinct versions of Occidentalism existed in post-Mao China. The first version, which Chen calls “official Occidentalism,” was used by the Chinese government to contrast itself with the West in order to support its nationalistic ideology and sometimes to oppress its own people. The other version of Occidentalism, which Chen calls “anti-official Occidentalism,” was used by anti-government Chinese groups “as a metaphor for a political liberation against ideological oppression within a totalitarian society.”

Following the same logic, this study argues that the Occidental views of Afghani, Qasim Amin, and Kawakibi were motivated by a larger discourse on reform that was deeply rooted in the circumstances of their society. In addition, the study argues that the three writers manipulated the information they had about the West in order to fit their reform agenda. This led to the rise of several distinct Occidental discourses, each of which was manipulated by its source’s view of reform, view of the West, and view of the role of the Muslim masses and governments in achieving reform.

4. Defining Occidentalism and Occidental Discourse

Based on the theoretical framework outlined in the previous sections, I will attempt to highlight some useful analytical concepts that I will depend on throughout the rest of the study.

Discourse. According to Robert Young (2001: 398 -402), every discourse is made up of statements. Every statement is something more than just a text or a piece of language. Statements are constituted of specific events, subjects, and relations between events and subjects, in addition to language. Statements attempt to affect their surrounding circumstances and they are also shaped by those circumstances. Statements seek to reflect neutrally the realities they describe, but they are never a mere reflection of those realities. In any society, every discourse is influenced by its source and the status that source occupies in society. Because the components of discourse, such as concepts, events, and subjects, are in constant mobility and change, discourses may include “diverse and heterogeneous statements.”

Occidentalism. Occidentalism is the way the Orient sees the Occident, the people of the Occident, and the relationship between the Occident and the Orient. According to Hassan Hanafi (1991:44), Occidentalism is as old as the relationship between the Orient and the Occident. However, modern Occidentalism has been shaped by the influence European colonialism has on the Orient. Therefore, contemporary colonialism is partly a reaction to European colonialism and partly an attempt to complete the decolonization of the Orient, especially at the ideological level. However, Occidentalism is not always a pro-decolonization and an anti-Western movement. Occidental discourse can be pro-Western, as in the case of many pro-Western Arab intellectuals, including Qasim Amin, whose writings will be analyzed by the current research. Moreover, Occidental discourse can even be used to oppress Eastern pro-liberation groups (Chen 2003:3).

Occidental Discourse. Occidental discourse is a system of statements that can be made about the West and Westerners and their relationships with each other and with the Orient (Ashcroft, Griffiths & Tiffin 2000:42). The goal of Occidental discourse is to affect its surrounding circumstances, which simultaneously affect the discourse and shape it. Occidental discourse is heterogeneous and in a contentious state of change. It can include contradictory notions and ideas at the same time, such as imitating Western technology while rejecting Western social and cultural norms.

Occidental discourse attempts to reflect the realities of the Occident. However, it can never represent the Occident as it is, because Occidental discourse is always subjectively affected by its source and by its surrounding circumstances. The place and dominance of any Occidental discourse, in a specific Oriental society, depends on many variables, one of which is the place and power that the supporters of a particular discourse occupy in society.

According to Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin (2000:12-14) Occidental discourse can be an ambivalent one that includes a desire to mock the Occident and to mimic it at the same time. This is because the colonized people may seek to appropriate their colonizers’ culture and institutions in order to empower themselves to be able to resist their colonizers’ cultural and material hegemony.

Colonialism. According to Anshuman Prasad (2003:4), colonialism is an old phenomenon that started with colonial powers like the Roman and Ottoman Empires long before modern European colonialism started in the 15th century. However, what distinguishes modern European colonialism is its focus on exploiting “the wealth of the colonized that contributed to the industrialization of Europe in a systematic way.” In addition, European colonialism, according to Prasad (2003:5), was “new in that it attempted to subjugate its colonies in the realm of culture and ideology as well.” Prasad (2003:5) defines colonialism as “the actual physical conquest, occupation, and administration of the territory of one country by another,” which makes it different form imperialism which is “is an exercise of economic and political power by one country over another that may or may not involve direct occupation.”

Binarism. According to Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin (2000:23-24), binarism initially means “a combination of two things, a pair, two, or duality.” It also means that the opposition between two entities is “the most extreme form of difference possible,” such as in the difference between sun/moon, black/white, and birth/death. When binary opposition is used to define the relationship between groups, such as colonizers and colonies, it creates a division that is difficult to overcome.

Other / Othering. According to Ashcroft, Griffiths & Tiffin (2000:169-173), the other is “anyone who is separate from one’s self.” The relationship between the self and the other does not have to be a negative or a conflicting one. However, when the relationship between the self and the other is about power and when one entity is more powerful than the other, the powerful party may try to create an “other” that is completely opposite or weaker than its own self. The process of creating an opposite, or controlled other, is called “othering.”

4) Research Plan and Limitations

In the second chapter of this study, I will explain the general ideological, political, and economic circumstances in which Egyptians lived at the end of the nineteenth century. I believe that understanding those conditions is an essential requirement for our understanding of the Occidental views that were prominent in Egypt at that time.

In each chapter, from three to five, I will analyze the Occidental discourse used by one of the writers examined by this study. In chapter three I will analyze the Occidental views of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (1838-1897). In chapter four I will study the ideas of Qasim Amin (1863-1908). The Occidental discourse of Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi (1854–1902) will be examined in the fifth chapter.

I will conclude the study with a summary of the main characteristics of the Occidental discourses used by the three writers. I will also pay special attention to the way they saw America in comparison with the rest of the West and to the way they saw the role of religion in general, and Islam in particular, in shaping the relationship between the Arab and Muslim world and the West. Finally, I will examine the implications of the current study at the policy level.

Limitations of the Study. I would like to remind the reader of the limitations of this study. Using discourse analysis to analyze the way Egyptians saw America and the West at the end of the nineteenth century is a very useful method that is capable of performing many analytical tasks. Yet because of the limited resources of this research, in terms of time and scope, I will not be able to utilize discourse analysis to its full analytical capabilities. To be more specific I don’t expect the current research to achieve the following possible goals:

1) To introduce a full account of how Egyptians viewed America and the West at the end of the nineteenth century or before or after that time.

2) To compare in depth the Occidental discourses used by Afghani, Amin, and Kawakbi with other Occidental discourses that were prominent in Egypt or in the Arab world during their lives.

3) To give a full account of the institutions or conditions of Egyptian society at the end of the 19th century and how those institutions or conditions shaped the various Occidental discourses that were present at that time.

Rather, the main objective of the next chapters is to introduce an accurate and lively picture of some of the main Occidental discourses that were prominent in late nineteenth century Egypt. In this regard, I will attempt to introduce a picture that is capable of recognizing the full Occidental debate presented in the writings of the three studied thinkers. My goal is to expose this debate and to show its different and sometimes contradictory dimensions. In addition, I will highlight how each of the selected thinkers viewed the United States in particular and viewed the role of Islam in shaping the relationship between the Arab and Muslim worlds and the West. I will also conclude the study with some policy recommendation on how to improve Arabs’ perceptions of the West.

Chapter 2: Circumstances of Late Nineteenth Century Egypt

The objective of this chapter is to highlight the historical context within which the Occidental discourses analyzed by this study emerged. To achieve this goal, I will start with a quick introduction to the history of Islamic Egypt. I will focus on the period since the middle of the thirteenth century, which witnessed the beginning of the decline of the Arab Middle East. Then I will focus in the rest of the chapter on describing the political, economic, and ideological conditions of nineteenth century Egypt. I will show how Egyptians felt at the beginning of the nineteenth century a strong need to reform their country, how they tried to achieve reform and development throughout the century, and how they failed, by the end of the century, in achieving this goal.

The study argues that these circumstances greatly influenced the Occidental views of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Qasim Amin, and Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi in several ways. These conditions kept the three writers occupied with reform as their main priority. They led the three intellectuals to see the West ambivalently, both as a colonizer that was a threat to progress and as a more advanced civilization that could be a model for reform. The same circumstances made it very difficult for the three thinkers to align themselves either with the Muslim governments, who were largely authoritarian, or with the Muslim masses, who were politically oppressed, economically impoverished, and culturally conservative.

1) Egypt under the Mamlukes

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Egypt was simultaneously governed by two forces, the Mamlukes and the Ottomans. The Mamlukes had governed Egypt since the middle of the thirteenth century, which witnessed the fall of the Abbasid Empire, which was the last major Arab Muslim Empire. As the capital of the Abbasid Empire, Baghdad was captured by the Mongols in 1258. Since then many Muslim Empires arose, but none of them was governed by Arabs and had the vast control over the Muslim world that the Abbasids did.

The Mamlukes were Turkish slave soldiers who were imported by successive Muslim caliphs from middle Asia to be trained as loyal soldiers to the caliphs (Goldschmidt 2002:120-122). Eventually the Mamluke soldiers gained increasing powers after their percentage increased in the Muslim militaries, and they were able to build a small empire centered in Egypt. The Mamlukes ruled Egypt from the middle of the thirteenth century until the Ottomans conquered it in 1517.

What was very unique about the Mamluke Empire was its pattern of power succession. The Mamluke soldiers were divided into numerous fractions. Every group was controlled by an amir (leader/ prince). After the death of each Mamluke sultan, his son would succeed him for a brief period of time, during which the Mamluke princes would fight each other until one of them subjugated the rest and rose to power. This made the Mamluke Empire literally an empire controlled by continuously fighting groups. However, according to Peter Mansfield (1991:23), the continual fighting among the Mamlukes did not prevent them from showing in Egypt “many aspects of an advanced civilization.”

At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Mamlukes faced a series of defeats at the hands of a new, rising Muslim empire, the Ottoman. The Ottomans started to rise in the thirteenth century, but they first went west, focusing their attention on invading their Christian neighbors. They invaded the Balkan states and captured Constantinople in 1453, ending the Byzantine Empire. Then they turned their attention toward Asia. During the period from 1502 until 1517, the Ottomans captured Persia, Iraq, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt and became a Muslim empire. However, contrary to previous Muslim empires, the Ottomans chose a capital, Constantinople, that was far distant from the heartland of Islam, moving the center of Islamic civilization away from the Arab Middle East.

The Ottoman Empire started to decline in the second half of the seventeenth century. In the eighteenth century, the Ottomans started losing land to the rising European colonial powers, and in the nineteenth century, the Ottoman Empire became “the sick man of Europe” (Mansfield 1991:35-45). The decline of the Ottoman Empire had many manifestations.

Economically, European countries controlled the sea, trade, and trade routes. They developed new industries and flooded the markets of the Muslim countries with manufactured products and in return bought cheaper raw materials. They used a system of “capitulations” to freely live, move, and trade in the Muslim countries in return for very low taxes, if any. According to Arthur Goldschmidt (2002:139), the practice of issuing “capitulations” goes back to previous Muslim empires, which signed agreements to exempt Muslims who lived in non-Muslim countries from being subjugated to the laws of those countries. In return, foreign citizens living in the Muslim empires received the same treatment. The Ottomans encouraged those agreements when they were the world’s superior power. Yet, when the Ottomans declined, those agreements had negative effects. The “capitulations” freed the European merchants from paying local taxes to the Muslim countries where they lived, traded, and prospered.

In addition, according to Peter Mansfield (1991:28), the Ottoman Empire was “a highly centralized” one, where “virtually all land within the Empire belonged to the Ottoman state,” which prevented the rise of private ownership or of a “feudal nobility” that could balance the power of the sultan. The centralization of power in the Ottoman Empire was more apparent at the political level. Many Muslim countries, under Ottoman rule, were governed by Turkish or other foreign rulers, who were appointed by the sultan, and the masses lacked any political power or experience.

At the international level, European countries used various justifications to intervene in the internal affairs of the Ottoman Empire and to control some Muslim countries and ports. France and Russia intervened to protect the Christian religious minorities in the Ottoman Empire. Spain, Portugal and the British fought with each other over the control of important Muslim sea ports in the Gulf and India. And many Europeans were appointed by the Ottoman sultans and governors to high administrative posts to help reform the Ottoman Empire and the Muslim countries.

At the ideological and cultural levels, the Ottoman Empire and the Muslim countries went through numerous and continuous attempts at reform by introducing Western-style educational, administrative, and legal systems.

In Egypt, after defeating the Mamlukes in 1517, the Ottomans kept on sending Ottoman rulers for Egypt, but in reality they left most of the actual authority in the hands of the Mamlukes and their princes. According to William Cleveland (2000:65), Egypt “by the late eighteenth century had become in reality if not in name an autonomous state under a revived Mamluk order.” What happened was that the Ottoman governors of Egypt delegated too many administrative and financial authorities to the Mamluke amirs. Every Mamluke prince controlled some troops and a piece of land; from its peasants he collected high taxes. From time to time, one Mamluke prince was able to attract sufficient troops and wealth to subjugate the rest of the competing Mamluke factions under his control for a short period of time. But eventually the strong prince would be weakened and defeated due to the continuous fighting among the Mamlukes. As a result, the Mamluke regime weakened the central government and created a huge power vacuum, the Egyptians were squeezed for taxes, and the Mamluke regime was “unstable, oppressive, and unpopular.”

2) Conditions of Nineteenth-Century Egypt

Egypt made the fastest and most dramatic transformation of any Middle Eastern country in the nineteenth century. (Goldschmidt 2002:161)

At the end of the eighteenth century, Egypt was miserably governed by competing Mamluke factions. At the turn of the nineteenth century, Egypt was invaded by France, threw off its invaders, then rose militarily and economically to become a regional Muslim power that would threaten Constantinople itself. Yet by the middle of the nineteenth century Egypt’s power declined again, and in 1882 Egypt fell under British occupation. The major transformations through which Egyptian society went during the nineteenth century uniquely shaped Egyptians’ life at all levels. In the rest of this chapter, I will discuss the effects of those dramatic changes on three main levels: the political, the economic, and the ideological.

1. Political Life

The French Invasion of Egypt. In 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte led a French military expedition to successfully invade Egypt, aiming to expand the French Empire and to weaken its main rival, the British, by controlling the trade route to one of Britain’s main colonies, India. Bonaparte easily defeated the Mamlukes and occupied Egypt, forming what Peter Mansfield (1991:43) called “the first non-Muslim invasion of the heartland of Islam.” In three years, the Ottomans, helped by the British, were able to expel the French. According to Arthur Goldschmidt (2002:163), the French expedition, although unsuccessful, shaped Egypt’s future in three important ways. First, the French occupation of Egypt alerted the other European powers, especially Britain, to Egypt’s strategic “geographical position at the hinge of the Asian and African Continents, guarding the principal route to India and the East” (Mansfield 1991:43). Second, the French occupation of Egypt demonstrated to Muslims beyond a doubt their decline and weakness and destroyed their wrong conviction of the superiority of the Ottoman Empire over Europe. Third, Bonaparte defeated the Mamlukes and created a huge power vacuum that they could not fill any more.

Mohamed Ali’s Dynasty. After the French left, Egypt spent several years in chaos until it was stabilized again under the rule of a tough but politically brilliant leader, Mohamed Ali, who would create modern Egypt and whose family would rule Egypt till 1952. An ethnic Albanian born in Macedonia, Mohamed Ali was sent to Egypt by the Ottoman sultan at the head (second in command) of an Albanian force to stabilize Egypt after the French had left. By 1805, Mohamed Ali was able to defeat the Mamlukes and rise to power. During his rule, which extended till 1848, Mohamed Ali transformed Egypt into a regional military and economic power. He stabilized the country and ended corruption, used European experts to modernize the irrigation system, introduced new crops (especially long-staple cotton), built new factories and protected them by imposing heavy tariffs against imports, and sent hundreds of Egyptians to Europe for education. As a result, Egyptian peasants were able to raise three crops a year in fields that used to produce just one crop, an estimated one million new acres of land were cultivated, and about 40,000 Egyptians were employed in industrial enterprises. In addition, Mohamed Ali was able to create a huge military, which he used to extend his rule over Sudan and Syria and to help the Ottoman Empire defeat its enemies. By the end of the 1830s, Egypt became a regional power that was feared by the Ottoman Empire itself (Mansfield 1991:49, Goldschmidt 2002:163, Cleveland 2000:66-70).

At the end of the 1830s, Europe united with the Ottoman Empire to put an end to Mohamed Ali’s ambitions. The European nations did not like Mohamed Ali’s rising power for several reasons. First, they “preferred that a weakened Ottoman Empire should survive rather than be dismantled and swallowed by one of its rivals” (Mansfield 1991:56). Second, Britain in particular had growing political and economic interests in the Ottoman Empire. “In the 1830s,” Arthur Goldschmidt (2002:154) explained, “Britain decided that the Ottoman Empire would be the best guardian of its routes to India and soon committed itself to the Empire’s defense, signed trade treaties with the Ottomans, and by 1850 the Ottomans had become the leading customer of British manufactures and a major supplier of foodstuffs and raw materials to Britain.”

In 1838 the British signed a treaty with the Ottoman sultan that gave Britain and the other European powers the right to trade throughout the Ottoman Empire in return for a tariff of only three per cent. Enforcing this treaty on Egypt meant the destruction of its fragile industries, which were protected by heavy tariffs. When Mohamed Ali refused to accept the treaty, Britain led an international coalition that included France, Prussia, Austria, and Russia to force a humiliating treaty on Mohamed Ali. The European powers forced Mohamed Ali to withdraw his troops from Syria, to reduce his military from 250,000 to 18,000 soldiers, and to open Egypt’s economy and market to European products and traders. As a result, the European powers allied with the Ottoman sultan ended Mohamed Ali’s ambitions (Toledano 1990:1-2).

Mohamed Ali was succeeded by his son Ibrahim in 1848, and then by a line of grandsons, Abbas (ruled 1848-1854), Said (1854-1863), Ismail (1863-1879), Tawfik (1879-1892), and Abbas Helmi (1892-1914). “Mehmet [Mohamed] Ali cast a giant shadow over the fortunes of his successors. His image loomed larger than life,” noted Toledano (1990:6).

Egypt after Mohamed Ali. Mohamed Ali left his successors with “a cohesive semi-independent state” (Mansfiled 1990:85). But, he also left them with many growing problems, such as the opening of Egypt to European trade and economic pressure, the reduction of Egypt’s military power and its ability to defend itself, and the impoverishment of the vast majority of the Egyptian masses as land and wealth were concentrated in the hands of a small elite.

Both Said and Ismail tried to implement ambitious modernization programs for Egypt. Those programs included digging new canals, repairing dams, expanding both railways and streamer transport on the Nile, and building bridges and lighthouses. According to Peter Mansfield (1990:88), “the [Egyptian] cultivated area was extended by some 15 per cent and between 1862 and 1879 the value of exports and imports nearly tripled.” More importantly, Said started the digging of the Suez Canal and Ismail completed it. Those projects required a lot of money. When Egypt’s budget could not finance those huge projects, Said and Ismail resorted to an unfortunate and dangerous source of money: they took loans with high interest from European financial institutions.

In April 1876, Egypt announced bankruptcy. Soon after, the British imposed financial control over Egypt to guarantee the rights of their bond-holders. Then France sent a financial mission to Egypt. A Nile flood and cotton pest caused Egypt more financial damages. The British and the French found that Egypt’s financial crisis was partly caused by Ismail’s unlimited authority and uncalculated policies. Therefore they pressure Ismail to delegate more authority to his ministers. In response, Ismail selected a cabinet that included a British minister of finance and a French minister of public works.

A series of confrontations between Ismail and the Europeans on one side and between Ismail and his military on another front, led to the removal of Ismail in 1879. According to Arthur Goldschmidt (2002:179), “when Ismail turned over the Khedivate to his son, Tawfik, and left Egypt in July 1879, the state debt stood at 93 million Egyptian pounds. It had been 3 million when he came to power in 1863.”

Tawfik inherited Egypt’s debt in addition to an unstable situation. Domestically, three main Egyptian elite groups pressured Tawfik to open the country for political reform and constitutional governance. The first was a group of religious reformers led by Jamal al-Din al-Afghani and his disciples, who called for religious and political reform. The second group was the Egyptian officers in the Egyptian military. After being neglected and denied higher positions in the military for decades, some Egyptian officers reached higher ranks in the military and wanted to prove their capabilities and to acquire more power. At the end of the 1870s, the Egyptian soldiers united behind an Egyptian colonel named Ahmed Orabi, who led them to revolt against Ismail and Tawfik and to fight the British invasion of Egypt in 1882 before being defeated and exiled. The third group consisted of civil servants, land-owners, and other notables who favored political reform. Many of them were part of the Turkish elite but identified themselves with the aspirations of the Egyptian people. However, this third group was not friendly to the masses. They supported reform to some extent, but they despised public uprisings and mass revolutions. The three groups together formed a front at the end of the 1870s that led the national demand for reform and national opposition to Europe’s intervention in Egypt’s affairs.

Egypt under the British Occupation. A series of clashes between Orabi and Tawfik led to the military intervention of the British in the summer of 1882 to protect the interests of their bond-holders in Egypt’s economy. Orabi led thousands of Egyptians in a bloody resistance against the British incursion. The public uprising worried the rich members of the Egyptian national front. The national movement therefore divided, Orbai was defeated, and the British occupied Egypt.

After the British entered Egypt, they restored the authority of Tawfik, but, in reality they controlled and ran the country. According to Peter Mansfield (1990:97), Egypt became “the most important link in Britain’s imperial system,” and the British officials responsible for the relationship between Egypt and Britain became the real rulers of Egypt. One of those officials, Evelyn Baring (know later as Lord Cromer), became the effective ruler of Egypt from 1883 to 1907.

Cromer set a tough financial control system over Egypt’s budget to help pay Ismail’s debt. Paying the debts absorbed more than half of Egypt’s revenues. Cromer also limited the expenditures of the government on public works, especially on education. When Cromer retired in 1907, about 1.5 per cent of Egypt’s population was receiving primary education as compared with 1.7 per cent in 1873, and the rest remained illiterate. Cromer did not believe in Egyptians’ ability to occupy high administrative posts. Rather, he counted on highly paid foreign administrative experts. Therefore, the number of Egyptians in the higher civil service posts declined. Yet, Cromer kept improving Egypt’s irrigation system, and by the 1890s the Egyptian economy showed some signs of recovery.

When Tawfik died in 1892 he was succeeded by his son Abbas Hilmi, who constituted a major challenge to the British. Abbas Hilmi supported the growing Egyptian national movement led by Western-educated Egyptian nationalists, such as Mustafa Kamel. The movement could be seen as an extension of the national movement that mobilized Egypt at the end of the 1870s. However, the new movement was supported by new factors, such as an increasing number of Western-educated Egyptians and a more open political system under the British occupation, which supported freedom of the press.

2. Economic Life and Social Classes

According to Charles Issawi (1993:177-190), during the nineteenth century Egypt witnessed an economic boom at many levels. The Egyptian population rose from 3 million in 1800 to about 10 million at the end of the nineteenth century. Total world investment in Egypt reached in 1914 about 200 million British pounds (the largest in the Middle East), of which 94 million pounds were public debt and the rest were investments in the private sector. Because of the Suez Canal, Egypt’s location, and the growth of steamship navigation, Egypt’s ports were main centers for international navigations, and domestic transportation improved dramatically. “In the late 1830s,” Issawi noted (1993:181), “Britian, France, and Austrian steam navigation provided regular services to Egypt, Syria, and Turkey.” Domestically, by 1913 total railway track in Egypt was 4,300 kilometers compared to 3,500 in the Ottoman Empire. Total trade in Egypt was higher than the world average. The cultivated land was tremendously expanded, and a small industrial base was established during Mohamed Ali’s regime. These improvements resulted from two main factors: the integration of Egypt into the world economy and the efforts of Mohamed Ali and his grandsons.

Unequal Distribution of Wealth. Although those changes may have improved the level of living of the regular Egyptian during some periods, generally the level of living of the masses did not improve, and a huge gap separated the masses from the elite (Issawi 1993:177). This was due to several reasons. First, Egypt’s Turkish rulers counted on foreign elites (Turkish or European) in developing and running the country. Therefore, the fruits of any achieved progress went to the leading foreign elites and were hardly shared with the general public. Second, few public projects, such as education and health care, had a direct effect on the level of living of regular Egyptians. Unfortunately, those projects did not get enough attention from the rulers. Most of the investment went to improving the economy and the irrigation system, which mainly benefited the ruling class and the land-owners. Third, the lack of political institutions and constitutional rule hindered the rise of an Egyptian middle class that was capable of forcing the elites to share the fruits of development with the rest of society (Issawi 1993:188-190).

Class Relations. Egypt’s economic conditions were clearly reflected in the class structure of Egyptian society. According to Roger Owen (1993:111-123), Egyptian society at the end of the nineteenth century was divided into two main groups, the elites and the masses. The elites consisted of four sub-groups. The first sub-group was the Turkish governing elite, which was gradually integrated into Egyptian society, due to intermarriage and Arabacization; but it also controlled the government and the bureaucracy and owned vast properties. The second sub-group was the Europeans who came to Egypt to work in trade, in the bureaucracy, or with the British occupation. According to Roger Owen (1993:117), the number of Europeans living in Egypt rose from about 10,000 in 1838 to over 90,000 in 1881. The third sub-group was the Egyptian land-owners, many of them part of the royal family, notables, former high military officers, or former top bureaucrats. The fourth sub-group was the civil servants and bureaucrats. This group included an increasing number of Egyptians, especially those educated in Europe or in Western-style Egyptian educational institutions. On the other side, the masses consisted of the rest of the Egyptian population, many of them peasants and a few craftsmen and small traders in the cities.

According to Ehud Toledano (1990) and Amira Sonbol (2000), the division between the Egyptian elites and masses was strongly enforced and supported by a series of cultural norms and practices. The elites adopted a foreign culture (Turkish and then European languages) to separate themselves from the masses. The Egyptian masses (Muslims and Copts) kept their own Arabic-Egyptian culture that was “rooted in the Egyptian locale, replete with themes and images of both villages and city life in the Nile valley” (Toledano 1990:16-17).

Egyptians had to acquire the elites’ culture (Turkish or European) in order to climb up the social and class ladder. This meant joining Western-style educational institutions, being educated in Europe, and interacting with Europeans on a regular basis. According to Ehud Toledano (1990:19), “only a minority among members of the [Egyptian] lower strata had access to any of these [qualifications].” On the other side, the Egyptian culture and way of live affected many of the elite (especially Turks) who gradually learned Arabic, married Egyptians, and considered themselves Egyptian.

“Members of the royal family and the upper classes who spoke Arabic preferred to use French as the language of prestige and sophistication. Their families, particularly the women, were taught French rather than Arabic, which was a way of keeping the classes distinct one from the other. …using a foreign language in preference to Arabic mirrored a social structure in which a foreign elite and its indigenous allies were dominant.” (Amira Sonbol 2000:216)

3. Ideological life

Egypt was the most Westernized country in the nineteenth-century middle east. (Arthur Goldschmidt 2002:177)

At least three main ideologies dominated Egypt’s ideological life at the end of the nineteenth century; Islamic nationalism (pan-Islamism), Arab nationalism (pan-Arabism), and Egyptian nationalism. I will offer in the following paragraphs a short introduction to each of them.

Pan-Islamism. Islamic nationalists, such as Jamal al-Din Al-Afghani and Mohamed Abduh (1849-1905), sought to unite all Muslims under one Islamic state (caliphate), over which a righteous Muslim ruler (a caliph) would preside. They also sought to reform the Muslim masses’ understanding of Islam, to encourage them to improve their lives and to revolt against the incursions of European colonialism (Adams 2000:13).

What was unique about the pan-Islamic thinkers was that they adopted a critical approach toward the way religion was studied and taught at their time. They were addressing masses that were far from being Westernized. Therefore, they focused their attention on bridging the gap between the religious masses and the Westernized elites by trying to rationalize Muslims’ understanding of Islam and make it compatible with modernity. They clashed with the orthodox religious institutions and adopted an open approach toward the West. They praised European civilization, affirmed the validity of science and of scientific knowledge, and favored constitutional and democratic reform (Esposito 1995, Keddie 1968:XVII & XVIII).

Arab Nationalism. Arab nationalists saw Arabs, within the Muslim world, as a distinct nation that deserved to be united in one Arab state under an Arab government. According to Arthur Goldschmidt (2002:195), “Arab identity played no great part in Middle East politics up to the twentieth century.” For most of the nineteenth century, Arabs felt loyal to the Islamic empire (the Ottomans). However, a series of important events led to the rise of anti-Turkish attitudes in the Arab world.

First, the Ottomans moved the center of the Islamic civilization for the first time since the rise of Islam away from the Arab world by adopting Constantinople as their capital. In addition, the Ottomans, as al-Afghani said (Imarah 1981:13), were “not good colonizers.” The conditions of the Arab world deteriorated tremendously under the rule of the Ottomans, especially during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Second, in the middle of the nineteenth century the Ottoman Empire, seeking to reform itself, adopted a series of reforms called Tanzimat, which included introducing new legal codes and opening Western-style educational institutions. One result of these reforms was the rise of a young Ottoman generation that was more interested in reform and in Turkish nationalism. The young Turkish nationalists angered the Arabs and motivated them to develop their own nationalism.

In addition, Arab nationalism, according to Arthur Goldschmidt (2002:195) spread more rapidly among Christian Arabs, who “were less likely to feel strong loyalty to the Ottoman Empire” and were more influenced by European liberal and nationalistic thought. Arab Christians were also more influenced by some schools built by American missionaries in Lebanon and Syria. Arab Muslims hesitated at the beginning to send their children to be educated at the American schools. Therefore, Arab Christians constituted the majority of the students of those schools, which were very influential in spreading liberal and nationalistic ideas. Eventually, Arab nationalism spread among Muslim nationalists, such as Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi, who represented “the first example of a truly Muslim strain within Arab nationalism” (2002:197).

Egyptian Nationalism. Egyptian nationalists saw Egypt as a separate state within the Arab and Muslim worlds. They also called for an Egyptian government that truly represented the Egyptian people and culture.

The rise of Egyptian nationalism was a result of several factors. First, as explained before, since the sixteenth century Egypt was dominated by small non-native elites (Turks and then Europeans) that kept themselves culturally separate from native-born Egyptians, who were called fellahin (peasants). Second, a small number of Egyptians were able through time to acquire higher education, join the military and the bureaucracy, and climb the social ladder. Third, Egypt’s rulers, especially after the British occupation, used Egyptian nationalists and the Egyptian national movement as a tool against the British. Fourth, new transportation projects, such as railways and telegraph lines, brought Egyptians closer and helped spread feelings of unity and nationalism. As a result of the previous factors, a growing Egyptian nationalistic movement grew. It included Egyptian soldiers, bureaucrats, and scholars. It also included some landowners, and some Europeans and Turks who identified themselves with the ambitions of the Egyptian people.

However, it seems that the leaders of the national movement could not overcome the gap that separated the Egyptian elite, to which they belonged, from the Egyptian masses. For example, the leaders of the national movement such, as Moustafa Kamel and Qasim Amin, were French-educated lawyers who were part of the Egyptian elite. They were not real representatives of the poor Egyptian peasants.

Ideological Duality. It is important to note that the three ideological movements outlined above were inter-linked. For example, al-Afghani, the founder of the Islamic revival movement, was seen as one of the founders of the Egyptian national movement, although al-Afghani himself was not an Egyptian. In addition, an Arab nationalist, such as al-Kawakibi, and an Egyptian nationalist, such as Qasim Amin, had a great respect for Islamic teachings and civilization and for Islamic nationalism in general.

In addition, ideological movements in Egypt were marked throughout the nineteenth century by an institutional and cultural duality. This was because the need for learning from the more advanced West forced Egypt’s rulers to adopt many European-style institutions (educational, industrial, judicial, etc.), while access to those institutions was limited to a very small minority of the Egyptian people. This duality influenced all aspects of Egyptian life and divided the society into two main groups, a small Westernized elite and a vast traditional lower class (Cleveland 2000:100).

3) Conclusion

The nineteenth century changed Egypt. At the beginning of the century, Egyptians in particular and Muslims in general came to realize the inferiority of their countries to the European countries. During the first four decades of the century, Mohamed Ali transformed Egypt to become a regional economic and political power. Yet, after several European nations united with the Ottoman Empire to defeat Mohamed Ali at the beginning of the 1840s, Egypt’s conditions deteriorated again. This deterioration led to the occupation of Egypt by the British in 1882.

From these circumstances, four main phenomena important to our thesis emerged.

First, reform and development became one of the main objectives of Egypt, its successive governments, its intellectual leaders, and its people in general.

Second, the West played a dual role, both as an obstacle against and as a model for reform. This is because Europeans forced Egypt to open its markets to their products in an imbalanced economic relationship, allied with the Ottomans to defeat Mohamed Ali, enjoyed special economic and political privileges in Egypt, intervened in running the county politically and economically, and militarily occupied Egypt twice. In addition, foreigners who came to Egypt to trade, to work with the British colonization, or to work as experts and aides for the successive Egyptian governments were part of an elite class that enjoyed special economic and political privileges in Egypt. At the ideological level, the Egyptian higher class used the European languages, education, and style of life to strengthen its control over and separation from the great majority of the Egyptian masses. In other words, Egypt’s rulers and higher classes used their knowledge of European sciences, technologies, and languages to further oppress the Egyptian masses.

On the positive side, successive Egyptian governments looked up to Europe as a model for progress and development. Thus, they sent Egyptian students to learn in Europe, hired European aides and experts to improve their governments, and opened Western-style educational systems. In addition, the struggle between the Egyptian governments and the British colonization after 1882 led the Egyptian governments to empower some segments of the Egyptian national front in order to be able use them as a leverage against the British, who forced the Egyptian governments to open up their political system and to loosen their control over the Egyptian press. This led to an atmosphere of relative freedom at the end of the nineteenth century, praised by later generations’ reformers, such as Qasim Amin and Abd Al-Rahman Al-Kawakibi.

Third, the various attempts to reform Egypt failed in democratizing the Egyptian governments. At the end of the nineteenth century, Egypt was governed by a small group of rulers who were descendents of Mohamed Ali’s family. These rulers, supported by a wider but still small elite, had hegemony over the vast majority of Egypt’s economic resources. They also separated themselves from the Egyptian masses socially and culturally. It may be true that some members of the ruling elite eventually assimilated into Egyptian society and considered themselves to be Egyptians, yet what was clear was that native Egyptians had very little say in running their country compared with the members of this elite.

Egypt’s political elite had a dual approach toward the West. First, they rejected the pressures of the West on them to open their country politically and economically. In this regard, they were willing to empower the Egyptian national front to use it as leverage against the interventions of the West. On the other hand, the Egyptian governments were never willing to share power with the masses. Moreover, successive Egyptian governments were willing to use their knowledge of European culture, languages, and sciences to strengthen their hegemony over the Egyptian masses.

Fourth
, reform failed to improve the conditions of the great majority of the Egyptian masses, who were left economically impoverished, illiterate, socially conservative, and politically weak. In this regard, the Egyptian masses were victimized by Western colonialism, by their Muslim regimes, and by their personal weakness and lack of opportunities.

In the next chapters, I will show how these phenomena shaped the Occidental discourses of three influential intellectual leaders, Jamal Al-Din Al-Afghani, Qasim Amin, and Abd Al-Rahman Al-Kawakbi, who lived in Egypt at the end of the nineteenth century.