The Challenge of Eurocentrism: Global Perspectives, Policy, and Prospects

The Challenge of Eurocentrism

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The Challenge of Eurocentrism: Global Perspectives, Policy, and Prospects

Edited by Rajani Kannepalli Kanth (with the assistance of Amit Basole)

THE CHALLENGE OF EUROCENTRISM: GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES, POLICY, AND PROSPECTS

Copyright © Rajani Kannepalli Kanth, 2009. All rights reserved. First published in 2009 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN-13: 978–0–230–61227–3 ISBN-10: 0–230–61227–X Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rajani Kannepalli Kanth. The challenge of Eurocentrism : global perspectives, policy, and prospects / edited by Rajani Kannepalli Kanth. p. cm. ISBN 0–230–61227–X 1. Eurocentrism. 2. Civilization, Modern—European influences. 3. Postcolonialism. I. Title. CB430.R27 2009 909.82—dc22

2008039126

A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: May 2009 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America.

For my Daughters: Antara, Indrina, Malini, and Anjana— who will live, I hope, in the promise of a Polycentric, i.e., a De-centered World.

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CON T E N T S

List of Figures and Tables

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Foreword

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Acknowledgments

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Rajani K. Kanth and Eurocentrism: A Critique Nick Hostettler

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Introduction Challenging Eurocentrism: 45 Theses Rajani Kannepalli Kanth

1

Part 1 Received Theory, Science, and Eurocentrism One

Two

Eurocentric Roots of the Clash of Civilizations: A Perspective from the History of Science Arun Bala Mathematics and Eurocentrism George Gheverghese Joseph

Three Official Corruption and Poverty: A Challenge to the Eurocentric View Ravi Batra

Part 2 Four

Five

Six

9 25

45

Perspectives on Africa, West, South, and East Asia

Pan-African and Afro-Asian Alternatives [to] and Critiques [of Eurocentrism] Mathew Forstater

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Economic Development and the Fabrication of the Middle East as a Eurocentric Project Fırat Demir and Fadhel Kaboub

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The Phantom of Liberty: Mo(der)nism and Postcolonial Imaginations in India Rajesh Bhattacharya and Amit Basole

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viii Seven

Contents Eurocentrism, Modernity, and the Postcolonial Predicament in East Asia Kho Tung-Yi

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Part 3 Perspectives on the West: Europe and the Americas Eight

On Cultural Bondage: From Eurocentrism to Americocentrism Ali A. Mazrui

Nine

American Exceptionalism and the Myth of the Frontiers Rajiv Malhotra

Ten

What Have the Muslims Ever Done for Us? Islamic Origins of Western Civilization John M. Hobson

147 171

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Part 4 Eurocentrism: Policy and Prospects Eleven Beyond Eurocentrism: The Next Frontier Rajani Kannepalli Kanth

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Postface: Eurocentrism—Whither Now? Rajani Kannepalli Kanth

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Contributors

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Index

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F IGU R E S

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TA BL E S

Figures 2.1 The “Classical” Eurocentric Trajectory 2.2 The “Modified” Eurocentric Trajectory 2.3 An Alternative Trajectory for the Period from Eighth to Fifteenth Centuries 9.1 Stereotypes of Civilized and Savage Peoples 9.2 Encounters That Shaped National Character

31 31 31 202 206

Tables

3.1 World Oil Consumption and Price: 1983–2007 9.1

History of the Frontiers

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FOR E WOR D

The Seven Biases of Eurocentrism: A Diagnostic Introduction A l i A . M a z ru i

This volume originated as a Festschrift celebration of the Life and Work of Rajani Kannepalli Kanth, a Special Event held at the Chicago Meetings of the American Economic Association, in 2007. Many of the contributors at the event, other than George Joseph, Arun Bala, Ravi Batra, and Nick Hostettler, made presentations there that are edited and reproduced here. I consider the event a historic one that generated this book, and I would hope, the stimulus for the kind of fundamental rethinking that is essential for our troubled times. Eurocentrism in the study of world history rests on seven pillars. In other words, an approach to the study of world history may be described as “Eurocentric” if it betrays the following biases: The bias of Euro-heroism: This is a tendency toward giving disproportionate attention to European and Western achievements in the arts, philosophy, science, technology, and governance. This includes European voyages of exploration and claims of how certain European adventurers “discovered” Victoria Falls or Mt. Kilimanjaro, or the source of the Nile—or whether Christopher Columbus discovered America. In the ancient world there was no such thing as Europe. Europe’s incorporation of Ancient Greece into its own body politic—and its hijacking of the achievements of Ancient Greece, Western and Northern Europe to define themselves to incorporate the miracles of Athens and Sparta. Since the end of the cold war there has also been Western triumphalism and claims about “the end of history” on the side of the West. The second bias is of Euro-mitigation: This is the tendency for some textbooks to underplay the sins perpetrated by Europeans and Westerners across the centuries. Thus, the story of the European settlement of the

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Americas is often told with little discussion about the huge human and cultural cost—the genocide perpetrated against Native Americans, the reckless destruction of such f lourishing indigenous civilizations as that of the Incas, Aztecs and the last days of the Mayas. The Transatlantic slave trade was a traffic in humans that continued for several centuries. Yet some textbooks give it a brief mention and hurry up to deal with less guilt-ridden subjects. And very few textbooks not written by Black authors discuss the Middle Passage—the cruel method of transporting slaves across the Atlantic that cost so many lives en route. There is also some Euro-mitigation in the portrayal of European empires in Africa and Asia. In earlier years European colonialism used to be portrayed as a civilizing force in Africa, Asia, and the non-Western world. Nowadays Western textbooks have got past that civilizing claptrap. But the enormous damage which European colonialism has done to African societies is still grossly understated in books. Then there is the understating of the faults of individual Western heroes. The most eloquent voice on liberty in American constitutional history was Thomas Jefferson. Yet Jefferson owned 200 slaves. He also had an aesthetic theory about the link between pain and poetry. He argued that although Black people had suffered enough pain and anguish, Blacks were incapable of great poetry. And although Abraham Lincoln was antislavery, he was not pro-racial equality. Almost on the eve of the Civil War, he was assuring his audiences that his preferred world was not a world where Blacks voted, or served as jurors, or were allowed to marry whites. Far from it, Abraham Lincoln assured audiences, spicing his speech with antiBlack jokes. Also in the field of Euro-mitigation is the reluctance to discuss white racism in school textbooks. Sometimes books on world history ignore racism entirely as a force in modern history—except perhaps when discussing the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews. Occasionally the case of apartheid in South Africa used to be recognized. More absent is the relevance of race in American society or in relations between Whites and Blacks worldwide in the past 400 years. The third bias of Eurocentrism is Euro-exclusivity. This is the tendency to give disproportionate space in textbooks to the Western side of world history—such as five chapters on the history of Europe through medieval times, the Renaissance, the French Revolution, and the Industrial Revolution, as compared with the one chapter on India and China combined across two millennia. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has done splendid television work. With me as author and storyteller the BBC did a nine-hour series on Africa (The Africans: A Triple Heritage). With Akbar Ahmed, they did a six-hour television series on the Muslim world (Living Islam). But the same BBC is capable of producing twelve-hour television series on

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Ireland alone, or a multi-episode television drama on The Six Wives of Henry VIII. Between Sins of Quality and Sins of Quantity The fourth, fifth, and sixth biases of Eurocentrism are about how Eurocentrism affects other cultures. First Eurocentrism shortchanges the achievements of other peoples and cultures. In discussing Ancient Greece there is little recognition of how much the Greeks might have owed to ancient Egyptians—a subject reactivated since the 1980s by the Cornell University professor, Martin Bernal, with his multivolume study Black Athena (Contrary to some assumptions, Martin Bernal is not a Black man; he is a White British Jew, originally a don at Cambridge University in England). His thesis is that eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europeans rewrote the history of ancient Greece to deny its debt to ancient Egypt and the Phoenicians. Bernal argues that the reasons for this historical revisionism was Europe’s new racism against Blacks and Jews. A Eurocentric history of great philosophers may mention Aristotle but not Avicenna; such a history of great historians may mention Edward Gibbon and Arnold Toynbee but not Ibn Khaldun; a Eurocentric history of letters may mention Milton and Wordsworth but not Iqbal and Rabandranath Tagore. Almost all Eurocentric histories of religion ignore entirely indigenous African traditional religions, although these beliefs and values continue to inf luence millions of people to the present day. Of course, they also ignore the indigenous religions of Native Americans and other indigenous peoples from Peru to Papua New Guinea. The fifth bias of Eurocentrism is even more extreme. It is disparagement of other countries. If the fourth bias is denying credit to the achievement of others, this fifth bias apportions disproportionate blame to the sins of others. The association of Islam with the sword of conquest has been one recurrent tendency in Eurocentric accounts. More recently a billion Muslims have been slandered for the sins of Al-Qaeda. Curiously enough, sub-Saharan Africa is one part of the world where both Christianity and Islam have spread—but it was Christianity that spread with the sword of European imperialism while Islam spread by more peaceful means. Today most estimates say that Muslims in Africa are more numerous than Christians. And in Nigeria alone there are more Muslims than in any Arab country—including Egypt. While Islam has indeed suffered a lot of disparagement in Eurocentric history books, indigenous African cultures have suffered even more. Europeans had for a long time regarded indigenous African cultures as savage and primitive, and have often exaggerated their weaknesses and ignored their

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strengths. Indeed, distinguished Western historians have been on record in recent times saying there is no such thing as African history. As Hugh Trevor-Roper, then Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford University put it in the 1960s Maybe in the future there will be African history. But at the moment there is none. There is only the history of Europeans in Africa. The rest is darkness, and darkness is not a subject of history. The sixth bias of Eurocentric history is the related sin of marginalizing other cultures in the quantitative terms of space devoted to them in books, classrooms and audio-video materials. This is the other side of the coin of Euro-exclusivity or exclusion. We may count in the number of hours in a school curriculum, or number of pages in a history book, devoted to other civilizations. If the space is limited it still is a form of marginalization even if that limited space is used to emphasize a few non-Western achievements. Shortchanging other cultures is a qualitative sin; marginalizing other cultures is a quantitative sin (how much space or attention they get). Even if the qualitative sin is reduced by emphasizing the achievements of other cultures, the quantitative sin may remain if those cultures are not given enough space or enough hours. The seventh bias of the Eurocentric approach is to look at other societies within a Western paradigm or from a Western perspective. Let us take Algeria between 1954 and 1962. The Muslim people of Algeria were fighting the military might of France. France claimed that Algeria was a province of France and not a colony. Algeria could not therefore get independence. These African Muslims decided to take up arms to challenge this French presumption. A Eurocentric point of view might say that once France had a great leader like Charles de Gaulle, statesmanship prevailed. In the face of strong right-wing opposition in France, de Gaulle granted Algerians their freedom and graciously recognized the peace of the brave in the Evion Accords. French democracy could be trusted to find a solution to a colonial problem in the Muslim world. A less Eurocentric point of view would argue that this was a case of African Muslims changing the course of European history rather than France graciously granting independence. By fighting for their freedom in Algeria, the National Liberation Front of Algerian Nationalists was creating not only a political crisis in France but a constitutional one. The Vietnam War never brought the Constitution of the United States crumbling to the ground, but the Algerian War did lead to the collapse of the Fourth Republic of France. The 1958 crisis did force the French people to call out of retirement Charles de Gaulle. De Gaulle’s condition for taking over was a whole new Constitution—the Fifth Republic. If the Algerians had not fought for

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their independence, de Gaulle might never have returned to power, the Fifth Republic never been inaugurated. De Gaulle’s constitution brought more stability to France and inf luenced French assertiveness. France pulled out of NATO, delayed British membership of the European Economic Community, and accelerated French policy of an independent nuclear deterrent. By fighting for their independence at home, those Algerian Muslims precipitated fundamental change in another country abroad—and changed the course of the history not only of France but also of Western Europe. We need a paradigm not only of inclusion but also of interaction. And people interact not only at the level of intention, but also at the level of unintended impact. Algerians had an unforeseen and decisive impact on the history of Europeans in the second half of the twentieth century. Similarly, by fighting for their liberation from the Soviets in the 1980s, the Mujahiddeens in Afghanistan were helping to destroy the Soviet Union’s imperial will. Empires are maintained partly by the iron will of the imperial power. The Soviet imperial received a fatal blow in Afghanistan. The Afghans accomplished in the 1980s what Hungarians failed to do in 1956—the Afghans resisted Soviet tanks. The Afghans accomplished in the 1980s what the Czechs failed to do in 1968—the Afghans expelled a Soviet invasion. The end of the cold war had many causes. Among the least acknowledged was the role of the Mujahiddeens in helping to destroy the Soviet will to hold on to its empire. A marginalized and technologically underdeveloped Muslim country such as Afghanistan defeated a superpower, and helped to change the course of world history. The origins of the collapse of Soviet empires are partly to be traced to the streets of Kabul and the mountains of Afghanistan. Western historians are unlikely to acknowledge such an impact to the Mujahiddeens. Once again world history should be approached not only as an inclusive process, but also as an interactive process. Yes, people interact with each other both at the level of intention and at the level of unintended impact. Finally, the impact of Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau on the recent history of Portugal. A Eurocentric approach to the story may claim that Portugal moved rapidly towards giving independence to its colonies as soon as the fascist political order in Lisbon collapsed in April 1974. An alternative approach is to see the collapse of the fascist political order in Lisbon as being itself caused by anti-colonial wars in Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau. By fighting for their independence, the Africans in Portuguese colonies prepared the ground for the democratization and modernization of Portugal in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Portugal had until then turned its back on every progressive force and movement in European history—the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Reformation, the French and American revolutions, the industrial

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revolution. By the last third of the twentieth century Portugal had become the most backward European nation after Albania. It took African liberation fighters struggling for their independence to shock Portugal out of its historic lethargy at last. The anti-colonial wars ended the old order and inaugurated at length the modernization, democratization and re-Europeanization of Portugal. Once again Africans had helped to make European history. Finally, there are Eurocentric biases which are wider than Africa and Islam, but which inevitably also affect approaches to the study of Muslim history and African culture. Because Europeans have dominated most branches of science for at least three hundred years, many paradigms of all other cultures (not just African and Islamic) have been distorted by European perspectives. Some forms of Eurocentrism are virtually irreversible, others can be modified. Let us look at these different dimensions. The Geography of Space and Time For illustration in this paper, let us focus on the distinction between the geography of space and the geography of time. The geography of space in our sense is about continents, oceans, planets and outer space at a given moment in time. The geography of time, on the other hand, is about history and its periodization. Eurocentrism in the geography of space has gone so far that much of it may be irreversible. On the other hand, the Eurocentrism in the geography of time may be capable of being rolled back to a certain extent. Our concepts of “ancient, medieval and modern” may still be deeply rooted in the paradigm of European history, but we may be able to struggle out of some of the shackles. Although there is an Islamic calendar, the triumph of the Gregorian Christian calendar worldwide is so great that Muslims can no longer rely on the Hijriyya calendar alone. Great Muslim events like the fall of Constantinople to the Turks are more likely to be remembered by their date in the Christian era than their date in the Islamic calendar. But even when Muslims use dates in the Christian era as boundaries of their history, they need not of course be bound by European concepts of “ancient, medieval and modern.” One debate concerns the issue of whether Islam existed before the Prophet Muhammad. Were the two older Abrahamic religions ( Judaism and Christianity) themselves Islamic? If there was Islam before Muhammad, what did Allah mean in the Qur’an when he said to the Prophet Muhammad and his followers the following? On this day have I completed for you your religion, and perfected for you my bounty, and chosen for you Islam as your religion.

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If there was Islam before the Prophet Muhammad, why does the Islamic calendar begin with the Prophet’s migration from Mecca to Medina (the Hijjra)? If there was Islam before the Prophet Muhammad, why are the days before his mission deemed to be the era of Jahiliyya (the days of ignorance)? However, it is possible for a Muslim to argue that while the Prophet Muhammad was the last and greatest of the prophets, all the previous prophets were preaching different stages of the same mission of Islam. This would include Moses and Jesus as prophets of Islam. Periodization in Islamic history might therefore include the following rather uneven epochs: I Islam before the Prophet Muhammad’s birth II Islam between the birth of the Prophet Muhammad and the death of the Fourth Caliph, Ali bin Abi Talib III The era of the Umayyads IV The era of the Abbassids V The era of global consolidation of Islam in Asia and Africa and decline in Spain VI The rise of the Ottoman Empire VII Islam in the shadow of modern European imperialism: Decline and the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire VIII Post-Caliphate Islam: Piety, Patriotism and Petroleum It is partly in this sense that the geography of time can be revised and can be made more relevant. Islamic periodization might be made to respond to the realities of Islamic history and belief.1 On the other hand, the geography of space as bequeathed to the world by the West’s hegemony may be far less susceptible to modification or revision. The Eurocentrism in the geography of space may be more obstinate partly because it has been more effectively “universalized.” Indeed there are aspects of this Eurocentrism which are virtually impossible to correct. To begin with, Europe named the world. She named the continents such as North and South America, Europe and Antarctica. Even Africa and Asia have names that, although non-European in origin, were applied to those landmasses first and foremost by Europeans. Europe also named the oceans—the Atlantic, the Pacific, the Mediterranean, the Arctic. Even the “Indian Ocean” could just as easily have been called the “African Ocean” but for Europe’s fascination with a sea route to India from the European shores. Europe timed the world—choosing a little place in Britain called Greenwich as the basis of a global standard time. Some broadcasting stations today call it “Universal Time,” but it is a euphemism for Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). Europe also positioned the world on the map—making sure that Europe was above and Africa below. This was not an inevitable law of the cosmos

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but a convention chosen by Europeans. There was no spectator in outer space decreeing from which position planet earth was to be viewed. Europe “christened” the majority of the countries of the world. Perhaps up to 60% of the members of the United Nations have had either their names or their national boundaries determined by Europeans. Quite often both names and borders were indeed Euro-determined. On top of all this, Europeans have been naming the universe, often with Euro-classical names. The range includes Venus, Mars, Saturn, Pluto, and others. How much of this Eurocentrism of geography is reversible? Although Muslim scholarship and civilization produced some of the earliest cartographers and map-makers of modern history, and some of the earliest astronomers, the subsequent successes of European science and technology have left a more indelible impact on those disciplines. Much of the Eurocentrism of contemporary geographical knowledge is beyond repair. Some names of regions which were Europe-centric can in fact be changed. The term “Near East” (meaning near to Europe) has fallen into dis-use. The term “Far East” (meaning far from Europe) is becoming more and more politically incorrect. The term “Middle East” is more complicated. The word “East” is “Eurocentric” but the term “Middle” can be objectively defended. The region which we call Middle East lies astride three ancient continents— Africa, Asia and to a lesser extent Europe. It is a “middle” by being the crossroads of three continents. Some people prefer to call the region “West Asia,” but that would leave out Egypt and the rest of Arab North Africa, which are normally seen as part of the Middle East. It is becoming politically incorrect to call the Americas “the New World” since the Americas have been inhabited by human beings for about 15,000 years. It is also becoming politically incorrect to immortalize an old European mistake by calling the natives of the Americas “Indians.” The name was originally a case of mistaken identity. Columbus thought he had discovered India or the Indies. Now in the United States the politically correct name is increasingly “Native Americans,” and in Canada it is “First Nations.” Can the United States still be called a Judeo-Christian country? To many Americans who are neither Christian nor Jew, this description is both politically and constitutionally incorrect. But is the description also becoming factually incorrect? Muslims are expected to outnumber Jews in the United States in this new century. The growth of the Muslim population is by larger families, greater immigration and the fastest rate of conversion of any religion in the United States. A Conclusion In the wider world the most successful Semitic religion is Christianity; the most successful Semitic language is Arabic; the most successful Semitic

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people are the Jews. Where does the United States fit in this triple equation? How does America relate to these Abrahamic legacies? If the Christians of America are the most inf luential Christians in the world, and the Jews of America are the most inf luential Jews in the world, what is the status of Muslims in America? American Muslims are unlikely to become the most inf luential Muslims in the world since there are Muslim nations abroad with large populations and great resources. What could be unique about Muslims in North America is their opportunity for bridge-building towards other religions in conditions of a free society. In the United States Muslims are pre-eminently well placed to engage in interfaith dialogue with Christians, Jews and others—and construct institutions of interfaith joint action. The United States may indeed be in the process of becoming less and less Eurocentric. It is now foreseeable for White Americans to become a minority of the U.S. population in the course of this twenty-first century. The House of Representatives has had its first Muslim members recently elected, both of them Black. When he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Barack Obama was only the fifth Black member of the U.S. Senate in 200 years. Since then Obama has been elected president of the United States—making him the first Black occupant of the Oval Office in the country’s history. But while Eurocentrism may be declining in the United States demographically and culturally, the pace of change is till very slow. And in the rest of the world, Eurocentrism is in any case being replaced by Americocentrism. The Western world as a whole is still triumphant as a role model for the rest of the human race—for better or for worse! The struggle continues. Note 1. For a future-oriented approach consult Sardar (1987).

Bibliography Ziauddin Sardar, The Future of Muslim Civilization (London and New York: Mansell, 1987).

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AC K NOW L E DGM E N T S

This Book is owed to far more than is usual, given its nature as a Compilation of Papers. Rather than thank the several, distinguished Contributors individually, it were economical, perhaps, to gratefully acknowledge their work(s), taken together, since their vital labors constitute, virtually, the entirety of this Volume. Suffice it to say that they are this Book—and its Contents. To Phil O’Hara, Mat Forstater, Rajiv Malhotra, Fadhel Kaboub, and Kathy Hawkins, I owe the feat of organization of my Festschrift at the AEA Meetings in Chicago, January of 2007, where this Project officially commenced, in embryo. Their affection for me, in so doing, is a gift I carry with me still. To the gracious Ali Mazrui, who attended, and contributed vigorously to the Festschrift, I can only, even this late after the Event, humbly express my deep gratitude. The inimitable Ravi Batra joined this Book Project rather late in the day, and I can only welcome his distinguished participation. To George Joseph, I owe a rather singular debt: his was the very first formal Paper on Eurocentrism I had read—and it is one I still commend to students. I further owe Laurie Harting, Editor at Palgrave Macmillan a truly primary debt for seeing merit in this Book Project way ahead of others; to Emma Hamilton, Editorial Assistant, for her inordinate kindness and patience in dealing with my communicative excesses; to Rachel Tekula, Production Editor, for trenchantly, and generously, simplifying the hard(er) parts of the publication process for my (inept) digestion; and to Maran Elancheran and the Newgen Imaging Systems, India, for their altogether professional, friendly, and wholly “business class” copyediting and proofing labors. I must also mention the early and warm assistance of Toby Wahl, former Editor at Macmillan, whose association with me, and my work, far predates this volume. Gratitude is owed to Nancy Nash for her valuable moral support as I sketched my own ideas on Eurocentrism, whilst a guest at Umass Amherst Economics Department, in Fall of 2006, as Helen Sheridan Scholar. I must also profusely thank Dr Amit Basole, of UMass Amherst, who, whilst a contributor himself, helped look after, on a continuous, patient,

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and caretaking, basis, all the arduous managerial aspects of this process, with his usual amiability, courtesy, and dependability, insulating me from the multitude of, potentially irksome, labors that ever attend such productions. I thank my friend Roger Owen for allowing me space at Harvard that enabled the completion of this work with some measure of institutional stability. This book is but a small glimpse of who we are, or have come to be, under the spell of Eurocentric Modes of Thought, but is also a little peek at what might lie beyond their blinders. For both kinds of inspiration, a heavy debt of gratitude is owed to the works of a unique set of visionary, if varied, Pioneers, past and present, who helped me, cumulatively, see the Miasma of Euro-Modernism for what it is: memory recalls W. Wordsworth, O. Goldsmith, T. Carlysle, J. Ruskin, C. Rosetti, P. Feyerabend, M. K. Gandhi, I. Illich, V. Shiva, C. Merchant, Simone de Beauvoir, G. Spivak, D. Bohm, J. Krishnamurti, J. Blaut, A. G. Frank, and I. Wallerstein, amongst an even longer list of worthies, now, unhappily, lost to amnesia. Finally, I owe the stimulus to this modus of thinking, developing almost from childhood, to the exemplary, if unfulfilled, life of my late mother, Kesari Kesavan, the “Last Victorian” in my still fond memory, who, alas, lived the tragedy of Modernism without being aware of it. Rajani Kannepalli Kanth

R AJA N I

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K A N T H

EU RO C E N T R ISM:

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Nic k Ho s t e t t l e r

Against Eurocentrism: A Transcendent Critique of Modernist Science, Society and Morals. By Rajani Kanth. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. 192pp. The theory and practice of Modernism swiftly puts paid to the very possibility of civilization. Rajani Kanth Modernity’s political and ethical discourse claims the mantle of civilization for the West on the condition it succeeds, or at least appears to succeed, in containing its own tendencies to barbarism. Its extraordinary powers need to be divided against one another if they are not to consume themselves, and the world around them. As the subjects of modernity, we are the bearers of these opposing tendencies, paying the price of being enmeshed in an overarching complex of structural contradictions. Civilisation/barbarism is the defining antinomy of modernity, while one of its many manifestations is that between rationalisation and meaning. The modernist struggles between Enlightenment and Romanticism were not the exception, but the rule. Indeed, most important contributors to the modern tradition have registered these inner tensions: Adam Smith’s recognition that there could be no civilisation without political constraint of the hidden hand; John Stuart Mill’s humanist socialist response to the aridity of utilitarianism; Durkheim’s ambition for a liberal reconstitution of the conscience collective in the face of deepening anomie; Weber’s commitment to the politics of charisma as a counter to the iron cage; Marx’s appreciation of religion as consolation for dehumanising capital, and so on. The practical, political, “resolution” of these difficulties, as Gramsci understood, is the search for hegemony. To achieve hegemony is to progress bourgeois cultural revolution whilst securing a kind of reconciliation between the tendencies to civilisation and barbarity. As well as

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“balancing” force and coercion, hegemony is a precarious compromise formation between the institution of impersonal forms of domination and the meaning of life. Of course, the quality of the balance between the two, between capital and law, bureaucracy and reason, on the one hand, and a sense of ethical social purpose on the other, has always been highly differential, with some fractions of the population leading richer lives than others. What is more, these moments, in which the fundamental problems of modernity appear less pressing, are necessarily unstable: the imperatives of capital drive a never-ending pursuit of the modern which puts the very possibility of sociality at risk. What makes the contemporary condition of postmodernity stand out are only the intensity of the forces generating violence, anomie, social dislocation and instability and the equally desperate character of some of the attempts to reenchant the world. It is easy enough to see both the desperation and the contradictions of modernity in the technophilia of some Islamic radicalism, but the more ordinary utopian desires for a hospitable modernity are, in the end, no less mired in the same contradictions and are often no less desperate and wishful. The horrors of the 14–18 War provoked Rosa Luxemburg into passionate rage against modernity: Shamed, dishonoured, wading in blood and dripping with filth, thus capitalist society stands. Not as we usually see it, playing the roles of peace and righteousness, of order, of philosophy, of ethics—as a roaring beast, as an orgy of anarchy, as a pestilential breath, devastating culture and humanity—so it appears in all its hideous nakedness. (Luxemburg 1916/1970, p. 262) In our own times, after the experience of subsequent wars and Hitler’s Fascism, it is no longer the exceptional moments of war that inspire such language, but the workaday nature of what passes for peace and for civilization. Rajani Kanth’s intellectual life has been devoted to just such a critique of the civilizing tendencies of modernity. To say that they are counters to its barbarizing ones is to miss something more troubling: they are also its vehicles. Modern peace is not the opposite of war, and when it comes to modernity, civilization is barbarism. An energetic and engaging writer, Kanth has previously published titles such as Capitalism and Social Theory and Breaking with the Enlightenment (Kanth 1992, 1997). Always provocative and illuminating, his work seems in retrospect to have been moving towards this culmination. Against Eurocentrism presents us with the grand vision of a mature writer’s uncompromising verdict on modern life. Given this background, it is no surprise that this is no ordinary book on Eurocentrism. While the term is always used for social criticism, there are degrees and kinds of critique, and when compared to this one, most other accounts are conspicuously limited. The contrast is akin to that between

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immanent and explanatory critique: where most uses of “Eurocentrism” relate to some or other internal inconsistency of modern society, Kanth deepens and enlarges the critical scope of the term. Where others are content to identify distortions of modern society, he uses it to establish a withering perspective on the institution of modernity as a whole. Modernity is nothing less than the world forged into being under the hammer of Eurocentrism. It is also a world which systematically distorts what it means to be human. Kanth reveals Eurocentric modernity as a monstrous inversion of human cultural values: the modern as the anticulture. His purpose is to inspire its reversal, to lend support to a further turn of the wheel of history which would place our existence the right way up once again. What he seeks is the dissolution of civil society, an end to the ongoing bourgeois cultural revolution on its political, economic and cultural fronts. The most important contribution Against Eurocentrism makes to contemporary critical theory is to draw modernity, capitalism and civil society together under the single term: Eurocentrism. It also provides a normative framework for responding to the ills of the present, offers an explanation for these ills, and even sheds light on a way of ending them. Here, though, is a strange twist, for the explanatory and prescriptive parts of his thesis are curiously modernist in nature. In the end, Kanth’s own account of alternative, non-modern, culture draws directly on modernist justifications of its own institutions as solutions to problems of human nature. It is as if his moral critique absorbed all his critical energies. His guard down, modernism crept back in. Against Eurocentrism begins with a statement of the intrinsic values and essential categories of human cultural existence: the affective-moral personal bonds of conviviality. With a close affinity to notions of gemeinschaft, Kanth develops a philosophical-anthropological perspective which informs the ensuing moral critique: It is in this domain of non-acquisitive life processes that the needs of civility and uncoerced reciprocity are sown; it is within the matrix of these social behaviours that the possibility of civilisation is engendered however unconsciously; and it is in these highly localised, indeed parochial interactions that the genius of self-directed human productivity, leashed always to the ordinary norms of ecological responsibility, first f lourished. (p. 114) The book then explores the modern as the antagonist of this dimension of our being. It is a highly personal work which can be read as answering this question: What is it about the modern that tempts us to reconcile ourselves with its evils? How is it, even in the face of its horrors, we find ourselves drawn by the prospect of coming to terms with it? Despite repeated, unspeakable, disappointments, we remain open to the enticing appeal of the idea that life has improved and will do so again with time. Of course

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this world is an imperfect one, but only in the sense of being incomplete: modernity is an unfinished project, and one whose completion we willingly anticipate. We are beguiled by its endlessly sustained promise. More than anything else, what reconciles us to its ills is its seemingly limitless capacity to breathe life into the immanent prospect of material and ethical progress. The modern not only insists that it is redeemable, it even claims that it is alone amongst forms of life in being the true foundations of human well being and moral evolution. To put it in terms derived from Roy Bhaskar’s ethics: the appeal of modernity is that the pulse of freedom beats more strongly here than elsewhere; in contrast to other forms of life, the remaining constraints on the realization of freedom within modernity appear as strictly contingent and unnecessary. The object of humanist desire is realized modernity. Yet it is an object whose real essence is to be always approached—endlessly deferred. Against Eurocentrism reaches deep into an awful paradox: the material and ethical achievements offered, provided and promised by modernity and humanism come in forms which make them the very inverse of what we need as human beings. Drawing on Bhaskar’s work again, we can read this account of modern accomplishments as being achieved through dialectic, a process of absenting the very social bonds and constraints that make the good life possible. Kanth asserts that to f lourish we need, above all, personal affective bonds of love and care; that we need strong and stable family and familial ties within which we can be nurtured; that we need to be enmeshed in mutually affirmative concrete relationships, and our social practices need to reinforce and strengthen them. The social is our natural state, a truth that Eurocentrism has hidden from view in all its intellectual contortions: to contain it is to limit our own development and thwart the possibility of fulfilment in our own personalities. (p. 149) The dialectic of modernity, though, stands in the sharpest possible contrast to our natural state. This form of cultural “evolution” absents precisely the kinds of relation we most need. What is more, ethical humanism is revealed here as the prism through which this dialectical degeneration appears as its opposite. The tragedy of modern humanism is that it has succeeded in turning the entire order of human values upside down and in attaching a positive ethical drive to the corrosion of the moral fabric of our being. The positive dimension of cultural existence is not merely given insufficient consideration within the humanist imaginary: it is absent from it.1 The Eurocentric vision is distinguished from all others in that its ultimate conception of the human essence is an empty abstraction, a void.2 The locus of this emptiness is the vision of the social as civil society. Kanth shows that it is here, on this most peculiar of terrains, that Eurocentrism expresses its highest values. It is here that Eurocentrism becomes the

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religion of abstract, impersonal relations. The tragedy is of epochal proportions: the vision of civil society is the very antithesis of a culture in which our species being can be realised; it is the very opposite of the culture in which our needs can be met. The institution of the humanist imaginary is unique in that it establishes a fateful and profound contradiction between its own form of society, the nexus of abstract impersonal relations, and the common essence of all other forms of culture, which privilege the concrete interpersonal ties of convivial life. Civil society establishes a depersonalised principle of non-conviviality as its highest value, and Eurocentric humanism becomes practical anti-humanism. This is the irrational kernel of the paradox of modern humanism: it imagines human f lourishing in a distorted and perverted form. Its visions of moral realisation revolve around a deep black hole, a gaping absence, the absence of the very conditions necessary for any human f lourishing. Modernity may be sustained by a promise of human realisation, but it produces a form of life that ceaselessly undermines any possibility that such a promise could be fulfilled. Against this background, Kanth explores the evolution of modernity in terms of the relentless extirpation of the gemeinschaftlich by the gesellschaftlich. He tells this story in an assertoric rather than an argumentative style. So while its prose and erudition mark it as the product of a deep immersion in the modern tradition, it does not, as Jonathan Joseph’s endorsement says, “fall easily into any one category.” There is, for instance, a sense in which this is literary work, as against a scientific one. Its four sections are the moments of a narrative: introduction; complication; dénouement; resolution. Like other narratives it is intended to reveal a primarily moral truth about our life. It is also the work of an essayist, with each of its 40 or so short sub-chapters coming as a relatively self-enclosed essay dealing with an individual problem. Perhaps because of its literary qualities it has a close affinity with the political genre of the manifesto. Like the commodities that an earlier manifesto declared would be more effective than cannonballs in breaching the Great Wall of China, Kanth’s preferred weapons against the self-confidence of the post-Enlightenment tradition are not the mannered exchanges of the academic high table, but morally charged protestations and impassioned denunciations. In keeping with the widespread sense of frustration with the narrowing horizons of rationalised debate, Kanth turns to rhetorical devices in order to invest his thesis with the necessary force. Materialism, for Kanth, is the guiding ethos of the modern. The first section of Against Eurocentrism, “Crossing the Rubicon,” advances a historical explanation for modernism in terms of the emergent value structures of “materialism” and their progressive institutionalisation. Materialism is a “philosophy,” an attitude to life. It is, though, wholly negative, inspiring only carelessness and ruthlessness in theory and practice. Under its inf luence, all nature is gradually subordinated to the most destructive human impulses: insatiable greed and violence. The overriding project

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of materialism is the dismissal, denial and exclusion of the “spiritual” dimension of social life: the eradication of care, nurture, love. As one would expect of an account of modernity, this one is permeated with the twin themes of “rationalisation” and “civil society.” For Kanth, these are the highest expression of materialism. Indeed, it is under these two signs that materialism comes into its own. The thinker he most closely associates with the former is Max Weber, while his account of civil society is inspired, above all, by Thomas Hobbes. Though he repudiates the Marx-Weber “debate” as the meaningless gyrations of the fruitless antinomy of idealism/materialism, Kanth nevertheless declares for Weber. Weber “is closer to reality” in recognising the world-shaping role of attitudes, ideas, values. Weber’s account of the Spirit of Capitalism is largely correct: Reform Christianity was the vehicle of the putative secular rationality that emerged with the Enlightenment and which informs the ongoing institution of state and market. Standard histories of the West all refer back to this cultural genius. The familiar tales of reason, exploration, discovery and the export of civilisation all make similar points. Where Weberian accounts go awry is not so much factually or descriptively, though there is some of that of course, but normatively.3 Weber’s equation of instrumental materialism with rationality allows him to paint the development of capitalism in positive colours, just as he dresses up bureaucratic forms of domination in the “progressive” garb of technical efficiency (see Kanth 1992). In fact, the realisation of Eurocentric materialism has been grounded in the conceit that reason can be meaningfully severed from social existence. However, it is this abstracted rationality, as opposed to the concrete, practical reason of other forms of life, that separates modernity from the rest. “To dislodge reason from its nest in human empathy is [a] cardinal, egregious sin of modernism” (p. 91). Even though he is a less prominent figure here, it is Hobbes’ ref lections on modernity that stand out as the greatest insights into its real nature. Hobbes’ political realism was grounded in his state of nature: essentially asocial individuals driven by desire and fear into mutually antagonistic relationships. The problem, as Hobbes saw it, was to sufficiently constrain the war of all against all so that these atomised persons could enjoy some satisfaction of their desires. Civil society was to be established through the imposition on the state of nature of a force so fearsome that its laws would be guaranteed obedience: the modern state. This solution never entailed any modification or development of human nature, quite the opposite. It secured the terrain on which this nature could be safely expressed. Once again, Kanth does not demur—as far as it goes. Once again, his quarrel is with Hobbes’ claims for the rationality of the solution. As we shall see, Hobbes’ view of the problem was significantly incomplete, and his solution served only to intensify the “materialist reorientation of human existence.” The story of modernity is complicated in “The Utopian Impulse: The Mnemonics of Affective society.” The modern intellectual tradition—its

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forms of science, social and political theory—are approached as so many avatars of the domineering materialist ethos. “All European political traditions serve only the Modernist project” (p. 49). The struggles between the different strands of this tradition are nothing less than rival claimants for the mantle of “progress,” itself no more than the illicit claim to European superiority, the justification of the “white man’s burden” and the valorisation of social transformation. Its adherence to the materialist terrain of civil society renders social science (“the CIA of Western Domination”) “simply the subtle artifice of legitimation for virtually anything policy makers desire to perpetrate” (p. 65). Equally, the lexicon of political theory, “liberty,” “democracy,” “law and order,” is shown to veil the emptiness it generates. “Equality,” formal and abstract, expresses only distance and lack of warmth; “justice” is a medium which expunges human virtues; “liberty” is coerced freedom from ties of conviviality; “law and order” is the institution of (Hobbesian) anarchy (pp. 75–76). These traditions have little, if anything, to offer us: The aborted attempt to “find” [the lost world of nurturance] or recreate it in the arid desert of “civil society,” from More to Marx, is simply the story of the tragic failure to comprehend the fundamentals of anthropic life. (p. 82) The dénouement arrives with “The fatal conceit: elisions of materialism.” The achievements made under the rubric of progress amount to nothing less than a litany of catastrophes. The twisted promises of modernity are fulfilled through consumerism and the “slatternly commodification of all values” (p. 86). We are now witness to the very climax of a “process of the radical annihilation of human and social utilities—a rampant ‘culture of death’ to adopt a telling phrase of ecologist Vandana Shiva—was [. . .] sacralized as ‘development’ and foisted upon the weak and/or the gullible the world over” (p. 86). Having long awaited the end of the incomplete project we have, at last, arrived, but now that we are there we find it is a far cry from the universal human self-realisation we were led to expect. “The globalisation of [the modernist European] is complete; his networks, military and commercial, span the globe: we are prey to the meretricious gloss of his wares, and the awesome power of his war-machines, and all species now await his pleasure with trepidation” (p. 92). Yet, we are not without hope, for despite it all our humanity remains with us and awaits its restoration—if only we will be guided by genuinely humanist values. Kanth’s path to a genuine resolution of these troubles comes in the chapter “On Human Emancipation”: an “archaeology of discontent.” Here he digs beneath the surface of the modern to disclose what has been buried. The creation of the twin public realms of modernity has been at the expense of the private realm of procreation and familial reproduction, “the humble praxis of the concrete, [. . .] the search for simple means

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of subsistence and coexistence based on real anthropic needs” (p. 114). Fortunately, this subordinate realm still persists, preserved by those at the margins: women, producers, peasants and such. Here, in what appears to modernists as the dustbin of history, i.e. the past and the outside, is the source of an alternative, sustainable, truly human future. The humanist response to the anti-humanism of modernity must be to preserve and enhance these repositories of true human culture. Gesturing to Hobbes, what makes these cultural redoubts so significant for Kanth is that they embody the only viable solution to the essential problem of human nature. However, what he gives us is a radical reworking of that problem. For moderns, who accept that greed and violence are basic human drives, civilisation depends on containing and channelling them into creative, productive, activities. Somewhat surprisingly, Kanth wholly endorses this, but offers one significant caveat: these are male drives. Greed and violence are the expressions of male biology, the peculiar characteristics of a distinctive human subspecies. Premodern cultural success depends on the adaptive evolution of female institutions which contain the destructive threats represented by masculinity. By contrast, modernism is a catastrophic failure to maintain the defensive dykes against the f loodwaters of masculinism/materialism. Once established in independent public spaces, where the female principles of affective conviviality were fatally weakened, the masculinist assaults on culture were launched. The result: rationalisation, civil society, Euro-Capitalism. “European modernity has [. . .] taken the ‘natural’ project of masculinity to its cultural apotheosis” (p. 103). With this in mind it becomes clear how Hobbes was both right and wrong about civil society. He was right in as much as he perceived the real nature of civil society. He was also right in that the institutionalisation of the materialist ethos could be grounded in human nature, and that this would allow this side of our nature to f lourish. However, his solution was also a non-solution. It was wrong because it was a response to a misformulation of the real problem. Hobbes misled himself because he was already lost in the depths of this own materialism and blinded to a onesided, masculinist, account of human nature. He was unable to see that while male urges were natural their dominance in human society was not. His state of nature was not our natural state at all. Despite his concerns about social breakdown, Hobbes did not appreciate that it was the far more profound dissolution of the feminine principles of affective, familial, conviviality that unleashed the anti-cultural principles he sought to contain. The way forward was not to contain them within public structures wrought from the same substance but to re-submerge them in an enlarged “private” sphere and the pacifying ether of hearth and home. This move by Kanth significantly clarifies the philosophicalanthropological perspective from which he makes his transcendent critique. The problems of human culture, to the fore in the early chapters, are now grounded in an account of human biological nature. Although this

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provides a certain alternative to the distortions of modernist civil society, it nevertheless remains strikingly similar to it and it remains consistent with the essence of the bulk of modernist humanism. Kanth’s premodernist humanism is also universalist, essentialist, reductivist, and expressivist. Although his conception of the cultural sphere places a wholly divergent emphasis on concrete, as opposed to abstract, social relations, he persists in presenting it as the realm in which we express our biological drives. In Kanth’s account, culture is founded on a natural antagonism, suggesting both the real problem of human culture and at the same time providing the positive feminine principle we need to contain the negative masculine one. However, the tradition of civil society has continually played on precisely the same antinomy of positive and negative nature. Hobbes’ political realism, for instance, certainly appears to present a monova lent account of human nature, but, as Marx pointed out long ago, the category of “humanism” always conceals the couplet “human/ inhuman.” The normative language of humanism then plays on the essence/actuality distinction. In reproducing the same form, Kanth also reproduces two of the major problems of the modern tradition. Firstly, he falls into the expressivist, ahistorical, trap of reading contemporary culture back into nature by misconstruing the sociological and natural bases of modern gender distinctions. For while it is clearly the case that, until recently at least, modern distinctions between public and private have been systematically gendered, with public spaces and their distinctive rationalities being overwhelming the preserve of (a class of ) men, it is an unjustifiable leap to cast this in expressivist terms. Secondly, and more disturbingly, the bifurcation of nature simply inverts the values of the terms on which gendered (not to mention racialised) exclusions from the public sphere have long been justified. Whether grounded in a monovalent or bivalent nature, reductivistexpressivist anthroplogies radically understate the extent to which our biology opens up our maturation to cultural mediation. The real problem we have to confront is that the cultural sphere is precisely not expressive of our nature—positive, negative or both. Our problem is that our own nature does not guide us in coming to terms with it. While we are indeed forced, by our nature, into self-containment strategies, they are not of the kind either Hobbes or Kanth suggests. The problem of culture is much better thought of in terms of the philosophical anthropologies implied by the likes of Freud and Marx, both of whom recognised our cultural potential to institute structural contradictions in the psychological and sociology dimensions of our existence. Nevertheless, our urgent task is indeed to develop capacities to abolish the specific contradictions instituted by modernity, for most of the reasons Kanth so eloquently puts forward. Who would argue the need to engage with him in the collective projects of building a world, or indeed many worlds, of convivial mutuality? There is an important sense, then, in which Kanth’s critique of Eurocentrism is incomplete. He has successfully broadened out the use of

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the term as part of the critique of civil society. However, his strategy is limited to a form of moral critique which rests too heavily on normative inversion. This is highly effective, but leaves the categorial forms and contradictions of modern, theoretical humanism, intact. There are, though, resources available that can help: critical realism and Marxism. Kanth’s relation to critical realism, especially Bhaskar’s work, is an interesting one. Critical realism does not figure explicitly, aside from some very brief remarks on the opening page. While Kanth makes no attempt to interrogate critical realism directly, his work addresses a set of fundamental questions to it. Where does it stand in relation to rationalism-materialism? Does it work as a philosophy for contemporary natural and social science? How is it related to the vision of civil society? To what extent does its ethics remain on modernist terrain? Against Eurocentrism demands two kinds of response from critical realism: Is the diagnosis of modernism as the contradiction between gemeinschaft and gesellschaft the right one? Is critical realism complicit with the humanist pursuit of anti-culture? Given that Kanth’s own work has not been a critique of the categorial forms of modernist knowledge, critical realism has already made a contribution to the critique of Eurocentric civil society. Realists would surely be concerned to address the explanatory status of biological reductionism. Summarising the affiliations between critical realism and modernist humanism is more complicated. (I’ve written, with Alan Norrie, on the tensions in Bhaskar’s work and on what I see as the relations between dialectical critical realism and Marx’s critique of political economy. These tensions could be read as indicating ambiguities within Bhaskar’s oeuvre on these kinds of questions. See Hostettler and Norrie 2003.) Unsurprisingly, Bhaskar’s later works, emphasising the spiritual dimension of our existence, resonate much more strongly with Kanth’s own. The idea of a socially produced layer of irreality being parasitic on our ontological reality can be readily f leshed out in terms of the actualities of gesellschaft being parasitic on the deeper realities of gemeinschaft. Similarly, Bhaskar’s claims for the immanent possibility of freedom from irreality are echoed by Kanth: The possibility of utopia is critically-immanent, and perennially available to us all, and at virtually no cost, within the freely available moral economy of affections (not a material economy of collectivized labours as erstwhile socialism turned out to be). (p. 144) The relationship with Marx and Marxism is similarly complicated, much more so than Kanth’s one-sided evaluation of Marx as another modernist “materialist” would have it. That Marx’s own works grew out of the modernist materialist-rationalist tradition is clearly the case. Perhaps, given the dominant materialist milieu, the subsequent emphasis on the “materialism” side of “historical materialism” or even “dialectical materialism” might have been predicted and avoided. Similarly, that significant parts of the

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Marxist tradition have been wedded to Eurocentric humanism is also without doubt. It is also true that there are few panegyrics to Euro-capitalism to rival Marx and Engels’ Communist Manifesto, but it was never a peon of praise to some specious Western genius. Capital never embodied human progress as such. Rather, it unleashed the potential of our species to transform our world while channeling that power into the destruction of our inner and outer selves—our organic and inorganic bodies. The development of capital is the evolution of a profound structural contradiction, the establishment of a self-destructive culture. Marx, and Marxism, is nothing if not the critique of this, of the theories, practices and institutions of civil society. To go back to Hobbes for a moment, the modernist contradiction between gemeinschaft and gesellschaft was eloquently played out in the pages of Leviathan. Hobbes pitted his modernist “materialism” against the logic of Aristotle’s view of social nature and the forms of practical and moral reasoning that followed from it; he staged the hegemonic struggle between classical/aristocratic and bourgeois humanisms. For his part, Marx’s critique of gesellschaft was always rooted in conceptions of conviviality drawn from Aristotle.4 While his account of the contradictions of modernity is not itself Aristotelian, and while his own sense of human possibility entailed a radical critique of pre-modern humanism, his account of the real and moral contradictions of capital are unintelligible without reference back to this heritage. Terry Eagleton, reviewing Fredric Jameson on Utopia, writes: The only image of the future is the failure of the present. The prophet is not a pinstriped clairvoyant who assures us our future is secure, but a ragged outcast howling in the wilderness who warns us that unless we change our ways, we are unlikely to have any future at all. (Eagleton 2006, p. 25) Rajani Kanth’s Against Eurocentrism, however, is far from being a lone warning cry. In their Afflicted Powers, Retort, the Bay Area Collective, develop Luxemburg’s account of the earlier period of modernist war for our own times (Boal et al. 2005). Not only is peace revealed as no more than a prelude to further war, the culture of peace itself is “less and less able to offer its subjects ways to live in the present” (Stallabrass 2006, p. 93). These dark ref lections on our times provoke determinedly familiar reactions. Responding to Afflicted Powers, Julian Stallabrass takes Retort, and by implication Kanth, to task: Modernity needs to be thought of as a process which produces blood, filth and war, and, alongside them, their antinomies: ethics, philosophy and the demand for democracy. (p. 106) C. B. Macpherson also noted how the liberal tradition has two faces, that turned to the market and speaking the language of political economy, and

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that looking to human fulfillment and speaking ethics, philosophy and democracy (Macpherson 1973). Stallabrass, though, is surely right in that the impact of social movements for real democracy must never be underestimated. Popular resistance to the anti-culture has indeed done much to slow and block the modernist colonization of culture, or to nurture the roses on briars of the present. Rajani Kanth reminds us of the significance of this antinomy, of the deep and unbreakable complicity between the positive and negative sides of modernity. He reminds us how they are its Janus faces. In so doing he has given us the gift of an uncommonly passionate and eloquent exploration of the unwarranted claims modernism makes on behalf of Eurocentrism. He demands we confront our ambivalence to modernity: we have to take it or leave it, with all that entails. Despite what Kanth says about Marx, there are clear affiliations between the Marxian tradition and his account of the problems of modernity. It would be just as wrong to dismiss critical realism as another modernist materialism. As we struggle to find the right attitude to our present predicament, we do ourselves no favours if we reject such intellectual riches. The sentiments of Immanuel Wallerstein’s endorsement are right in saying that this book “sometimes exaggerates, never misreads.” Rajani Kanth brings a fundamental problem of our age into full view. Value, law and the rationality of progressive civil society are all both defining characteristics of the habitus of the age as well as the sources of its deformities. There is, though, one-sidedness to this damning portrait, which relies too much on overturning the hierarchy of values instituted by civil society. This is, without question, a vitally necessary task, but there are other aspects of the stories modernity tells about itself which are of equal significance. Against Eurocentrism does not complete the critique of civil society, but a more rounded one will always be in debt to it. Notes 1. See, for instance, Charles Taylor’s recent works on the Imaginary Institution of Modernity. Charles Taylor, “Modern Social Imaginaries,” Public Culture, vol. 14, no. 1, 2002, pp. 91–124 (p. 91). 2. Slavoj Zizek’s work exactly parallels this in relation to the modern subject. My thanks to Katrina Palmer for introducing me to this body of work in her unpublished paper, “Slavoj Zizek Meets Itchy and Scratchy.” 3. See John Hobson, The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, as an important piece of historical revisionism. 4. Scott Miekle, Essentialism in The Thought of Karl Marx, London: Duckworth, 1985. In a paper given to the Marx and Philosophy Society, Miekle describes Marx’s sense of horror at the moral vacuum he discovered in political economy—the same sense of horror Rajani Kanth expresses throughout Against Eurocentrism.

Bibliography Boal, Ian, T. J. Clark, Joseph Matthews, and Michael Watts, Afflicted Powers: Capital and Spectacle in a New Age of War, London: Verso, 2005.

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Eagleton, Terry, “Making a Break,” Review of Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and other Science Fictions by Fredric Jameson, London: Verso, 2005. London Review of Books, vol. 28, no. 5, 2006. Hobson, John, The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Hostettler, Nick and A. Norrie, “Are Critical Realist Ethics Foundationalist,” in Justin Cruickshank, ed., Critical Realism the Difference It Makes, London: Routledge, 2003. Kanth, Rajani, Capitalism and Social Theory: Essays and Inquiry, London: M. E. Sharpe, 1992. ———, Breaking with the Enlightenment: Twilight of History and the Rediscovery of Utopia, London: Humanities Press, 1997. Luxemburg, Rosa, “The Junius Pamphlet: The Crisis in German Social Democracy” (1916), in Mary-Alice Waters, ed., Rosa Luxemburg Speaks, New York: Pathfinder Press, 1970, p. 262. Macpherson, C. B., Democratic Theory, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973. Miekle, Scott, Essentialism in the Thought of Karl Marx, London: Duckworth, 1985. Palmer, Katrina, “Slavoj Zizek Meets Itchy and Scratchy,” unpublished paper. Stallabrass, Julian, “Spectacle and Terror,” New Left Review, vol. 37, 2006. Taylor, Charles, “Modern Social Imaginaries,” Public Culture, vol. 14, no. 1, 2002, pp. 91–124.

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I N T RODUC T ION

Challenging Eurocentrism: 45 Theses R aja n i K a n n e pa l l i K a n t h

It is high time, in this Late Era, the High Noon of Modernism, to articulate a true Cosmology for the Sciences and the Humanities, replacing that tendentious legacy of Misogyny and Misanthropy bequeathed us by the European Enlightenment, namely, Modernism. In that vein, I offer the following Theses, for due consideration, not for “debate” or “argument,” which is the rather fruitless Modernist Way, but for serious, sobrietous reflection. There is no God’s-Eye View of the World: so, all is couched here in the implicit belief in the Suchness of Things, in the inherent Maybe-ness of Phenomena, and in their Ineffable Many-Sidedness, Methodological Tenets of Ancient Jain Philosophy, circa Fifth century BC which, like so much that is unknown to Modernist audiences, is amongst the World’s foremost Scientific Traditions. 1. We are, contrary to the ruling precepts of Judeo-Christian Ideology, Self-realized, and Self-realizing, Animals at all times: notions of Progress and Regress, thereby, carry no valency [except as purely arbitrary constructions]. 2. Nature has programmed us in many ways: so life on Earth, in its Cosmic sense, is beyond Anthropic notions of Good and Evil, no matter how inescapable such judgments might appear to be. Theorem# A: Men are endowed with the Instinct to Kill, Women with the Instinct to Nurture, quite regardless of Culturally specified Roles and Responsibilities that mediate such Drives. Men and Women constitute therefore Two Distinct Sub-Species, occupying differing Ontic and Epistemic Spaces. Their respective “Cluster of Traits,” I title the Paradigm of Masculinity and the Paradigm of Femininity. 3. As Hominids, we are endowed with no special tilt toward either Equity or Justice; recall that Nature, proverbially, is “red in tooth and claw”: and so are we. 4. Our Species-Being is Trans-human, it’s what we share with the broader genus of Hominids.

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5. The “Meaning of Life,” if one exists at all, might simply be To Be, not To Become: and life is only “solitary, nasty, brutish and short”—under uniquely Modernist Ontology, Epistemology, and Practices. 6. Modernism, was first erected in Europe, whence its synonymity with Eurocentrism, on the Metaphysical Triad of: (a) a near blind “Faith” in Science, (b) a self-serving, and Triumphalist, Belief in Progress, and (c) a Philosophy of rampant Materialism [a Fourth Adjunct would be the readiness to deploy illimitable Statist Violence to achieve Policy Ends: to cite even the great Libertarian, J. S. Mill, it’s quite right to “ force people to be free”]. 7. Modernist Civil Society is a fateful innovation, set apart from the Two prior Universal Archetypes: the hoary Natural Society of Tribe, imbued with the Cooperative Paradigm of Femininity, and the Masculinist Social Frame of Empire, run through with the eternal Dialectic of War. It appears, epistemically, when Masculinist Greed overcomes the more mundane Masculinist drives for Power and Domination, subverting, in process, the complex of Feminine Hospitalities implicit in Familial/Tribal society. 8. Modernism constructs a rabid, Masculinist, “Political Economy of Interests”—the fount of All putative “Social Contract” notions of Society— extinguishing wherever possible our Primal, Feminine, “Moral Society of Affections.” Theorem# B: It is this Gratuitous Ravagement of the Gratuity of Kinship and Affinity that lies at the base, and is the Root Cause, of All our Modernist Alienations. At its very Zenith, this Path leads us only to our emergent, contemporary reality of a Casino Economy, a Video Culture, and a Techno-Fascist Polity. Theorem# C: Anthropic Society is based on Reciprocal, Affective Ties, not “Social Contracts.” 9. Patriarchy, an Anthropic Universal, repeatedly unseats all our naïve Plans for Amelioration. The best one can do here has already been achieved historically by Tribal Society: to imprison Men’s murderous impulses within the healing Matrix of Natural Affinity/Kinship [in effect, the Anthropic Utopia has always been both Immanent and Pre-achieved: it is in no need of the gratuitous Caricature of Modernist Invention]. 10. Modernist Utopianism, More to Marx, which has martyred millions is, at best, a plaintive protest at our uninspiring Anthropic Fate; at worst, the devious plan of dangerous madmen seeking, as ever, Absolute Power. 11. Indeed, all Modernist Agendas, of the Left or Right, need to be categorically rejected as specious. Theorem# D: Men, in their Collective aspect, are not to be trusted with Power, and Modernist Patriarchs, devoid of many “natural stabili[z]ers,” least of all. Theorem# E: Indeed, all Modernist Paths, Left or Right, lead only to swift and sure Perdition. 12. Modernist Ideologies are both banal and destructive: they hold aloft the barren/dissembling/tendentious slogans of Equality and Freedom, the better only to ensnare us into serving the greater Glory/Greed of the Ruling Orders.

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13. Modernist Nation-States [constructed on the notion of bellum omnia contra omnes], much as Civil Society, are imposed, Inauthentic Entities, uniquely European in provenance, and devoid of Anthropic Meaning, that serve only to deceive and/or Alienate the Subject Orders: they neither correspond to, nor serve, our Real Anthropic Needs/Natures. 14. Civil Society—the Preeminent Domain of all our Anti-Social drives and the High Icon of Liberals—is itself held together only by sheer Force, Economic Dependency, and Propaganda. Theorem# F: Economics is but the Crown Jewel of the Hegemonic Ideology of Civil Society, i.e., Modernism. It is a Program that uniquely promotes the Modernist Agenda, not the “Science” it pretends to be. 15. Democracy, reducing to a mere Voting Rule, is oft the preferred internal tool for Ruling Strata, when in a State of Equipoise, to Resolve Differences, wherever possible, without bloodshed. As such, it is far from being a Modernist invention. But it is a patent fraud as far as Subject Peoples in Civil Society are concerned, and functions merely as an Ideological Instrument of Mass-Deception. Theorem# G: Tribal Formations aim at, and achieve, Consensual, and hence Convivial, Modes of Existence, far beyond the imagination of Modernism. 16. Modernist Institutions that rule the globe today are uniquely Germanic in origin: i.e., German Protestantism wedded to Anglo-Saxon Mercantilism. As Max Weber well understood, Protestant Theology and Capitalist Ideology are near-identical and homologous. 17. Indeed, as an aside, Northern Europe first annexed the Legal / Commercial accomplishments of Southern Europe, [the so-called Renaissance], which was part of a larger Pan-Mediterranean Civilization, itself fertilized by Egyptian/Indian/Chinese ideas, and next garnered the Ideational/Material resources of the colonized Non-Europeans [viz., the so-called, Enlightenment/ Industrial Revolution]. The North produced little, but knew How to Appropriate: to this day, that basic pattern, of a globe under the Domination of Anglo-Saxon institutional Hegemony, has not yet altered. 18. The only instruments that Northern Europe truly perfected, above all other Anthropic Species, are the mechanisms material to Waging War, and the means ideological of Defrauding Peoples, that is, Cannon and Chicanery. To this day, it is these that remain the Twin Bases of their near total Hegemony. 19. As Hominids, i.e., as Mammals, it is not Liberty and Equality we seek, but Care, Reciprocity, Consideration, Nurturance, and Warmth. Contra Marx, our Species-being is not expressed in Labor [that, regrettably, is a uniquely Protestant notion] but in Play and Conviviality, albeit within the frame of societal and cultural norms. It is this, immanent, “Sympathy of Life” that Modernism destroys. 20. The Life-or-Death struggles that bestride the world today are now inevitably between the Mammals and the Reptiles [i.e., between Civilization and Modernism]. 21. Darwin published far too late for Marx to renounce his inescapable Judeo-Christian Ideology, carrying idealistic, delusional, and fantastic

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notions of “Human Perfectibility.” Unless God, perchance, is an Ape, we are not molded in His/Her/Its image. 22. Modernism is the ultimate Iron Cage within a Bell Jar: there has been no societal order on this Planet that demands more Incessant Labors from the many, and yields us less Leisure and Conviviality than Modernist Civil Society. Theorem# H: Universal Egoism [Hegel] breeds only Universal Discontent [and Existential Despair]. 23. Within Modernism, there is no such thing as a meaningful “Social Science” divorced from the eternal Agendas of Domination and Resistance, i.e., the perpetual Masculinist struggles between, what Karl Mannheim termed, Ideology and Utopia. Theorem# I: Indeed, Modernist Social Science is simply the secular version of Judeo-Christian Ideology, and is equally Protestant and Monotheistic. 24. Further, this Modus of Science, is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for Emancipation from Modernist Grids. Theorem# J: Anthropic Oppressions are first Felt, and then possibly Acted upon: they do not require to be Theorized, except as an effete Exercise in Abstraction. 25. The Newtonian, Reductionist, Materialist philosophy undergirding Modernist Science, is both false and obsolete. Matter is not dead and inert: but conscious, self-aware, and, occasionally, articulate. We, ourselves, are living Testimony to that. Indeed, we have moved, within European Thinking, from Deterministic Physics [1600–1925], via Indeterminist Physics [1925–1995], to Self-Deterministic Physics [1995–?] today. Regrettably, however, most Modernist Science/ Ideology, Left or Right, is still trapped, somewhat immaturely, in Phase One of this dramatic Evolution. 26. Modernist Science has long monopolized a species of Instrumental Knowledge; but there are, and have always been, great Competing Traditions, ruthlessly suppressed by Modernism, that are now, albeit slowly, reviving globally. Aside from Reason, the Human Ape is pre-given both Instinct and Intuition, even upon rare occasion, Revelation, the latter tapping into a reservoir of what Jung called, after Vedic Philosophy, the “Collective Consciousness,” a species of Quantum Interconnectedness: and Modernists barely know the power of the latter for having neglected/disparaged these Bountiful Avenues, for centuries. 27. The Fundamental Hominid Condition is Autonomy and Self-Regulation, not “Liberty” or “Freedom,” which are mere Modernist dissemblings: Theorem# K: Both Capitalism and Socialism, the Tweedledum and Tweedledee of Modernist Discourse, deny this Natural Condition, and so are, sooner or later, Prefigured to Perish. 28. The only meaningful “freedoms” are not freedoms at all, but vital Anthropic Necessities: Freedom from Want, Fear, and Indignity—and no Modernist Formation has ever been able, even if/when willing, to guarantee those, in practice.

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29. Civilization, in the sense of the Pacification of Anthropic Existence, is effected by near invisible Gender Struggles, not Class struggles, which are Masculinist struggles primarily, if not exclusively, about Power. Theorem# L: Women, via their Paradigm of Femininity, are the Trustees Eternal of Anthropic Civilization. Theorem# M: Stated simply, Women Build inescapably, and incessantly, in this area: and Men, equally invariably, and uninterruptedly, Destroy. 30. Aside from Gender, and Inter-Tribalist, tensions, Change arises within Anthropic Society also through the continuous Dialectic of Random Individual Deviance pitted against the Norms of Group Conformity [similar, homologously, to unexpected “mutations” in Darwinian Evolutionary Theory]. 31. Theorem# N: It appears almost a Natural Fact that Micro/Individual behavior is “Free” [i.e., relatively Unpredictable] whilst Macro/Group behavior is more “Constrained” [Predictable]. 32. Being Herd Animals, we follow Totemic Charisma, quite naturally; and can be led/misled, willy-nilly, as such leadership chooses. [Anthropic Politics, thereby, is not, necessarily “rational.”] Theorem# O: Charismatic Leaders, thereby, are oft the Characteristic Tools of Radical, overarching Anthropic Change, for better or for worse. 33. Yet, despite these Ills/Oppressions of Anthropic Existence, there appears to be a natural shrewdness [likely a “survival” instinct] to the species that asserts itself, if only in the last instance, usually forestalling the evercumulating Doomsday Plans of our Totemic Leadership(s). 34. Anthropic Culture is Particularistic, and emphasizes Uniqueness and Difference; Modernism Standardizes, Universalizes, and Homogenizes, only as prelude to Conquest and Control. 35. The Provenance of what passes for Morality and Ethics lies in the Natural, Anthropic Species-Need to rear the vulnerable newborn, safely and securely, in the torrid war zones that Masculinity creates spontaneously. 36. Given the Natural Role of Women as the very First Natural Caregivers of Children, they become, in effect, the Original Bearers of all Human Civility. Theorem# P: Indeed, Women and Children, together, form the Fundamental, Constituent, Anthropic Units. 37. Women, Workers, Traditional/Tribal Societies all live in an Implicit or Explicit Moral Economy and, in varying degree, form the Natural Opposition to Modernism. They define, now as ever, its enduring Natural Limits. One might also add that Modernism has functioned, since about the Sixteenth century as the Colored Man’s, Women’s, Tribals’, and Workers’, overwhelming Blight, Cross, and Anathema. 38. We f lourish most naturally in Packs and Herds, i.e., in Families and Tribes [our Natural State], and inevitably, and transparently, rot and decay in “Civil Society,” succumbing to Anomie and/or Angst, or worse. 39. Theorem# Q: Being Natural Creatures, the more we dwell apart from Nature, the more Pathologies we adopt and assimilate on a continuing basis.

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40. Contrary to many views, it is not the Planet that is endangered by Modernism: We are. Indeed, if Modernism lasts much longer, it is We who will be gone, not the Planet. In fact, in terms of Species’ “rise and fall,” we may well be at the Critical Margins today. 41. Freud, prototypically trapped within the Dialectic of Civil Society, and in uniquely Modernist fashion, was wholly wrong: our Manifest Discontent is not with Civilization—but, au contraire, with the pathetic dearth of it in Modernist Society 42. Religiosity, far from being a Sop or an Opiate, is simply the Collective Intuition of a larger Cosmology than afforded by the Bleakness of the Anthropic Prospect, i.e., it is the ultimate Search for Transcendence intrinsic to our Anthropic Natures. Its Truth value, case by case, is an Open issue: not a Closed one. Theorem# R: Religion is the Spontaneous Metaphysics of the Species, and also the Evolving Repertory of its Natural Ethics. 43. Modernism fears Religion, not for its Reactionary, Delusionary leanings, but for the exact opposite: its Revolutionary/Revelatory potential. In fact, the Protestant Revolution was uniquely Modernist, i.e., reactionary, seeking to dull the Moral/Ethical force of hoary, Fundamentalist Christianity, an impediment to its own Materialist, Misanthropic Ambitions and Agendas. 44. The Meaning of Anthropic Alienation—a uniquely Modernist Condition—and, more importantly, its Antidote, must now be abundantly clear: We need (a) to Relink with our Internal Mammalian/Hominid Natures [i.e., immerse ourselves within the Affective Values of Kinship, real or ersatz], and (b) Realign ourselves with /within the Rhythms of External Nature. 45. If/When we do just this, as iterated in the previous Thesis, rejecting the Bane of Eurocentric Cosmologies, then it still is/will be, despite its inherently enigmatic nature, both a Bounteous, and Self-Fulfilling Universe, as the Bushmen and the Aboriginals, and legions of Native Cultures, have always known. Note This Paper was presented in a Special Event at the American Economic Association Meetings, Chicago, January 4, 2007: “The Challenge of Eurocentrism: A Global Review of Parameters: Festschrift Celebration of the Life and Work of Rajani Kannepalli Kanth.”

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Received Theory, Science, and Eurocentrism

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CH A P T E R

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Eurocentric Roots of the Clash of Civilizations: A Perspective from History of Science A ru n Ba l a

1. Huntington: Religion and the Clash of Civilizations In his highly controversial study The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order the political scientist Samuel Huntington argues that the end of the cold war, and the ideological conf licts which defined it, portends the return of the more ancient conf licts between the world’s different civilizations that pre-dated the ideological wars of the twentieth century. He sees civilizations as constituting the broadest cultural grouping of people and the widest cultural identities they assume short of that which separates humanity from other species (Huntington 1996, p. 43). In attempting to characterize what divides civilizations from each other Huntington argues that the most important objective element is religion. According to him the crucial distinction among humans is not their biological characteristics of physiology, head shape or color, but their cultural values and beliefs, and institutions and social structures, for “people who share ethnicity and language but differ in religion may slaughter each other” (p. 42). Although Huntington admits that civilizations have no clear-cut boundaries he maintains that we can at least identify eight major civilizations in the world today—African, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Islamic, Latin American, Orthodox, and Western. Given his religious basis for the differentiation of civilizations it is not surprising to see Huntington argue that Western civilization cannot simply be identified with modern civilization. He repudiates the notion that the West as a civilization emerged with the birth of modern ideas in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Instead he argues that Western civilization has its roots in the eighth and ninth centuries, at the time of the formation of the Holy Roman Empire, and that its distinctive features can be traced back to that period. It was then and thereafter that the West

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acquired its unique identity—its classical legacy, its roots in Christianity which separated spiritual and temporal authority, its Roman legacy of respect for the rule of law, its social pluralism with representative bodies, and finally its individualism. Thus he claims that “the West was the West long before it was modern” (p. 69). Nevertheless, the separation of modernity from Western civilization does not imply that the modern world does not have its genesis in Western culture. He argues that it is the distinctive features of Western civilization which pre-existed modernity that enabled the West to modernize before the Rest. He writes: These concepts, practices, and institutions . . . are what is Western but not modern about the West. They are also in a large part the factors which enabled the West to take the lead in modernizing itself and the world. (p. 72) In other words, civilizations outside the West which modernize benefit from the legacy of the West, although in the process of adopting modern science, technology, and its associated institutions they do not need to also assume the values associated with the West in producing them. Huntington repudiates the view, associated earlier with the political theorist Francis Fukuyama, that science would impose a uniform horizon of cultural values across the world. For Fukuyama the logic of science is the logic of modernity. We have selected modern natural science as a possible underlying “mechanism” of directional historical change, because it is the only large scale social activity that is by consensus cumulative and therefore directional. (Fukuyama 1992, p. 80) As a result Fukuyama is led to prophesize that history will end with the triumph of liberal capitalism and the market economy because of the homogenizing effect of science and its technology on all human cultures. Fukuyama is clearly adopting the nineteenth century notion that science would displace religion as the central inf luence on politics—an assumption built into the cold war ideological conf lict between scientific socialism and liberal capitalist pragmatism.1 However, Huntington sees the end of the twentieth century as revealing the fallacy of such an assumption, as the march toward the secularism linked to science came to be reversed with the emergence of political movements linked with religious identities in many countries of the world following the end of the cold war. Particularly significant for Huntington is the fact that the most intensely religious orientations were adopted not by elderly members of societies but by the young, and not by poorer peasant members but by educated white-collar workers and professionals. These observations led him to conclude that the major factor that would

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define conf lict in the emerging era would not be ideology or economics, but culture and religion. It will be a clash in which the fault lines between civilizations will become the battle lines of the future. Huntington also goes on to predict that the major confrontation of the West will be with the Chinese and Islamic civilizations. He traces it to the profound differences in the cultural values between the West and those associated with Islam and Confucian China. He describes these challenger civilizations as most likely to question the universalist pretensions of the West (Huntington 1996, pp. 20). Moreover, since these civilizations are both militarily and economically weaker than the West, he sees the strong possibility of an association of interests bringing them together in an “arms for oil” exchange. 2. Amartya Sen: Plurality of Identities and the Dialogical History of Science Huntington’s prognosis of intercivilizational relations has received many critical responses. The diplomat and philosopher Kishore Mahbubani, in his study The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East, perceives Huntington to accurately describe current world order when he writes that the West is using international institutions, military power, and economic resources to maintain its predominance and interests. However, Mahbubani rejects Huntington’s view that other civilizations pose a threat to Western values. He argues that all Asian civilizations are intent on pursuing the path of modernization taken by the West. Moreover, he notes, since modernization “describes both the physical and the ethical universe of Western societies” (Mahbubani 2008, p. 2) such a “universalization of the Western dream should therefore represent a moment of triumph for the West” (ibid., p. 5). Hence, Mahbubani maintains, the clash predicted by Huntington is not inevitable—it would develop only if the West chose to pursue its narrow economic and military interests rather than defend its core values in the new century (pp. 7–8). He writes: The philosophical West has made enormous contributions to humanity. The simple but revolutionary ideals of the equality of man (and woman) and the dignity of the individual are huge Western gifts to humanity . . . The philosophical West has also advanced human knowledge to great heights. Modern science and technology is largely a Western gift. Virtually all societies have little difficulty drinking from the deep wells of Western learning and wisdom. But the material West is different, driven more by a concern for Western interests than Western values. (Mahbubani 2008, p. 102) The historian Wang Gungwu, in his study Bind Us in Time: Nation and Civilization in Asia, also sees a positive aspect in Huntington’s study since

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it steps away from the Eurocentric assumption that Western civilization is a universal civilization destined to triumph over the rest. He writes: Western powers today might respond like the Universal Church and reaffirm that universalism is an absolute good. But less powerful civilizations may be encouraged by Huntington to believe that they might become new princes, with greatly enlarged and elevated parts to play. In the end, this is what is so stunning about The Clash of Civilizations: It is not just about the future, but may actually help to shape it. (Wang 2002, p. 272) By contrast the Nobel laureate in economics, Amartya Sen, is concerned that Huntington does not simply describe an inevitable clash of civilizations in the future, but his prediction may actually generate such a conf lict as its own self-fulfilling prophecy. Sen argues that Huntington’s prediction does not necessarily follow if we have a proper understanding of the complex structure of civilizational identities, and how they interact to produce shared scientific knowledge. According to Sen, Huntington assumes an oversimplified notion of human identities by ignoring their multilayered and complex structures. Sen writes: [W]e are diversely different. The world is frequently taken to be a collection of religions (or of “civilizations” or “cultures”), ignoring the other identities that people have and values, involving class, gender, profession, language, science, morals, and politics. (Sen 2006, p. xvi) Thus the same individual may share identities across civilizations as when an African is both Muslim and African. Moreover, Indians can be seen as having Muslim, Christian, and Hindu identities, but Huntington classifies the whole of India as Hindu. Thus, even what Huntington labels as diverse civilizations may belong to the same nation. Sen points out that this renders questionable the analytic framework within which Huntington operates, and shows why incarcerating people with overlapping identities within singular religious ones not only diminishes human beings and cultures but also makes the world more f lammable.2 Sen also appeals to the history of science to demonstrate how civilizations have engaged in a long and fruitful dialogue over time to produce valuable shared knowledge. It leads him to ask why anyone should overlook scientific interactions across civilizations as setting an example for intercivilizational relations by focusing only upon religious differences: [T]here is no empirical reason at all why the champions of the Muslim past, or for that matter the Arabic heritage, have to concentrate specifically on religious beliefs only, and not also on science and mathematics,

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to which Arab and Muslim societies have contributed so much, and which can also be a part of Muslim or Arab identity. Despite the importance of this heritage, crude classifications have tended to put science and mathematics in the basket of “Western science,” leaving other people to mine their pride in religious depths. (p. 15) He traces the emphasis on religious identities, and the marginalization of scientific thought, to the “reactive self-understanding” of the colonized mind: Indeed, the colonized mind is parasitically obsessed with the extraneous relation with the colonial powers. While the impact of such an obsession can take many different forms, that general dependency can hardly be a good basis for self-understanding . . . the nature of this “reactive self-perception” has had far-reaching effects on contemporary affairs. This includes . . . the contribution it has made to a distorted reading of the intellectual and scientific history of the world (including what is quintessentially “Western” and what has mixed heritage), and the support it has tended to give the growth of religious fundamentalism and even to international terrorism. (p. 89) As with his rejection of the singular identity model of individuals and nations, the repudiation of the singular civilizational model of science is seen by Sen as subverting Huntington’s prognosis for the future. Sen seems to think that by going beyond the Eurocentric vision of science as solely a Western achievement we can subvert Huntington’s notion of an inevitable clash of civilizations. He makes his argument by appealing to a dialogical history of science. Such dialogical approaches, that see current science as inf luenced by premodern scientific traditions from many cultures, have become increasingly prominent since Needham in the 1950s developed his monumental project Science and Civilization in China that showed the seminal inf luences of Chinese science and technology on modern science.3 Nevertheless, Sen’s argument continues to leave open the possibility of defending a weaker version of Eurocentrism that would be sufficient to carry through Huntington’s thesis. Huntington could concede that significant ideas, empirical discoveries, and technologies were appropriated by the West from other civilizations to construct modern science. He could even recognize that these contributions from the outside were absolutely indispensable for modern science, and that the West could not have developed them independently. Nevertheless, these concessions still leave it open for Huntington to argue that it was the core values in the West, prior to the modern era, which explain why the West and not any other civilization was receptive to engaging in a dialogue with the Rest. No other civilization had the requisite values that permitted and promoted such dialogical engagements to produce modern science.

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Arun Bala 3. Ibn Warraq: Constructing a Eurocentric Defense of the Dialogical West

An argument along these lines has been made by Ibn Warraq in his recent book Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said’s Orientalism. Ibn Warraq is quite prepared to affirm that the West developed modern science through a dialogue with other cultures, but claims that it is distinctively unique values within the West that made such dialogue possible. Moreover, he goes beyond Huntington to affirm that other civilizations must assimilate these core values of the West if they are to modernize and absorb the discoveries of modern science. Modernization inevitably involves Westernization—a process which would lead to a clash of civilizations if it is resisted on cultural or religious grounds. According to Ibn Warraq the dialogical receptivity of the West to other cultures, and their ideas, is oddly at variance with the image of the West painted by the literary intellectual Edward Said. Said maintains that the West constructed false and deforming images of the Orient to serve its project of dominating and exploiting, rather than accurately understanding it. Ibn Warraq contests Said’s views. He shows that there are many instances where Western thinkers were enamored of the East, and very receptive to ideas from civilizations outside—something even acknowledged and praised by many Eastern thinkers.4 Indeed such Western receptivity far exceeded Eastern interest in Western ideas at the dawn of the modern era. He explains this difference by arguing that the West carried from the beginning a framework of values—what he terms the “tutelary guiding lights” of the West—that made Western thinkers uniquely receptive to ideas from other cultures. More specifically, Ibn Warraq identifies three key values that he takes to separate the West from the Rest—rationalism, universalism, and the capacity for self-criticism. He argues that rationalism has three component elements—belief in truth, belief in objective knowledge, and valuing knowledge for the sake of knowledge, all of which can be traced to its Ancient Greek heritage. Universalism involves belief in the unity of mankind—a value that makes the West receptive to ideas and customs of people outside its own culture. He traces this openness to “the Other” as originating in the Roman concept of universal law. The third value of self-criticism is taken by him to be the redemptive grace of Western culture which, despite the many imperialist mistakes and iniquities of the West, nevertheless allows the West to correct and improve its behavior and cultural institutions by being receptive to criticisms emanating from within and outside. Ibn Warraq also argues that other characteristic features often identified to distinguish the West from other civilizations can also be traced to these three tutelary guiding lights.5 Ibn Warraq’s makes his appeal to distinctive European values to explain the rise of modern science and society, by also invoking the presence of other values which precluded the rise of science elsewhere—especially in

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the Islamic world. He argues that here core values within the civilization viewed with suspicion the notions of rationalism, universalism, and selfcriticism he associates with the West. He writes: Under Islam, orthodoxy has always been suspicious of “knowledge for its own sake.” Unfettered intellectual inquiry is deemed dangerous to the faith. Muslims made a distinction between the native or Islamic sciences and foreign sciences; the former consisted of religion (Koranic exegesis, the science of hadith, jurisprudence, and scholastic theology) and language (grammar, lexicography, rhetoric, and literature). . . . But the study of these foreign sciences was always looked upon with suspicion and even animosity, which increased in the later Middle Ages . . . Europe’s relationship with the past, which, with its twin peaks of Athens and Jerusalem, was to continue to enrich Western civilization throughout its history. Islamic countries, on the other hand, totally rejected their past and all the ancient pre-Islamic glories, from the civilization of the Indus River to the monuments of Mesopotamia and Egypt, as belonging to a period of ignorance and barbarism, Jahiliyya. (Ibn Warraq 2007, p. 65) Hence, according to Ibn Warraq the three tutelary guiding lights of the West—rationalism, universalism, and self-criticism—were all lacking in Islam. This, more than anything else, would explain why modern science did not, and could not, emerge within Islamic civilization. His approach follows a general strategy adopted in Eurocentric histories of science where the question “Why did modern science develop in the West?” is often followed by the second question “Why did modern science not develop in civilization X?” where “X” may stand for Islamic, Chinese, Indian, or some other civilization. Consider the answers given by historian Colin Ronan in his Cambridge Illustrated History of the World’s Science for the failure of modern science to emerge in Chinese, Indian, or Islamic civilizations. Let us start with Ronan’s explanation for why modern science failed to develop in China. At the end of his long discussion of the discoveries and contributions of China to science Ronan answers the question “Why did modern science not develop in China?” as follows: [D]espite the fact that in so many fields Chinese science reached at a very early date a level of knowledge equal or superior to that of Europe in 1500, there was no “scientific revolution” in China: the breakthrough into the era of powerful modern science occurred in Europe not in the East. Why should this have been? It is plainly impossible to give a categorical answer to such a question, but it may in part be connected with . . . [the] close association of science and the State bureaucracy. In China, the urgent impulse to exploration, to new discovery for its own sake never developed as it did in Renaissance Europe, and there was no aspiration to break the mould

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of existing orthodoxies as inspired men such as Galileo. And one of the reasons for this must lie with the prevalence of the efficient but traditional bureaucracy of China, its rules and outlook defined by Confucius many centuries before. (Ronan 1983, p. 186) Ronan explains the failure of the Chinese to create modern science by attributing it to a variety of different causes—the Chinese culture’s peculiar lack of curiosity, the incapacity of the Chinese to value knowledge for its own sake, Chinese traditional conservatism, and the obstacles created by Confucian dogmatism. Hence, Ronan is pointing to the absence of at least two factors in China that Ibn Warraq sees as crucial for the rise of modern thought in the West—not only did the Chinese not have the rational orientation that motivated the search for knowledge for its own sake, but their Confucian heritage also hindered their capacity for self-criticism. Ronan’s judgment for the failure of modern science to develop in India despite major achievements in certain areas of science, especially mathematics, also points to deficiencies in its culture: In the period before the scientific revolution, Hindu science made a number of original contributions that were to be importantly developed in China, in Islam or in Europe. Nevertheless, perhaps because of the prevailing religious tone of the Indian civilization, it never developed into a full-f ledged science, and over the past 200 years science in the Indian subcontinent has had a primarily Western f lavor. (p. 196) As with China Ronan blames cultural factors for the failure of modern science to arise in India, but whereas Confucian values are faulted for the case of China here the cause is traced to Indian religious culture. Although he is not exactly clear about how Indian religions obstructed science, he seems to be suggesting that it might have something to do with their other-worldliness and their skepticism concerning reason as a path for arriving at the highest knowledge. From the point of view of Ibn Warraq it would make Indian culture lack two of the tutelary guiding lights of Western culture rooted in its Greco-Roman heritage—the desire for knowledge for its own sake, and the capacity for self-criticism.6 Despite his own documentation of the important contributions made by Arabic science to medieval European science, Ronan ends his discussion of this tradition by proposing another negative diagnosis attributable to the Islamic religion: Yet although the early Arabs and the whole Islamic world studied science and made notable contributions, their achievements came to an end; they never extended to modern science. Islam extols the value of revelation above all else: it is the supreme authority . . . There then developed the attitude of passive acceptance. This attitude was inevitably inimical to independent scientific thinking, as intellectual

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traditionalism won the day. Islam never separated religion and science into watertight compartments as we do now, and the torch of science had to be carried on by others. (p. 240)7 Ronan’s explanation for the failure of modern science to emerge in Arabic culture imputes that it lacked all the three virtues that made possible its rise in the West—a commitment to rationality, universality and self- criticism. This is in complete agreement with Ibn Warraq’s diagnosis. Clearly Sen’s attempt to argue that we can counter Eurocentric arrogance, as well as reactive fundamentalism, by pointing to the fact that science developed through a dialogue of civilizations is not quite sufficient to rebut Huntington’s thesis that we are entering an era of the inevitable clash of civilizations driven by radically different value systems. Indeed the growth of modern science through intercultural dialogue could well be conceded without relinquishing the notion that the motivational, moral, and epistemological values making this possible are of Western parentage. If other civilizations are defined by values not conducive to modern science, as Ibn Warraq and Ronan suppose, the process of modernization would necessarily involve some degree of Westernization—a process likely to feed both the Western arrogance and reactive fundamentalism that incite a clash of civilizations. 4. The Dialogical Origins of the Modern West However, Ibn Warraq’s attempt to trace the core values that led to modern science into the Greco-Roman heritage of the West is questionable. We will now proceed to show that the values Ibn Warraq sees as integral to the rise of modern science are not of Greco-Roman parentage. They became a part of the West as a result of the integration of some values associated with Islamic science with other values associated with Chinese science. This is not often acknowledged because much of the literature on cross-cultural interactions in the history of modern science, beginning with Joseph Needham’s documentation of the contributions of Chinese science and technology, has focused on technological, empirical, and theoretical contributions of non-European cultures. But when it comes to methodological and epistemological aspects there is a tendency to assume that modern science has its roots in the rationalist, universalist, and selfcritical values of the West—precisely the presumption that informs Ibn Warraq’s study Defense of the West. As we will see all these three values are the outcome of dialogical exchanges of the West with other cultures— especially Muslim and Chinese civilization. This would make it possible to defend the notion that the history of science offers a counter-argument to Huntington—an argument that not only includes the technological, empirical, and theoretical exchanges noted by Sen, but also the normative dialogue that he fails to emphasize.

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Consider the value of rationalism that Ibn Warraq sees as rooted in the Ancient Greek heritage of the West. He characterizes rationalism as having three aspects—the belief in truth, the belief in objective knowledge, and the belief that one should pursue knowledge for its own sake. However, Ibn Warraq’s identification of Greek rationalism with the rationalism of modern science is quite dubious. For the Greeks rationalism—apprehending truth directly, reaching indubitable objective knowledge, and pursuing such knowledge for its own sake—only applied to the world of ideas. For Plato such knowledge did not pertain to empirical matters—it was only ideally exemplified in the world of mathematics, especially geometry. Even the empiricist Aristotle did not see knowledge of the physical world as possessing the certainty of mathematical truths, and deemed the application of mathematics to the world as only giving us approximations to the truth, and hence neither objective nor certain knowledge. By contrast the rationalism of modern science goes far beyond the Ancient Greek views exemplified by either Platonism or Aristotelianism since it involves the belief that mathematical truths are embodied in the world. Modern rationalism is the notion Galileo defended when he claimed that the book of nature is written in the language of mathematics (see Jesseph 2004). It is the belief Newton had when he took his inverse square law of gravitation to apply to all bodies in the universe with absolute exactness and precision, and not merely as a good approximation. The same belief drives modern physicists when they assume that quantum mechanical mathematical laws apply with exactness to bodies as tiny as strings and as large as the expanding universe. The notion of mathematical relations discovered by reason as exactly, and not just approximately, applicable to nature was never a part of Greek science. The Egyptian-Greek mathematician Euclid of Alexandria considered his geometrical theorems to apply without qualification only to ideal mathematical objects, not real physical objects which cannot be perfect triangles or perfect circles. A few centuries later the Egyptian-Greek astronomer Ptolemy of Alexandria took his mathematical model of the universe as an attempt to save the phenomena. Both Euclid and Ptolemy also studied optics and, significantly, both were satisfied to offer a mathematical account of optics that presupposed a highly implausible physical theory of optics—namely Plato’s extramission theory which supposes that we see by virtue of a physical emanation from the eyes impinging on objects in a manner that the blind see by using a stick to contact objects ahead of them. Even Archimedes of Syracuse, often seen as the archetypal embodiment of Greek rationalism, only worked with idealized levers moving on frictionless fulcra and weightless pulleys. The notion that mathematical relations with all their exactness could apply to the real world perceived through the senses only came to be seen as possible after Ibn al-Haytham’s ray theory of optics became the dominant paradigm in medieval Europe. Light rays could be seen as travelling in perfect straight lines when unimpeded, and their ref lections and

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refractions could be viewed as obeying geometrical laws in all their exactness. Hence, al-Haytham’s theory of optics became the first exemplar in the history of science where the phenomena of nature could be treated as perfectly obedient to mathematical laws and relations. Moreover, it produced a transformation of aesthetic sensibilities in Europe. By making possible the revolution of perspectivism in art it made European artists believe that they could pictorially represent the world exactly as it appears to the senses. By integrating mathematics with sensory experience al-Haytham also laid the basis for the rationalism associated with modern science, which Ibn Warraq now projects back onto ancient Greece.8 Consider the concept of universality. Ibn Warraq argues that this is traceable to the Roman belief in universal law as applicable to everyone. However, it is difficult to see why the notion of universal law in the juridical sense for society should ever lead to any belief in universal law as applicable to the material universe. Indeed the Roman notion of separate laws for Roman citizens, and for those in the colonies, fitted much better with the Aristotelian idea that we live in a bifurcated cosmos—a cosmos in which bodies grow and dissipate as elements combine to generate changing phenomena in the sublunary sphere, in contrast to the bodies that remain unchanged except for performing eternal, cyclical, circular motions in the superlunary heavens beyond. Indeed the concept of universal laws of nature that had to be empirically discovered only emerged after the Arabic philosopher al-Ghazali criticized the Greek rationalist approach to knowledge. Plato had argued that the first principles of any science should be rationally discovered and justified, but Aristotle allowed them to be empirically discovered provided they could seen as rationally self-evident once apprehended. Ghazali rejected the notion that the sciences had to begin with self-evident first principles. He argued that assuming the existence of rationally self-evident first principles limited the omnipotence of God. It suggested that God could not have created a different universe obedient to principles other than the ones discovered in the existent universe. However, Ghazali argued, God being omnipotent could have created a world obedient to different first principles. It led Ghazali to maintain that the regularities of nature we observe are simply the habits of God. Hence these regularities cannot be discovered by appeal to reason alone since God could have adopted other habits. They can only be discovered and justified by empirical observation. Thus rational self-evidence cannot be the basis for science. Ghazali’s arguments against Greek rationalism inf luenced European thinkers. His philosophical views not only liberated European medieval scholars from dogmatic adherence to out-of-date teachings of Greek science, but also encouraged them to explore other ways in which the world could have been constructed. In exploring such alternative constructions of the world, their belief in God as an omnipotent creator also led them to assume that his edicts would extend to the universe as a whole. Hence, Ghazali’s argument from the omnipotence of God not only led to the

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modern idea that the laws of nature are not self-evident first principles but had to be empirically discovered, but also the modern notion that the regularities of nature obey universal laws. It is the universalism of natural law that came to be born with modern science which Ibn Warraq projects back into juridical Roman law.9 Finally Ibn Warraq sees self-criticism as the redemptive grace of Western society. It is the ability to follow reason wherever it leads, and accept legitimate criticism if it can be demonstrated to be well-founded. It is the idea that knowledge is continually revised and improved through critical ref lection. Such a notion of progressive knowledge is quite alien to Ancient Greek and medieval European thought. In Greek rationalism the self-evident first principles of a science are not open to critical subversion; and in medieval Christian theology criticism of the foundational principles of revelation are not entertained. Actually the idea of progressive improvement of knowledge through criticism and revision only became dominant in Europe with the rise of modern technological culture. The initial impetus for European technological development came from the f low of Chinese mechanical technologies into Europe during the medieval period. These technologies appear to have been inspired by Chinese correlative cosmological views.10 Such views fostered a tinkering orientation to mechanical systems in order to see how the behavior of one part would change with changes to other parts—precisely the trial and error process we generally deploy to improve technology. Indeed Francis Bacon’s experimental method can be seen as a systematization of Chinese correlative experimentalism. What Bacon did, as the Chinese did not, was to systematize the tinkering orientation by creating new contexts never found in nature—torturing nature, as he put it—in order to discover those invariant correlations that occurred in all experimental contexts. Thus it was the inspiration provided by the impact of Chinese technologies, and the experimental tinkering orientation to mechanical discovery implicitly carried in the technologies transmitted to Europe, that led Bacon to the ‘discovery of how to discover’—a process that set in motion a systematic approach to discovery and innovation through continual criticism. Hence the notions of rationalism, universalism, and self-criticism that Ibn Warraq associates with modern thought, and modern science, developed in Europe as a result of its dialogical interactions with the sciences of Muslim and Chinese civilizations—precisely the civilizations Huntington sees as combining in adversarial relations to confront the West in the future. 5. Eurocentric History and the Clash of Civilizations We have seen Sen argue that the champions of an Islamic past should pay more attention to the contributions made by Arabic science and

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mathematics rather than focus on religious beliefs. According to Sen, only the colonized mind’s obsession with its colonial past and its reactive selfunderstanding of history leads it to nurture the singular identity that feeds religious fundamentalism. But by paying attention only to the colonized mind, Sen ignores the far more pervasive Eurocentrism of the colonizing mind. Eurocentric history of science, the standard history that pervades the teaching of the natural sciences, continues to connect modern science positively with Western cultural values, and negatively with non-Western ones. This is ultimately what motivates the reactive self-perception of the colonized mind. Sen does not address this issue because he sees science and religion as located in two distinct historical compartments, despite the fact that most historians of modern science adopt the Eurocentric notion that science is grounded in the cultural and religious values of the West. However, we have seen that the core values often seen as facilitating the Western discovery of modern science, and the modernity associated with it, are also the outcome of dialogical inf luences from Muslim and Chinese cultures. It happened after the Iberian Peninsula came under the direct inf luence of Islamic civilization for over seven hundred years, and Eastern Europe came under the inf luence of Chinese civilization when parts of Russia fell under Mongol sovereignty for nearly three hundred years. Hence, for three centuries, before the Moors were expelled from the Iberian Peninsula in 1492 and the Mongol Tartars from Russia in 1480, the territories of Western Europe were sandwiched between Islamic inf luences emanating from the West and Chinese inf luences from the East. In many ways the European Renaissance was more the result of Islamic and Chinese inf luences which combined in Europe, than the impact of ancient Greece. Even major figures, such as the archetypal Renaissance man Leonardo da Vinci, can be seen as ref lecting the dual inf luences of Islamic and Chinese culture in the interest he shows in both perspectival painting and mechanical technologies. It was the intercultural exchanges that took place in Europe which consolidated the values of rationalism, universalism, and self-criticism which Ibn Warraq treats as perennial to the West. We have to conclude that Huntington could not be more wrong when he supposes that the West was the West before it was modern. Indeed the West became the West precisely in the process of becoming modern. Moreover, the two most important inf luences that reshaped the medieval West into the modern West emanated from Islamic and Chinese civilizations. It is surely ironical that the origins of modernity in the West, that formed to a large extent the distinctive identity of the West, is itself the outcome of a dialogue of the West with precisely those two civilizations Huntington sees as likely to combine against the West in the future. This makes his futurological prediction of a clash of civilizations, continuing a trend from the past obscured by the cold war, highly dubious. Only by falling under the sway of a Eurocentric history of modernity will we continue to fuel the notion of an inevitable clash of civilizations.

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Arun Bala is Visiting Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Toronto and Visiting Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore. 1. However, Fukuyama’s prediction need not be seen as necessarily in contradiction with Huntington’s prognosis. It is possible to suppose that the end of history may be reached only as the final outcome of a clash of civilizations. 2. This is also emphasized by Wang: Not surprisingly, Huntington has some difficulties in showing convincingly how the larger and mixed populations of Civilizational States can be politically coherent and loyal if their only common bonds depend on civilizational values. He comes close to defining identities for Asia (Sinic, Hindu, Islamic and Japanese) in terms of religion, which is unconvincing, especially as he draws away from this approach in dealing with Western, Latin American, Orthodox and African identities. In those instances, Huntington seems to assume that three of these groupings represent different faces of one religion—Christianity—while the potential African Civilizational State might be torn between Christianity and Islam. (Wang 2002, p. 267) 3. See Needham (1954 and 1956), Bala (2006), Hobson (2004), Joseph (2000), and Saliba (2007). 4. In his Chapter 4, entitled “Indian Orientalists,” Ibn Warraq cites many Indian thinkers who praised the achievements of early orientalists such as Henry Thomas Colebrooke, Sir Williams Jones, Anquetil-Duperron, Max Muller, and others associated with the Asiatic Society of Bengal for translating and bringing to light Indian philosophical, literary and religious texts that had a significant impact not only on the Bengal Renaissance in India but also the Romantic movement in Europe. 5. Ibn Warraq writes Western civilization can, and has been, characterized in several other ways. I think many of the suggested distinguishing characteristics of the West, such as the separation of spiritual and temporal authority, can be said to derive from one or more of the three golden threads . . . Politics involves willing and free participation, discussion: in short, rationalism, dissent, the right to change one’s mind, and the right to oppose and disagree—that is, self-criticism—without recourse or appeal to divine commands or holy scriptures. Similarly, another defining feature, the rule of law, the thought that law is central to civilized existence and its continuation, was derived largely from the Romans. Not only is lawmaking a supremely human and rational activity, but Roman law was also conceived as possessing a universal jurisdiction. (Emphasis in original; Ibn Warraq 2007, pp. 57–58) 6. It is significant that such answers also overlook many ideas derived from Indian science which had an impact on growth of modern science—the decimal place system with zero for numbers, trigonometric theory and methods, algebraic discoveries, surgical medical techniques, and a highly developed linguistic theory. Equally significant are Indian atomic theories which were more sophisticated than developed in the West before modern times. Is it not reasonable to ask how Indian religions inf luenced the development of these ideas in Indian civilization rather than simply seeing them as obstacles to the development of modern science? Clearly the negative version of the question seems important only because the contributions of Indian science to modern science have not been properly acknowledged. 7. There is some controversy about precisely when Arab science began and then went into decline. George Sarton (1975) places it between AD 750 and AD 1100. Sabra (1988) sees it to begin in the middle of the eighth century and continue up to the fifteenth century. But George Saliba (2007) has criticized the notion that it ever declined—only in contrast to the rapid growth of modern science in recent times did it seem to go into decline. Nevertheless, the long period of development of Arabic science exceeds the time of existence of modern science if we date it from the publication of Copernicus’ heliocentric theory in 1543. Since over this extended epoch it was the religion of Islam that provided the umbrella under which the science and philosophy developed in Arabic civilization is it not more reasonable to see what positive role the religion played in promoting the growth of knowledge? See also Huff (1993) and Hobson (2004). 8. See Bala (2006, Chapter 8 “The Alhazen Optical Revolution”). 9. Ibid., Chapter 11 “Universal Mathematical Laws in a Mechanical Universe.” 10. In contrast to the interpretation we are offering many historians of Chinese science, including Graham (1989) and Bodde (1991), take for granted the view that the correlative cosmology of

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the Chinese constituted an obstacle to the development of Chinese science. They see it as a redundant theoretical construction which the Chinese ignored when they came to design new technologies. By contrast we are arguing that Chinese correlative views were crucial to the methodology of technological experimentalism that made Chinese science so innovative in the discovery and development of mechanical technologies.

Bibliography Bala, Arun (2006). The Dialogue of Civilizations in the Birth of Modern Science. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Bodde, D. (1991). Chinese Thought, Society and Science: The Intellectual and Social Background of Science and Technology in Pre-Modern China. Honolulu: University Press of Hawai’i. Cohen, H. Floris (1994). The Scientific Revolution: A Historiographical Inquiry. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Fukuyama, Francis (1992). The End of History and the Last Man. New York: Avon Books. Graham, A. C. (1989). Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China. La Salle, IL: Open Court. Hobson, John M. (2004). The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Huff, Toby E. (2003). The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China, and the West. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Huntington, Samuel P. (1996). The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York: Simon & Schuster. Ibn Warraq (2007). Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said’s Orientalism. New York: Prometheus Books. Jesseph, Douglas M. (2004). “Galileo, Hobbes, and the Book of Nature,” Perspectives on Science 12(2), pp. 191–211. Joseph, George Gheverghese (2000). The Crest of the Peacock: Non-European Roots of Mathematics. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. Kanth, Rajani Kannepalli (2005). Against Eurocentrism: A Transcendent Critique of Modernist Science, Society, and Morals. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Mahbubani, Kishore (2008). The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East. New York: Public Affairs. Needham, Joseph (1954, 1956). Science and Civilization in China. Vol. 1 & 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ronan, Colin (1983). The Cambridge Illustrated History of the World’s Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sabra, A. I. (1988). “Science, Islamic,” in J. R. Strayer, ed., Dictionary of the Middle Ages. Vol. 2. New York: Scribner’s, pp. 81–89. Saliba, George (2007). Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Sarton, George (1975). Introduction to the History of Science. Vol. 1. New York: Krieger. Sen, Amartya (2006). Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny. New York: W.W. Norton. Wang Gungwu (2002). Bind Us in Time: Nation and Civilization in Asia. Singapore: Times Media.

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Mathematics and Eurocentrism G e orge G h e v e rgh e s e Jo s e p h

Introduction In the 1980s, soon after the publication of the Swann Report, Education for All (DES 1985), there was a growing recognition that the British school curriculum suffered from an ethnocentric bias that an increasing number of teachers found unacceptable in a multicultural Britain. However, despite some institutional and professional backing even in Mathematics (ILEA 1985a, 1985b; The Mathematics Association 1988), the attempt to counter ethnocentrism in the classroom met with resistance by politicians and academics who believed that an important goal of educational policy was to instill a greater awareness of British culture and history. The rationale for this position was well expressed by the Secretary of State for Education, Keith Joseph, on his last day in office (May 20, 1985), when he addressed the question of the role of education in an ethnically diverse society: British history and cultural traditions are, or will become, at least, part of the cultural heritage of all who live in this country . . . Schools should be responsible for trying to transmit British culture—enriched as it has been by so many traditions. These sentiments have been echoed in an even more strident way by Keith Joseph’s successors and have now become major planks of government policy. They inspired the National Curriculum introduced into British schools aimed at “removing” (some would even say “suppressing”) the social, linguistic and cultural diversity present in British society. The argument in favor of bolstering the British cultural tradition is that it fulfils an integrating and equalizing function. But there is only a short step from the promotion of British traditions to the fostering of cultural chauvinism, particularly in view of the resilience of an imperial

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legacy, which sees in the preservation of “our culture” the fulfillment of Britain’s “civilizing mission” with respect to the “lesser breeds.” There is, in fact, a historical continuity between the educational policy that imperial Britain applied in the colonies and the treatment it has meted out in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries to its “internal colony” of what was earlier described as the “New Commonwealth immigrants,” a euphemism for non-white immigrants to Britain. In both cases, the key to successful integration has been not just the knowledge of English and of the “British way of life,” but the demotion of “native” ’ cultural traditions. The labels have changed. We have had “immigrant education” in the 1950s, then, in succession, “multi-racial education,” “multi-ethnic education” and, by the mid-1970s, “multicultural education” and today education to promote social cohesion. Yet, the hidden message has remained the same. In the same way as some native children were discouraged in Britain’s colonial boarding schools from speaking their own “local” language, so are the immigrants to Britain made to understand that the faster they leave their cultural world behind, the better their prospects for adaptation and more recently the very survival in this country. And where ethnicity is conf lated with religion as it is becoming increasingly so today, conformity becomes the order of the day. In other words, the key to good race relations is still following the dictum: “when in Rome do as the Romans do.” In this context it is feared that recent changes in British educational policy, by its emphasis on one cultural tradition, would reinforce the ethnocentrism that has characterized the British curriculum in the past and at the same time “disempower” students from different ethnic backgrounds, who are taught that their cultural experience is of little relevance today. In this process, all students will be deprived of the richness that other cultural traditions bring to Britain. Are these fears justified? I will answer this question by examining how the Mathematics curriculum has traditionally been shaped, and the recent attempts that have been made to develop alternative approaches to the teaching of Mathematics. I will argue that to appeal to British, or for that matter Western “traditional” values, as a factor of social cohesion is at best to foster an illusion, given the racist content of this tradition, forged as it was in the heyday of imperialism. I will also argue that Mathematics education in Britain, as presently conceived, shows what we stand to lose by our ignorance of other traditions. Finally, I will outline an alternative perspective to mathematical knowledge, which in its guidelines may serve to inspire similar efforts in other disciplines. The Imperial Legacy To connect Mathematics (or Math) education to imperialism may seem anathema to those who believe that Mathematics is the most universal of all

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disciplines and as such is value-free. In reality, not only has Mathematics in the Western tradition been a vehicle for hierarchical values but in the case of British education, Mathematics has compounded both the Eurocentric biases of the “Western” approach with those congenial to the imperial experience. The British Math curriculum, like those of other school subjects, was forged in the closing decades of the nineteenth century; thus it was steeped in imperial ideology and deeply affected by the needs posed by imperial expansion. It could certainly be argued that the imperial enterprise produced a greater “multicultural awareness” both in the schools and in society than we have at present. It is not unusual, for example, to find in Math texts of the turn of the last century questions like the following (Colenso 1892, pp. 188): A rupee contains 16 annas and one anna contains 12 pice. Find in French money the annual interest at 3.5% on 5217 rupees 3 annas and 6 pice if the exchange rate is 2.63 francs per rupee. (The answer is: 480 francs and 24.5 cents) But in no way can the presence of this type of questions be construed as a step toward an authentic cross-cultural perspective. The provision of a culturally diversified menu of Mathematical examples stemmed from the need to equip the future imperial officers with the skills and information which their service in the colonies required. Thus, it legitimized a strictly utilitarian view of other populations, which well illustrates the pitfalls of a simplistic approach to multicultural education, oblivious to the political realities underlying the production and communication of culture. Indeed, the textbooks of the imperial era show how justified are those who insist that incorporating multicultural ideas in the curriculum is counterproductive, if we fail to address the question of power relations and racism. For preoccupation with cultural differences can be as divisive as preoccupation with racial differences. It was mainly through the history and geography texts, as well as through juvenile fiction, that imperialist ideology was transmitted to the classroom (Mackenzie 1984). Its main theme was the beneficial function of the colonial enterprise for the colonizers and colonized alike. The Europeans were seen as spreading a hard-won, dynamic civilization among inferior races that were inherently indolent (partly due to climatic reasons and partly because of their nature), not fit to rule themselves, and unable to engage in the type of higher thinking that technological and scientific progress allegedly require. Typical of this imperial belief, as transmitted to the classroom, is the following passage taken from a geography text that was still in use in Britain during the 1950s: Under the guidance of Europeans, Africa is steadily being opened up. Doctors and scientists are working to improve the health of the Africans—missionaries and teachers are educating the people . . . The

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single fact remains that the Europeans have brought civilization to the people of Africa, whose standard of living has, in most cases been raised by their contact with white people. (Stembridge 1956, p. 347) The imperial experience prepared the students to consider it unthinkable that non-Europeans could produce Mathematical knowledge. It fostered the myth that Mathematics was a civilizing gift that Europe brought to the colonies, a Promethean spark that in time would enable the backward natives to penetrate the secrets of science and technology and enter the modern world. The prevalence of a Eurocentric bias among scholars is well illustrated in a review of Indian astronomy by John Playfair, first published in 1789, but included in an interesting anthology on the history of Indian science and technology edited by Dharampal (1971, pp. 69–124). Playfair, a mathematician of note, carefully examined the evidence regarding early Indian astronomy. He was struck by the accuracy of the astronomical observations pertaining to the year 3102 BC, which is the start of the Indian Kali Yuga era. Such accuracy could be explained either by assuming meticulous direct observations in that year or through using advanced analytical methods, including integral calculus, to extrapolate back in time. Playfair chose the first option. His reason for doing so is revealing: Of such high antiquity, therefore, must we suppose the origin of this astronomy; we can believe, that all the coincidences which have been enumerated, are but the effects of chance; or what indeed were still more wonderful that, some ages ago, there had arisen a Newton among the Brahmins, to discover the universal principle which connects not only the most distant of space, but the most remote periods of duration; and a De La Grange, to trace through the immensity of both, most subtle and complicated operations. (Playfair 1789, quoted in Dharampal 1971, pp. 118) It was easier for Playfair to concede the antiquity of the observations than to grant the sophistication of the mathematical calculations and astronomical theories, for it would have meant accepting that there could be in India mathematicians of the stature of Newton and Lagrange. More often the dismissal of the “native” was forthright. In a wellknown geography textbook of the Edwardian period, still in print in the 1930s, we read, for instance, that: The natives of Australia . . . were among the most miserable men. They roamed nearly naked, and were ignorant of everything except the chase. The explanation of their degraded condition lies in the arid climate of Australia. Their great poverty led them to practice vices like cannibalism and the murder of the sick and the helpless. (Hebertson 1902, pp. 1–2)

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As for the African s/he was (typically) described as “an overgrown child, vain, self-indulgent and fond of idleness,” not indeed, an individual likely to contribute to any art, far less to mathematical creation. By creating a “savage” counterpart to the “Western Mind,” the imperial ideology legitimized the “traditional” account of mathematical development as a purely European product. As in the case of other equally pernicious social and intellectual biases, the tendency to trace mathematical development to an almost exclusively European origin predates and post-dates the colonial venture. But the impact of colonialism was particularly pernicious in this regard, for imperial education propagated a Eurocentric bias not only in the British classroom, but in every classroom of the Empire. Even after the demise of the Empire, the prejudices concerning the origins of Mathematics and Science have been especially difficult to combat, as they are still very functional to the legitimization of the economic and political supremacy of Western powers in the contemporary world. Thus, to this day, students in the British classroom are offered similar fare to that which was brought to yesterday’s students in the colonies—an education whose pitfalls are still being felt. Origins and Nature of Mathematics A crucial step toward building a multicultural Math curriculum is to dispel the notion that Mathematics is a purely European creation. Two tactics have been used to propagate this myth: simple omission—a tactic that is particularly evident at the lower echelons of the educational process—and the denial that the Mathematics which was produced outside of Europe fits the criteria of genuine mathematical activity. The shaping of a Eurocentric account has in fact gone hand in hand with a definition of Mathematics which ensures that certain strains of Mathematics cannot be included in the mathematical tradition. Omission and Appropriation Prior to the “Renaissance,” Europe’s acknowledgment of the debt it owed to Arab Mathematics was fulsome both in words and in deeds. Scholars from different parts of Europe congregated in Cordoba and Toledo in search of both ancient and contemporary knowledge. It is reported, for example, that Gherardo of Cremona (ca. 1114–1187) went to Toledo, after its recapture by the Christians, in search of Ptolemy’s Almagest, an astronomical text of great importance, produced in Alexandria in the second century AD. He was so taken by the intellectual activity in the city that he remained there for twenty years, during which period he translated (from Arabic into Latin) around eighty manuscripts of Arab science or Greek classics, which he then took back to his homeland. Gherardo was one of a number of European scholars, including Plato of Tivoli, Adelard of Bath

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and Robert of Chester, who f locked to Spain in search of knowledge. Up to the end of the sixteenth century, there was virtually a one-way traffic in mathematical knowledge into Europe. By the seventeenth century, however, the perception concerning the origins of mathematical knowledge had begun to change, due to the operation of a number of forces. With the European expansion into the American continents, the development of the slave trade, and later the imposition of colonial rule in many parts of the world, the assumption of white superiority became dominant over a wide range of activities, including the writing of the history of Mathematics. The rise of nationalism in nineteenth-century Europe and the consequent search for the roots of European civilization, led to an obsession with Greece and the myth of Greek culture as the cradle of all knowledge and values. As Bernal (1987) has shown, in the “Greek miracle” the Afro-Asiatic roots of Greece were virtually buried. An account of the production of mathematical knowledge emerged that followed a purely Eurocentric trajectory (figure 2.1) and ignored or devalued the contribution of the colonized, despite ample evidence of significant mathematical developments in Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, pre-Columbian America, India and the Arab world, showing that Greek Mathematics owed a great debt to some of these cultures (Friberg 2005, 2007; Gillings 1972; Joseph 2000; Neugebauer 1962). This had been recognized by the Greeks themselves, beginning with Plato who reputedly declared that “compared with the Egyptians we are childish mathematicians.” According to the classical Eurocentric account, mathematical development took place in two distinct areas and two phases, separated by a period of inactivity that lasted for two thousand years: Greece from about 600 BC to AD 300, and post-Renaissance Europe from the fifteenth century to the present. The intervening period of inactivity is still referred to as the “Dark Ages”—a label forged during the “Enlightenment” that serves to devalue any cultural accomplishment predating the “rediscovery of Greek culture” in the fifteenth-century Europe. That this “rediscovery” was made possible by the work of Arab intellectuals, and the culture thus appropriated was grounded on Egyptian and Arab knowledge, was not recognized. The very concept of “Renaissance” postulates, in Mathematics as in other disciplines, a direct continuity between Greece and “modern Europe.” In recent years, a grudging recognition of the debt owed by Greece to earlier civilizations, and the crucial contribution of Arab mathematicians has led to a revised Eurocentric trajectory (figure 2.2). However, this figure too ignores the routes through which Hellenistic and Arab Mathematics entered Europe, and it takes no account of the mathematical knowledge produced by India, China, and other cultures. Even the texts that do introduce Indian and Chinese Mathematics often confine their discussion to one or two chapters which may go under the misleading title of “Oriental” or “Eastern” Mathematics. There is little indication, instead, of how these

Mathematics and Eurocentrism Dark Ages

GREECE

Figure 2.1

DISCOVERY OF GREEK LEARNING

31 EUROPE and HER CULTURAL DEPENDENCIES

Renaissance

The “classical” Eurocentric trajectory

Source: Joseph 2000.

EGYPT

INDIA

(Custodian of Greek learning) EUROPE and HER CULTURAL DEPENDENCIES

GREECE Dark Ages

BABYLONIA Figure 2.2

ARABIA (Custodian of Greek learning)

The “modified” Eurocentric trajectory

Source: Joseph 2000.

INDIA CHINA

Baghdad ARAB EMPIRE

SOUTHERN SPAIN ARAB EMPIRE

BABYLONIA EGYPT Figure 2.3

An alternative trajectory for the period from eighth to fifteenth centuries

Source: Joseph 2000.

cultures contributed to the mainstream development of Mathematics, and no consideration is given to the historical research on Mathematics that is currently taking place in these and other “non-Western” regions. In the history of Mathematics non-European traditions appear as “residual dumps” that can be ignored without prejudice to the main story. And the histories of Mathematics still indulge in the misleading practice of naming mathematical results after Greek and European authors, even when it is known that these results had already been achieved earlier by nonEuropean mathematicians. For instance, one of the earliest known demonstration of the Pythagorean result on right-angled triangles is found in an ancient Chinese text Chou Pei Suan Ching, conservatively dated a few centuries before Pythagoras. Earlier antecedents of the “Pascal Triangle” or the “Gregory Series,” or “Horner’s method” are found outside Europe. Figure 2.3 provides an “alternative trajectory” of mathematical transmission from the eighth to the fifteenth centuries. The cross-transmission that

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occurred between different cultural areas, and the critical role of the Arabs in taking Mathematics westward, are brought out by this figure. They will not be discussed here; the interested reader may consult Joseph (2000). Challenging the Eurocentric bias that so far has permeated Math teaching has more than one positive consequence. First, it allows the teacher to tailor Math education to the students’ experience of their social environment which, in contemporary Britain, includes different ethnic groups with their own mathematical heritage. It also provides cultural validation for minority students who are always being reminded, even if indirectly by the absence of any reference to it, they have no mathematical tradition. Thus it can help to counter the entrenched historical devaluation to which non-white minorities have been traditionally exposed. Finally, challenging Eurocentrism in Mathematics allows us to achieve a more holistic approach to Mathematics—one which acknowledges its relation with a wide range of disciplines that it conventionally ignores (including art, music, architecture, linguistics and history)—and in the process construct a much needed redefinition of what we understand as “mathematical thinking.” One of the most unfortunate aspects of the way in which Mathematics has developed over time is its remoteness from other areas of knowledge, even those which are interested in ordering, sequencing, pattern and color. Much can be learned, for example, from the close association that existed between the development of Mathematics and that of linguistics in ancient India, and from the role of spatial intuition in the creation of African geometric designs. Woven into traditional African material culture—in the baskets, mats, pots, houses, fishtraps—are many “hidden” examples of geometrical thinking (Gerdes 1986, 1988a, 1988b; Zaslavsky 1973). The manufacture of these objects reveals a practical knowledge of the properties of circles, rectangles, cones, pyramids or cylinders, as well as “deeper theoretical” principles, such as the one relating to the sides of a right-angled triangle, commonly attributed to the Greek mathematician, Pythagoras. Unfolding this “hidden” Mathematics poses an intellectual challenge to any mathematician and would encourage a study of the relation between geometry and material production. This is the message that Gerdes (1986) conveyed to a seminar for Mathematics educators, when he presented the following non-standard problems which (illiterate) Mozambiquan artisans solve as a matter of course: — Construct a circle, given only its circumference: a problem encountered in laying out a circular f loor for a traditional Mozambiquan house. — Construct angles that measure 90, 60, or 40 degrees with strips of straw: a problem in basket weaving. — Fold an equilateral triangle out of a square: a problem in making a straw hat. None of these problems are trivial in a mathematical sense.

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The discovery of this hidden but plastic Mathematics would provide practical and creative examples for the Math class, and stimulate a child’s imagination and spatial sense. This, however, is impossible if we keep considering Mathematics a purely theoretical activity, as it has been the case in the European mathematical and philosophical approach. Exclusion by Definition It is not sufficiently recognized that a Eurocentric approach to the history of Mathematics is intimately connected with what is still the dominant view of Mathematics as a social/historical practice and intellectual activity. Despite the development of contrary trends in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—Empiricism, Conventionalism, Behaviorism— the standard textbook approach generally conceived of Mathematics as a deductive, a-prioristic system, ideally proceeding from (and providing) axiomatic foundations and revealing, by the necessary unfolding of its pure abstract forms, the eternal and universal laws of “the Mind.” The Indian or Chinese concept of Mathematics is very different. Its aim is not to build an imposing edifice on a few self-evident axioms, but to validate a result by any method, including visual demonstrations. Some of the most impressive works in Indian and Chinese Mathematics (the summations of complex mathematical series, the use of the “Pascal Triangle” in solutions of higher order numerical equations, the derivations of infinite series and “proofs” of the so-called Pythagorean theorem) involve the use of visual demonstrations that are not formulated with reference to any formal deductive system. Further, the Indian view concerning the nature of mathematical objects, like numbers, is based on a framework developed by Indian logicians (and linguists), and differs significantly at the foundational level from the set-theory universe of modern Mathematics. The view that Mathematics is a system of axiomatic/deductive truths inherited from the Greeks and enthroned by Descartes and Kant, has been traditionally associated with a cluster of values that ref lect the social context in which it originated. Prime among them are an idealist rejection of any practical, material(ist) basis for Mathematics, from which stems the tendency to view Mathematics as a value-free pursuit, detached from any social and political concerns; and an elitist perspective that sees mathematical work as the exclusive province of a pure, high-minded, nearly priestly caste, removed from mundane preoccupations and operating in a superior intellectual sphere. Non-European mathematical traditions (from Egypt to Mesopotamia, India, China) have thus often been dismissed on the ground that they are purely empirical (or computational) and dictated by purely utilitarian aims. To this day, great care is exercised to project an image of Mathematics as a purely speculative activity, free from material preoccupations, and to ensure that it remains the property of an elite. At a conference that I recently attended it was emphatically stated by one of the participants that

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“Mathematics is not learned in the streets.” This brought to my mind the great eleventh century Islamic scientist, Ibn Sina (or Avicenna, as he was known in Europe), who declared that he had learned the new (Indian) arithmetic from a street vegetable vendor. I was also reminded of my own experience as a young boy in India, when I used to observe street astrologers performing incredible feats of mental arithmetic, through methods akin to the so-called Vedic multiplication procedures (Nelson et al. 1993, pp. 106–116). In the “West,” however, the idea of “pure” Mathematics still prevails, even though the history of the subject in this century indicates that, despite its seeming abstraction from social reality, it has found very “practical” applications indeed: an outstanding example being its usage in nuclear physics and the development of atomic weaponry. Equally important, even a cursory look at today’s Math curriculum would show that what is being taught in the classroom is dictated by very practical social and political goals that are dismissed with disdain as not being “Mathematics.” It would be useful at this point in this paper to present a case study of a mathematical tradition that has been ignored or even devalued by Eurocentric math historians, namely Indian Mathematics. Differing Perceptions on Indian Mathematics In the early part of the second millennium evaluations of Indian Mathematics or, to be precise, astronomy were generally from Arab commentators. They tended to indicate that Indian science and Mathematics was independently derived. Some, such as Said Al-Andalusi (c. 1068), claimed it to be of a high order: [The Indians] have acquired immense information and reached the zenith in their knowledge of the movements of the stars [astronomy] and the secrets of the skies [astrology] as well as other mathematical studies. After all that, they have surpassed all the other peoples in their knowledge of medical science and the strengths of various drugs, the characteristics of compounds, and the peculiarities of substances. (pp. 11–12) Others such as Al-Biruni (1030) were more critical. He implied that Indian Mathematics and astronomy was much like the vast mathematical literature of the twenty-first century—uneven with a few good quality research papers and a majority of pedestrian or even error strewn publications: “I can only compare their mathematical and astronomical literature, as far as I know it, to a mixture of pear shells and sour dates, or of pearls and dung, or of costly crystals and common pebbles” (p. 70). Nevertheless a common element in these early evaluations is the uniqueness of the development of Indian Mathematics. However by the nineteenth century and contemporaneous with the establishment

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of European colonies in the East, the views of European scholars about the supposed superiority of European knowledge was developing racist overtones. Sedillot (1873) asserted that not only was Indian science indebted to Europe but also that the Indian numbers are an “abbreviated form” of Roman numbers, that Sanskrit is “muddled” Greek, and that India had no chronology. Although Sedillot’s assertions were based on imperfect knowledge and understanding of the nature and scope of Indian Mathematics, this did not deter him from concluding: “On one side, there is a perfect language, the language of Homer, approved by many centuries, by all branches of human cultural knowledge, by arts brought to high levels of perfection. On the other side, there is [in India] Tamil with innumerable dialects and that Brahmanic filth which survived to our day in the environment of the most crude superstitions” (p. 143). In a similar vein Bentley (1923) also cast doubt on the chronology of India by locating Aryabhata and other Indian mathematicians several centuries later than was actually the case. He was of the opinion that Brahmins had actively fabricated evidence to locate Indian mathematicians earlier than they existed: “We come now to notice another forgery, the Brahma Siddhanta Sphuta, the author of which I know. The object of this forgery was to throw Varaha Mihira, who lived about the time of Akber, back into antiquity . . . Thus we see how Brahma Gupta, a person who lived long before Aryabhata and Varaha Mihira, is made to quote them, for the purpose of throwing them back into antiquity. . . . It proves most certainly that the Braham Siddhanta cited, or at least a part of it, is a complete forgery, probably framed, among many other books, during the last century by a junta of Brahmins, for the purpose of carrying on a regular systematic imposition” (p. 151). For the record, the actual dates are Aryabhata born in AD 476, Varamihira lived around AD 500, Brahmagupta around AD 600, and Akbar around 1550. So it is justifiable to suggest that Bentley’s hypothesis was an indication of either ignorance or a fabrication based on a Eurocentric history of science. Nevertheless Bentley’s altered chronology had the effect not only of lessening the achievements of the Indian Mathematics but also of making redundant any conjecture of possible transmission of Indian Mathematics to Europe. Inadequate understanding of Indian Mathematics was not confined to run of the mill scholars. More recently Smith (1923/1925), an eminent historian of Mathematics, claimed that, without the introduction of western civilization in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, India would have stagnated mathematically. He went on to say that: “Not since Bhaskara (i.e., Bhaskara II, b. 1114) has she produced a single native genius in this field” (Vol. 1, p. 435). This inclination to ignore advances in and priority of discovery by non-European mathematicians persisted until even very recent times. For example, there is no mention of the work of the Kerala School in Edwards’

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text (1979) on the history of the calculus nor in articles on the history of infinite series by historians of Mathematics such as Abeles (1993) and Fiegenbaum (1986). A possible reason for such puzzling standards in scholarship may have been the rising Eurocentrism that accompanied European colonization. The rise of nationalism in nineteenth-century Europe and the consequent search for the roots of European civilization, led to a preoccupation with Greece and the myth of Greek culture as the cradle of all knowledge and values and Europe becoming heir to Greek learning and values. However, by the latter half of the twentieth century European scholars, perhaps released from the powerful inf luences induced by colonization, had started to analyze the Mathematics of the Kerala School using largely secondary sources such as Rajagopal and his associates (1952, 1978). The achievements of the Kerala School and their chronological priority over similar developments in Europe were now being aired in several Western publications (Baron 1969; Calinger 1999; Katz 1992, 1995). However these evaluations are accompanied by a strong defense of the European claim for the invention of the generalized calculus. For example, Baron (1969, p. 65) states that: “The fact that the LeibnizNewton controversy hinged as much on priority in the development of certain infinite series as on the generalization of the operational processes of integration and differentiation and their expression in terms of a specialized notation does not justify the belief that the [Kerala] development and use for numerical integration establishes a claim to the invention of the infinitesimal calculus.” Calinger (1999, p. 28) writes: “Kerala mathematicians lacked a facile notation, a concept of function in trigonometry . . . Did they nonetheless recognize the importance of inverse trigonometric half chords beyond computing astronomical tables and detect connections that Newton and Leibniz saw in creating two early versions of calculus? Apparently not.” These comparisons appear to be defending the roles of Leibniz and Newton as inventors of the generalized infinitesimal calculus. However, such comparisons may be problematic because the two developments were founded on different epistemological bases. It is worthwhile stating here that the initial development of the calculus in seventeenth-century Europe followed the paradigm of Euclidean geometry in which generalization was important and in which the infinite was a difficult issue. On the other hand, from the fifteenth century onward the Kerala mathematicians employed computational Mathematics with f loating point numbers to understand the notion of the infinitesimal and derive infinite series for certain targeted functions. It is therefore a reasonable presumption that using qualitatively different intellectual tools from different eras to investigate similar problems are likely to produce qualitatively different outcomes. Hence, the only sensible way to understand Kerala Mathematics is to understand it within the epistemology in which it was developed.

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The Hidden Ideology of Mathematical Education Consider the range of topics covered by elementary school Mathematics. There might be legitimate reasons for teaching social arithmetic, numeracy skills, measures, ratios and proportion, variation and percentages. There are, however, no strong mathematical justification for including percentages in the curriculum. Percentages are taught for practical purposes, for example in order to inculcate in the students the skills required for servicing the commercial and financial sectors. That the Mathematics curriculum is not above social and political concerns is evident at more than one level. Questions referring to stocks and shares, which were common in school Mathematics of the 1950s and 1960s, served to habituate children to view the language of financial capital, long before the majority of the students could have any experience of it. Similarly, the bath-filling questions of even earlier decades presented as the norm the physical environment of the upper classes, and dismissed the reality of the many children who did not have this facility in their homes. Practical concerns are also evident in the debate about the uses of classroom Mathematics found in discussions on the national curriculum in a number of countries, including the United Kingdom. This debate is reminiscent of the one that took place in England about a hundred and fifty years ago among industrialists and educators on the goals of mass education. At that time there were the “industrial” lobby, who emphatically stressed that education should serve the needs of industry and commerce; the “public education” lobby who wanted education to contribute to the development of the “whole” individual, and bolster democratic citizenship; there was finally the academic (“old humanist”) lobby, who argued that school subjects should be studied for their own sake, and that knowledge should be an end in itself. Later, when science was introduced into English education around the middle of the nineteenth century, there was a move, led by educationists like Dawes and Mosley, to devise a curriculum based upon the experience and knowledge that students derive from everyday life. This approach, described as the “science of common things” involved teaching science through common everyday problems: cottage ventilation, personal hygiene, family nutrition and gardening. This approach was consistent with the “public education” perspective, although it made concessions to other lobbies, emphasizing (for the benefit of the humanist) the objective of raising “them (students) into the scale of thinking beings” (Layton 1973, p. 189), and (for the benefit of the industrialist) the vocational usefulness of scientific knowledge. The “science of common things” lost. The reasons why it did are interesting from our viewpoint today. One reason implied, though not necessarily stated, was that by giving to the masses a practical scientific knowledge which the upper classes might not possess, education would subvert the existing social order. Liberal educators also argued that a

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curriculum selected because of its utility to a particular social group (in this case the working class) would ghettoize the students and discourage them from moving beyond their immediate environment Third, modern science and its industrial applications were thought to be better served by the application of Mathematics to scientific problems, especially physics. The Mathematics of science was presented as the antithesis of the “science of common things” because of its supposedly universal abstractions. There are close parallels between the nineteenth-century debate on the science curriculum and today’s deliberations on Math teaching. When a teacher is asked today why Mathematics should be a core subject, the answers ring a familiar note. We hear the humanist argument that Mathematics offers a rigorous training in the process of “reasoning” that it cultivates logical and critical thinking and problem solving abilities, despite justifiable skepticism on the part of many who are directly involved in the teaching of Mathematics. We then have the analogue of the “industrial” lobby argument: the primary purpose of mathematical education is to deliver skilled manpower to the workplace. This is something the Math class is apparently failing to accomplish, if we credit the frequent complaints on the part of British politicians and entrepreneurs. Finally, we are again told that mathematical education contributes to the formation of the “whole” individual, and that it is indispensable for citizens who are expected to make informed judgments on various aspects of their society on the basis, among other things, of statistics and other quantitative indicators. This approach is consistent with the idea of science education promoted by Dawes and Mosley and might be described as the “mathematics of common things.” An important question arises when we examine these three perspectives: what does each imply about the relationship between Mathematics and society? The academic/humanist approach does not acknowledge any social dimension in the study of Mathematics. The utilitarian/“industrial” approach recognizes a one-way relationship between Mathematics and the outside world—Mathematics as an input into training for specific skills and expertise. Both approaches, which have deeply inf luenced the Mathematics curriculum of Britain, see Mathematics as free of social considerations and values. The third approach allows for a more dynamic relationship between Mathematics and society; it takes into account different constituencies and the specific cultural interests of the learner. However, if we define too narrowly the constituency to whom Mathematics is addressed, then we may have a curriculum that marginalizes the students, and devalues both the content and context of the Mathematics taught. One way of safeguarding against this danger is to emphasize both the practical use of Mathematics and its relevance to the development of a universal language and discipline. It is here that a historical approach could be helpful, and this is precisely what a non-Eurocentric, multicultural, anti-racist approach to Mathematics attempts to do.

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The Objectives of Multicultural/Antiracist Mathematics In 1987, at the Annual Conservative Party Conference, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher stated: “Children who need to count and multiply are being taught antiracist Mathematics, whatever that may be.” Thatcher’s puzzlement was shared by many, including a number of teachers. Multicultural/Anti-Racist (MC/AR) Mathematics was perceived as a strange and incongruous subject to be added to an already over laden Math syllabus, rather than as an approach that permeated all topics in the syllabus. This confusion was present in the Section entitled Ethnic and Cultural Diversity (paragraph 10.18−10.23) of the National Curriculum Report (DES 1988) entitled Mathematics for Ages 5 to I6: It is sometimes suggested that the multi-cultural complexion of society demands a “multi-cultural” approach to mathematics, with children being introduced to different number systems, foreign currencies and non-European measuring and counting devices. We are concerned that undue emphasis on multi-cultural mathematics, in these terms, could confuse young children. Whilst it is right to make clear to children that mathematics is the product of a diversity of cultures, priority must be given to ensuring that they have knowledge, understanding and skills which they will need for adult life and employment in Britain in the twenty-first century. We believe that most parents would share this view. And again: Many of those who argue for a multicultural approach to the mathematics curriculum do so on the basis that such an approach is necessary to raise the self-esteem of ethnic minority cultures and to improve the understanding and respect between races. We believe that this attitude is misconceived and patronizing. . . . These quotations from the National Curriculum Document summarize well the attitudes and misconceptions that existed about MC/AR Mathematics. What was missing in this view of MC/AR Mathematics as irrelevant, peripheral, patronizing to “minorities,” and pedagogically ineffectual, was an understanding of the general objectives of and conditions for learning Mathematics. An important purpose of learning Mathematics is to acquire a new language with its rules of operation, opening a whole range of possibilities for the articulation of our experiences and apprehension of the surrounding world—an acquisition that necessarily depends on the students’ ability to connect Mathematics with other aspects of their reality, and their conviction that this is a knowledge in whose production they too are daily involved.

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MC/AR Mathematics provides a strategy for making Mathematics more accessible and less anxiety arousing among a wider public. As it is all too well-known, as presently taught, Mathematics fails to reach the vast majority of students; and even for those who expect to make it part of their higher education, it causes more anxiety than any other subject. This is because it is often taught as a sequence of disconnected skills, in isolation from real world applications and abstracted from its historical roots. By contrast MC/AR Mathematics involves five overlapping objectives: (i) Drawing on the student’s experience as a resource: Abstract concepts are presented in a concrete form through examples that are familiar to the class. In a class with children from Hindu and Sikh households, the rangoli patterns used to decorate traditional homes on festive days can serve as a useful introduction to different geometrical notions of patterns, symmetry, transformations and equivalence. For children from an Islamic or Jewish background, time measurements involving the principle of constructing calendars and demarcation of eras, including the role of lunar calendars, could be developed from a few questions regarding the religious practices of these groups. An ability to convert from one system to another would not only be a useful arithmetic exercise, it would also help to appreciate the diversity of the local environment. Students would understand, for example, why their Chinese and Jewish neighbors do not celebrate their New Year’s Day on January 1. (ii) Recognizing different cultural heritages: It is important that students understand the development of Mathematics as a truly global endeavor that evolved through centuries of cross-fertilization between different cultures. Students should learn for instance that our number system grew out of the work of mathematicians from the Indian subcontinent about 2,000 years ago and was transmitted by the Arabs to Europe in the twelfth century. Manipulations and representations of plus and minus quantities, the distinction between real and imaginary numbers and the concepts of zero and infinity excited the imagination of Indian, Mayan, Chinese and Italian mathematicians. We owe the foundations of algebra (an Arabic word) and the development of trigonometry to non-European civilizations. This international dimension must be stressed in the teaching of Mathematics. We are not suggesting that learning Mathematics must involve a detailed historical investigation, even though the “History of Arab mathematics,” or “Egyptian arithmetic,” or “Calculus before Newton” could make interesting projects. Instead, a cultural and historical perspective on Mathematics could take two forms: (1) Math teachers should have a fund of interesting stories on the origin and development of various topics in Mathematics, emphasizing its practical origins and reinforcing the view that Mathematics is a universal activity which, however, always takes a specific cultural form. The source for such materials are not only

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the standard histories of Mathematics but the growing literature on non-European traditions examined for example in Ascher (1991) and Katz (2007). (2) New approaches to curriculum development can be usefully introduced into the senior Mathematics classroom. These involve using the original texts in which a problem and its solution first appeared. For instance a student who is introduced for the first time to non-Euclidean geometry will profit by a study of selections from the original texts of, say, the thirteenth-century Arab mathematician, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, and the seventeenth-century Italian mathematician, Saacheri, whose unsuccessful attempts to prove Euclid’s “Parallel Postulate” were important signposts in the discovery of non-Euclidean geometry. It would also help the students to understand, at least in broad outlines, the social context in which these mathematical works were produced and the practical implications of the specific problems tackled. (iii) Developing knowledge and empathy with cultures others than one’s own: A math teacher has a role to play in fostering mutual understanding and respect in societies where different cultures live side by side. Not only should teachers draw on the experiences and highlight the historical heritage of different students, they should also create opportunities for them to learn about customs and cultures other than their own. A judicious use of names of members of different ethnic groups, encouraging the publication of texts that acknowledge the existence of other mensuration systems, different calendars and monetary systems are obviously important ways of providing a non-Eurocentric dimension to classroom work. It might also be advisable to stress the cultural contribution of nations that have received negative comments from the media. For instance, mentioning the historical contribution of Persian mathematicians like Omar Khayyam and Jamshid al-Kashi could counter the stigmatization of Iran in the public eye in recent years. (iv) To combat racism: A number of reports, including the Swann Report and the report of the Lawrence Enquiry, have highlighted the considerable level of racism that exist in both British society and British schools. Here too the Math teacher must be sensitive to the ways in which racism enters the classroom and can be countered. A publication entitled Everyone Counts (1985a) provided the following checkpoints of how Mathematics material can be biased or insensitive to racial minorities: ● using examples that make reference to very selectively chosen “lifestyles.” ● perpetuating stereotypes that devalue certain ethnic groups, for example, the stereotype of the child from African-Caribbean descent as presumably “less good” in Math than the Asian child; or the stereotype image of African counting systems, prior to the coming of the Europeans, as a “primitive systems” fit for the needs of a “simple society.” This ignores that the Ishango Bone

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●

from Zaire is the earliest recorded attempt to construct a lunar calendar; it also ignores the ingenious arithmetic of the Yoruba with its “subtraction principle” (see Joseph 2000; Nelson et al. 1993). being ignorant or insensitive to the social position of minority groups in society, as if the existence of racial discrimination and the nature of power relations within the wider society were of no concern in a Math class.

A “MC/AR approach” to teaching Mathematics involves answering the following questions: ●

●

What are the mathematical objectives for introducing a certain topic? What is the best approach for achieving these objectives from the point of view of teaching and learning?

Is there any MC/AR lesson to be drawn from the topic? If so what are the resources required? Most important, an MC/AR approach involves a sustained effort to empower students to believe that Mathematics is within their reach, and is an activity to which their ancestors, communities and cultures have been active contributors. The consequences of the sense of confusion and intimidation which students from all backgrounds experience when confronted with a discipline whose cultural matrix seems irreducibly “other” have yet to be fully realized. They are already dramatically evident in the high rates of dropouts from Math classes at all levels. By contrast, there are reports of keen participation when the class takes place in a “context of inclusion.” Conclusion It would be wrong to view the failure of the MC/AR approach to Mathematics and science as a victory for the Eurocentrists. All that it has done is to emphasize the need to concentrate our minds on examining the following pertinent questions that generally tend to be swept under the carpet. Indeed, each of these questions deserve a separate paper. (i) Why are Non-Western mathematical traditions generally neglected in Western histories of Mathematics? (ii) Why is there such difficulty for new evidence on Non-Western Mathematics to become accepted and then percolate into standard texts? (iii) Why is there a tendency to assume that the “holy grail” of objectivity and balance has to be guarded jealously by Western historians of Mathematics against “biased opinions” and “special pleading” of non-Westerners?

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(iv) What explains the tunnel vision of those Western historians of Mathematics who tend to apply different standards of evidence when they are considering Non-Western contributions to scientific knowledge? Bibliography Abeles, F. F. (1993) “Charles Dodgson’s Geometric Approach to Arctangent Relations for π,” Historia Mathematica 20(2), pp. 151–159. Al-Andalusi, S. (c 1068) Science in the Medieval World, trans. by S. I. Salem and A. Kumar, Dallas, TX: University of Texas Press, 1991. Al-Biruni (1030) India, translated by Qeyamuddin Ahmad, New Delhi: National Book Trust, (Published in 1999). Ascher, M. (1991) Ethnomathematics: A Multicultural View of Mathematical Ideas, Pacific Grove, CA: Brooke/Cole. Ascher, M. and R. Ascher (1981) Code of the Quipu, Ann Arbor: Michigan University Press. Avari, B. and G. G. Joseph (1990) “Race Relations Training: The State of the Art,” in P. D. Pumphrey and G. K. Verma, eds., Race Relations and Urban Education, London: Falmer Press, pp. 121–139. Baron, M. E. (1969) The Origins of the Infinitesimal Calculus, Oxford: Pergamon. Bentley, J. (1823) A Historical View of the Hindu Astronomy, Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press. Bernal, M. ( 1987) Black Athena. The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, Vol.1, London: Free Association Books. Bishop, A. (1990) “Western Mathematics: The Secret Weapon of Cultural Imperialism,” Race and Class 32(2), pp. 51–65. Calinger, R. (1999) A Contextual History of Mathematics to Euler, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Colenso, J. W. (1874) Arithmetic—Designed for the Use of Schools, 2nd Ed. 1892, London: Longman Green. Dharampal (1971) Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century, New Delhi: Biblia Impex. Department of Education (1988) Mathematics for Ages 5 to 16, London: H.M.S.O. Edwards, C. H. (1979) The Historical Development of the Calculus, New York: Springer-Verlag. Fiegenbaum, L. (1986) “Brook Taylor and the Method of Increments,” Archives of History of Exact Sciences 34(1), pp. 1–140. Friberg, J. (2005) Unexpected Links between Egyptian and Babylonian Mathematics, Singapore: World Scientific. ——— (2007) Amazing Traces of a Babylonian Origin in Greek Mathematics, Singapore: World Scientific. Gerdes, P. (1986) “How to Recognize Hidden Geometrical Thinking: A Contribution to the Development of Anthropological Mathematics,” For the Learning of Mathematics 6(2), pp. 10–17. Gerdes, P. (1988) “On Possible Uses of Traditional Angolan Sand Drawings in the Mathematics Classroom,” Educational Studies in Mathematics 19(1), pp. 3–22. ——— (1995), Ethnomathematics and Education in Africa, Stockholm: Stockholm Universitet. Gillings, R. J. (1972) Mathematics in the Time of the Pharaohs, Cambridge, MA; MIT Press. Herbertson, A. J. (1902) Man and His Work: Introduction to Human Geography, London: Blacks S. ILEA (1985a) Everyone Counts, London: ILEA. ——— (1985b) Count Me In, London: ILEA. Joseph, G. G. (1987) “Foundations of Eurocentrism in Mathematics,” Race and Class 28(3), pp. 13–28. ——— (1990) “The Politics of Anti-Racist Mathematics,” Multicultural Teaching 9(1), pp. 31–33. ——— (2000) The Crest of the Peacock: Non-European Roots of Mathematics, Cambridge: Princeton University Press (1st ed. Taurus Books, 1991; Penguin Books, London and New York, 1992 and 1993, 1997, Penguin Books and Princeton University Press, 2000). ——— (1994) “Different Ways of Knowing: Contrasting Styles of Argument in Indian and Greek Mathematical Traditions,” in P. Ernest, ed., Mathematics, Education and Philosophy: An International Perspective, Studies in Mathematics Education, Vol. 3, London: Falmer Press.

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Joseph, G. G. (1995) “Cognitive Encounters in India during the Age of Imperialism,” Race and Class 36(3), pp. 39–56. Joseph, G. G., V. Reddy, and M. Searle-Chatterjee (1990) “Eurocentrism in the Social Sciences,” Race and Class 31(4), pp. 1–26. Katz, V. J. (1992) A History of Mathematics: An Introduction, New York: HarperCollins. ——— (1995) “Ideas of Calculus in Islam and India,” Mathematics Magazine, Washington 68(3), pp. 163–174. ———, ed. (2007) The Mathematics of Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, India, and Islam A Sourcebook, Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, pp. 385–514. Layton, D. (1973) Science for the People, London: George Allen and Unwin. MacKenzie, J. M. (1984) Propaganda and Empire, Manchester: Manchester University Press. The Mathematical Association (1989) Mathematics in a Multicultural Society, Leicester: Mathematics Association. Nelson, R. D., G. G. Joseph, and J. Williams (1993) Multicultural Mathematics, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Playfair, J. J. (1789) “Remarks on the Astronomy of the Brahmins,” Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 2(1), pp. 135–192. Rajagopal, C. T. and M. S. Rangachari (1978) “On an Untapped Source of Medieval Keralese Mathematics,” Archive for the History of Exact Sciences 18, pp. 89–102. Rajagopal, C. T. and T. V. Vedamurthi (1952) “On the Hindu Proof of Gregory’s Series,” Scripta Mathematica 18, pp. 65–74. Sedillot, L. A. (1873) “The Great Autumnal Execution,” in the Bulletin of the Bibliography and History of Mathematical and Physical Sciences published by B. Boncompagni, member of Pontific Academy. Reprinted in Sources of Science 10 (1964), New York & London. Smith, D. E. (1923/1925) History of Mathematics, 2 volumes, Boston, MA: Ginn & Co. (Reprinted by Dover, New York, 1958). Stembridge, J. (1939) The World—A General Regional Georgraphy, 1956 Edition, London: Oxford University Press. Swann Report (1985) Education for All. A Report on the Education of Ethnic Minority Children, London: H.M.S.O. Swetz, F. J. and T. I. Kao (1977) Was Pythagoras Chinese? An Examination of Right Triangle Theory in Ancient China, Harrisburg, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press. Zaslavsky, C. (1973) Africa Counts—Number and Pattern in African Culture, Boston, MA: Prindle, Weber and Schmidt; New York: Lawrence Hill Books, Paperback 1979.

CH A P T E R

T H R E E

Official Corruption and Poverty: A Challenge to the Eurocentric View R av i Bat r a

A vast literature exists on the causes and cures for global poverty. The Eurocentric view is that poverty occurs when an economy lacks capital, new technology, education, managerial ability, and work ethic to build factories and farms. The purpose of my paper is to challenge this view and argue that poverty, anywhere and everywhere, is mostly, if not exclusively, the result of official corruption. Nobody wants to live in misery and in general people want to work hard to improve their living standard. However, dominant groups in society may expropriate the fruit of people’s efforts for personal gain, leading to large-scale poverty. For instance, the United States does not lack capital, new technology, education, entrepreneurship, and the work ethic; yet almost 39 million Americans lived below the poverty line in 2008, while an equal number were hard pressed to maintain their lifestyle. The only reason was official corruption, whereby laws are passed to favor business interests in return for junkets and campaign cash. These laws in turn generate falling real wages, while profits and CEO wages sky-rocket. Poverty and financial turmoil are global problems today; they aff lict every continent and the vast majority of nations. It is well known that corruption breeds poverty in the third world and even in the galloping economies of India and China.1 What is surprising is that rising poverty in some advanced economies especially the United States also arises from governmental depravity. Similarly, the main cause of U.S. financial meltdown that started in 2007, especially in the housing market, also derives from official malfeasance. Although my arguments have global application, my main focus is on the U.S. economy and society. In spite of the surge in global economic growth since the early 1980s, poverty, destitution, and occasionally hunger continue to devastate a vast area of the world. Even in America, supposedly the richest nation, the vast

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majority of people live from paycheck to paycheck. People, along with their government, are saddled with debt. American society as a whole practically saves nothing; the household rate of saving has varied from zero to negative in recent years. Almost 39 million Americans, an all-time record, live below the poverty line. As many as 45 million have no health insurance. Nearly five million are homeless; an equal number go hungry everyday. Real wages have been falling for almost three-fourths of the labor force ever since 1973, and even those who have lucrative jobs are buried deep under debt. Their autos, homes, appliances, and furniture are mostly pawned to banks (see Batra 2007 for the substantiation of these facts). However, the traditional measure of the living standard, the per-capita gross domestic product (GDP), that is, real GDP per person, which has been growing all through U.S. history, reveals a remarkably different picture. When the average real wage falls for almost 75% of the workforce, no amount of statistical skullduggery can produce a rising living standard for that nation. Yet, the Eurocentric view, as represented by major macro-texts, insists that American society has grown more prosperous since the 1970s. This contradicts logic and commonsense. Oscar Wilde, the celebrated playwright, once said, “The well-bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves.” There is a logical contradiction between the view that the American living standard has been rising since the early 1970s while the real wage has plummeted for the vast majority of Americans. The poverty in America exists amidst plenty, at a time when the average American worker, empowered by computers, is the most productive ever. Just 1% of the population owns as much as 40% of wealth, while almost half the households have practically zero savings. The productivity surge should have banished destitution a long time ago; instead, poverty and deprivation get worse every year, with over a million joining the poverty roster annually (Batra 2007; also see Batra 2005). The Fundamental Cause of Poverty Eurocentric economists like to attribute poverty to a variety of superficial traits such as the absence of capital, inefficient technology, poor education, lack of free trade, monopolized markets, and lazy workforce, among others. All these are just symptoms of poverty, not its fundamental cause. The one fundamental cause of poverty, here and everywhere, is official corruption. Government malfeasance breeds cronyism, incompetence and other parasites that accompany destitution. Monopolized markets, for instance, do create poverty, but the presence of such markets itself ref lects official malfeasance. First, let us define corruption, which occurs whenever there is dishonesty, bribery or a lack of integrity on the part of an individual. Government

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corruption, however, has a broader meaning. In a democratic setting, any policy that makes the rich richer while hurting the poor and the middle class may be called corrupt. This is because the rich beneficiaries of such policies make payoffs to government officials in the form of large campaign contributions, bribes, junkets and gifts. In general, when officials misuse political power for personal gain, there is corruption. This notion actually applies to both democratic and non-democratic societies. Let us examine the case of the oil industry in the United States. Gasoline is a necessary good and is vital for transportation; its price has been skyrocketing since 2003, reaching an all-time high of $4 per gallon in July 2008, while its producers have earned giant profits that normally appear in industries with vast monopoly power. Oil companies can raise prices at will, at least up to a point. That is why many nations have antitrust laws to prevent corporate mergers and collusion that ultimately create monopolistic industries. The U.S. government should have strictly enforced the antitrust laws in the 1990s when as many as 2,600 mergers occurred in the oil sector. The government shirked its responsibility and politicians kowtowed to business interests in return for campaign donations for their reelection. This was a clear case of official corruption that created poverty not just for the poor and the middle class in the United States but all over the world. For the high price of oil hurts the masses around the globe. This is one example of how corruption breeds poverty (Batra 2007, Chapters 3 and 10). The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the government agency responsible for antitrust action, argues that high gasoline prices arise from monopolistic practices of OPEC (the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) and soaring oil demand from India and China, so that the rising shortage of oil is generating rocketing gasoline price. This sounds palpable, except that it is false. There is plentiful oil in the world today. Higher demand, of course, generates a price rise. But if supply rises simultaneously, there should be little rise in price. Oil supply has kept pace with rising demand since the early 1980s, and the oil price averaged about $25 per barrel between 1980 and 2000. But since 2003, with oil supply still matching the growing demand, the price surged above $100 per barrel in early 2008. What happened? The oil industry became an oligopoly, or big oil firms became regional monopolies by the end of the 1990s. Petrol demand from both India and China has been climbing since 1980, yet during the 1980s and the 1990s, the very period when OPEC produced a larger share of world’s oil output than since 2000, the oil price remained stable. Now that OPEC’s importance to control the price has declined, the FTC blames the oil-price surge on the petroleum cartel. According to the FTC, U.S. gasoline price is related to the world price for crude oil, which is partly determined by OPEC and partly by international demand and supply conditions. The sudden and sharp rise in American gasoline prices since 2003 has resulted from a sharp jump in the price of crude, which in turn arises from vast increases in crude demand

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Ravi Batra Table 3.1 World oil consumption and price: 1983–2007 Year

Consumption

WTI Price*

1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

58.8 59.8 60.0 61.8 63.1 65.0 66.0 66.7 67.2 67.5 67.6 68.9 70.0 71.6 73.3 75.7 76.7 76.7 77.4 78.0 79.6 82.3 83.7 84.8 85.5

32 30 28 28 18 17 17 22 27 19 20 14 18 20 26 18 12 26 26 20 32 33 43 62 92

Note: * WTI: West Texas Intermediate Source: Energy Information Administration, eia.gov, 2008.

from China, India, as well as the United States. So the FTC goes on to conclude that the global surge in gasoline prices is the result of galloping oil demand from India and China as well as the monopoly power of the OPEC cartel. However, the FTC itself realizes that history contradicts its main premise, as it admits: “Throughout most of the 1990s, however, crude prices remained relatively stable, suggesting that crude producers increased production to meet increased demand” (FTC 2005, p. 6). These two lines say it all. They contradict the FTC’s findings, because they say that increased demand need not cause a rise in price if supply goes up at the same time. Table 3.1 presented above shows that global oil demand has been rising ever since 1983, yet the price of WTI (West Texas Intermediate) crude oil was fairly stable between 1983 and 2002 and began to soar after 2003. In fact, the price fell to as low as $12 in 1999 even though oil demand went up that year. The table reveals that there is not a single year when consumption fell. But consumption cannot rise without a rise in supply. Rising demand alone is not enough to raise consumption; supply has to increase as well. So the crucial point is this: why is rising demand as well

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as supply raising price today and not in the past? The answer clearly is that the oil market has changed drastically. The price is now set in New York by NYMEX (New York Mercantile Exchange) and not in Saudi Arabia. Even Lord Browne of Madingly, the former chief executive of British Petroleum, has readily admitted: “There has been no shortage and in fact inventories of crude oil and products have continued to rise” (Hope 2006, p. 46). So there is no oil shortage anywhere on earth. In fact, oil inventories have continued to rise around the world. In 1973, and then from 1980 to 1982, there indeed were shortages, which were ref lected in long and time-consuming gas lines; oil inventories also shrank in OECD countries at the time; but not lately. Have you seen any gas lines in recent years? I haven’t. In 1973 I would indeed wait for up to an hour to get 10 gallons of gas, but not today. So why is the government (FTC) blaming the oil price jump on demand increases from India and China? The answer is official corruption. In fact, FTC’s main purpose for offering a 165-page report was to defend Big Oil’s giant profits: Profits play necessary and important roles in a well-functioning market economy. Recent oil company profits are high but have varied widely over time, over industry segments, and among firms. Profits compensate owners of capital for the use of the funds they have invested in a firm. Profits also compensate firms for taking risks, such as the risks in the oil industry that war or terrorism may destroy crude production assets or that new environmental requirements may require substantial new refinery capital investments. (FTC 2005, p. 15) This passage is a bad joke on those who have to pay today’s giant prices. Has the Bush Administration ever asked anybody, let alone an oil corporation, to better the environment? Oil profits do f luctuate over time, but oil companies rarely lose money. In 2007, Exxon-Mobil alone earned $42 billion in profits, while the five major companies raked in almost $125 billion. What is the real cause of expensive oil and gasoline? In two words, “supergreed” and corruption. Everyone has some greed, but few have such extraordinary avarice that they abuse their financial and political muscle to deprive people of the basic necessities of life. That is what the oil tycoons and the corrupt government they sponsor are doing. Let’s see what has taken place in the oil industry since the early 1990s. The General Accounting Office, a bipartisan government agency, issued a vehement report in May 2004, concluding that 2,600 firms had merged in the oil industry in the early 1990s (Consumeraffairs.com 2004). Such an orgy of mergers could not but spawn regional monopolies in that sector, which is now dominated by just five companies—Exxon-Mobil, ChevronTexaco, Royal Dutch Shell, Conoco-Phillips, and British PetroleumAmoco-Arco. Their names say it all. Every one of them has been formed through the merger of very rich firms. Their clout is so great that even

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now, in spite of record-breaking profits, they enjoy $18 billion in government subsidies and tax breaks for the purpose of mineral exploration. They have purchased independent oil concerns and closed thousands of petrol stations; with gasoline pumps gone from your neighborhood, the remaining gas stations charge whatever price the consumer will bear. And the consumers pay the giant price in silence, because the government and the media have brain-washed them that rising oil demand from India and China is to blame for soaring gasoline. Once gasoline stations are closed, there is little competition left to limit the price-gouging ability of the five companies. Ten years ago, around 1999, there were six petrol pumps within 2 miles of my neighborhood. Now there are only three, of which one is actually owned by a grocery store, Tom Thumb. But for the competition provided by that store, gasoline would be even pricier in our neighborhood. In retaliation for mega oil mergers in the 1990s, the government showered them with subsidies and tax breaks. This is nothing but official corruption. All this was done in the name of securing energy independence from foreign oil. Where is that independence? The United States now imports the largest amount of oil and petrol in its history. Expensive gasoline, of course, adds to poverty. Thus corruption breeds American poverty. The government’s failure to seriously enforce its antitrust laws suggests that the officials are inf luenced by all those millions that the oil industry has donated over the years to politicians for their election and reelection. Such tolerance for company collusion in energy and other industries hurts the U.S. economy as well as the rest of the world. It germinates, among other things, a culture of corruption and a vast increase in wage-productivity gap, whose terrible consequences are not fully realized by experts and will be examined shortly. The resulting global imbalances could, and most likely will, cause a major recession in the globe by the end of the decade. Finally, the myth of exploding demand from Asia as the primary cause of the oil price explosion evaporated in thin air, when the oil price collapsed in a matter of weeks in mid-2008. Now everyone could see that it was speculation supported by a monopolistic industry that had sent oil into the stratosphere. The oil price tumbled from a high of $147 per barrel in July to less than $50 in the month of December. Regressive Taxation Another area in which corruption has devastated the lot of the poor and the middle class is the U.S. tax policy since the early 1980s, when the revenue system was totally transformed to benefit the wealthy in the name of solving economic problems or raising the public’s living standard. According to Adam Smith, taxes should be imposed primarily on the well-to-do, as in, those who can afford to pay them. Thus the tax burden should be light on the poor and the middle class relative to that on the rich. This is the time-honored rule of progressive taxation, and in its absence, there is

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direct as well as indirect increase in poverty. The direct increase should be obvious, because higher taxes can deprive the poor of the basic necessities of food, housing, clothing, transportation, health care and education. However, there is an indirect effect as well, as regressive taxation, the opposite of the progressive one, trims consumer demand and hence economic growth, because no producer likes to expand business and hence investment unless goods and services can be sold in the market. In fact, falling consumer demand, other things remaining the same, usually leads to business retrenchment and a fall in investment. When the government resorts to regressive taxation, it engages in legalized corruption, because its purpose is cater to the aff luent in return for campaign contributions. The tax system has become regressive ever since the Reagan administration arrived in 1981, when the top-bracket income tax rate fell from 70% to as low as 28%. As a result, when the budget deficit jumped, in order to balance its books the government did not raise the income tax back; rather it raised excise taxes; it also raised the Social Security and the self-employment tax substantially under the pretext of guaranteeing Social Security pensions thirty to forty years in the future. The idea was to create a surplus in the Social Security trust fund to meet the pension needs of future retirees. But, of course, government officials and advisers knew that the enhanced revenues would be used up in financing the federal deficit that had soared to the highest level in U.S. peace-time history—up to 6% of GDP. This was outright fraud that has continued ever since 1983, when the new Social Security legislation was enacted. How much cash does the trust fund have today? Practically zero. Some $2 trillion has been gobbled up by elected federal officials to pay for the income tax cuts that raised the federal deficit. All the trust fund mainly has are the IOUs from an indebted government—special bonds that are worthless in the bond market. This is not just massive corruption but also massive fraud, which continues unabated. The burden of payroll taxes falls primarily on the poor and the middleclass, whereas the income-tax burden unduly falls on the aff luent. For the first time in American annals, taxes were raised on the poor and lowered for the wealthy. This monumental shift in tax policy was highly regressive, and aggravated poverty. It had two deleterious effects. First, the indigent faced an onerous tax burden, and poverty rolls climbed; second, since the poor spend almost all their income, whereas the wealthy save a substantial portion, demand growth fell as a result of the massive transfer of the tax burden. The demand for goods and services failed to grow as fast as before. So GDP growth tumbled. U.S. GDP grew by over 4% per year from 1950 to 1970; since 1980, in spite of the productivity-enhancing computer revolution, it has grown at a 3% rate. The first decade of the new millennium has seen even lower growth. So bad is the economic blight of official corruption that even the inf lation and OPEC-scourged 1970s enjoyed higher growth—at 3.3% per year. Paltry growth also aggravates poverty.

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Ravi Batra The Sinking Minimum Wage

Perhaps the biggest cause of rising American poverty is the relentless decline in the real minimum wage since 1969. The Republicans and many Eurocentric economists argue that the unemployment rate rises with a rise in the minimum wage. If this is true, why was the jobless rate only 3.5% in 1969, when the minimum wage in terms of purchasing power, or 2008 prices, peaked at $9 per hour? In other words, the highest minimum wage generated the lowest unemployment rate in the modern American chronicle. Furthermore, it is interesting to note that from 1950 to 2007 employment went up each and every time the minimum wage rose in money terms (Batra 2005, Chapter 8). The minimum wage in 2008 was a pitiful $5.85 per hour, with almost 39 million Americans subsisting below the poverty line. The decline in the real minimum-wage is by far the biggest cause of exploding poverty in America. But unmitigated globalization is not far behind. The U.S. Department of Labor divides workers in two categories—supervisory and non-supervisory. The supervisory workers are the managers, the heads of various departments or groups in an enterprise. They comprise about 20% to 25% of employees; the other 75% or more are included in the category of non-supervisory or production workers. According to the Economic Report of the President, an annual publication of the government, the real wage of the production worker has been falling since 1980. The fall actually began in 1973, but the 1970s should be excluded from our discussion because the decade was distorted by the OPEC cartel. During the 1980s the oil price fell sharply and then stabilized in the 1990s. But the production worker continued to see a decline in the real wage. This was then a policy-induced fall, as compared to the 1970s wage debacle, which was engineered by OPEC’s monopoly power. In 1979, at the end of the 1970s, real weekly earnings for the production worker stood at $299, and, in spite of falling oil prices, plummeted to $267 by the end of the 1980s, when the Reagan Revolution was in full bloom. Real earnings continued to sink in the 1990s, and began to rise from 1995 on only after the government altered its measure of the cost of living. Even then they stood at $280 at the end of 2007, well below the 1979 figure. While production workers saw a drop in real wages, their tax burden, thanks to regressive taxation, soared. No wonder, the United States had the highest number of the poor in 2008 in its history. Globalization The fall in the production wage occurred in the backdrop of soaring international trade, which also caused a big jump in America’s trade deficit. As a result, manufacturing jobs began to vanish in the United States; those so laid off then had to switch to service industries. New

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entrants to the labor market also relied on services for employment. Thus, first the real wage fell in manufacturing because of soaring import competition, then it fell in services because of excess labor supply to that sector. This way the real wage fell for the entire category of production workers. Today the Eurocentric economic profession has found religion in free trade, which was first advocated by a British businessman named David Ricardo in 1815. But as late as 1941, two well known economists, Paul Samuelson and Wolfgang Stolper, prophesied that free trade between advanced and developing nations would reduce real wages and increase profits in the United States (Stolper and Samuelson 1941). Samuelson went on to win a Nobel Prize for his writings. The Stolper-Samuelson theorem, which was an immediate success, is an integral part of the modern theory of international trade. Every free trader knows about it, but still thinks that the real-wage debacle experienced by the production worker since 1980, and as early as 1973, is not the result of soaring foreign commerce. Economists are extremely shy of claiming success in a renowned forecast that came true. Milton Friedman, another Nobel laureate and a champion of free trade, argues that a theory should be judged through its forecasting ability. However, he would not want to apply his criterion to the successful forecast of the Stolper-Samuelson theorem that said way in advance that the tariff removal will lower the real wage in a country like the United States. This is the Eurocentric view of globalization and it contradicts the logic of its authors. Rather than free trade, modern economists including the current Fed chairman Ben Bernanke blame computers for the fall in the U.S. real-wage debacle. In a coauthored text, he writes, “Computerization is another development that has in many cases increased the productivity of more skilled workers while squeezing out those without the education or training to use the new tool effectively” (Abel and Bernanke 1995, 89). This is how the chairman explains why the unskilled worker has suffered a real-wage decline. But he fails to realize the absurdity of his argument, which implies that up to 80% of American labor force is unskilled. Production workers constitute over three-fourths of the work force, and since their average wage has plummeted, Bernanke’s logic tells us that the vast majority of Americans are unskilled. Of all the excuses made by the acolytes of free trade, attributing poverty to technological advances or automation completely defies common sense. Automation has been raising productivity in the United States ever since the birth of the American republic in 1789, and real wages went up decade after decade for all the workers. New technology never reduced the U.S. real wage until 1970. How can we now blame it for the wage blight? When free trade occurs among nations with similar wages, they all benefit. But when it occurs among high-wage and low-wage nations, workers in the rich nations suffer. The suffering takes place in various forms. In

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some, such as the United States, the real wage has actually declined. In others, such as Canada, Australia, and Germany, the real wage has not kept pace with rising productivity. The Rising Wage Gap In sum, there are four main reasons behind rising poverty in the United States—the high price of oil, regressive taxation, globalization and, above all, the low minimum wage. They all ref lect official corruption, because they are all the product of new laws that have made the rich richer. Now I will show that they also generate global imbalances and could hurtle us into an economic disaster in the near future. Official corruption seeds instability, because it raises what may be called the wage gap, which is a measure of the difference between employee productivity and the real wage. Believe me or not, the main cause of the current economic crisis that began in 2007 is the vast gap that has emerged between labor productivity and the real wage over the past thirty years. This statement comes as a surprise to many people, because they focus on the more familiar and visible macro economic variables such as consumer spending, business investment, corporate profits, share prices, inf lation and interest rates and above all the housing meltdown aff licting our economy today. However, my thesis is that productivity and wages are more fundamental than all the factors just mentioned. Here is why. The following also explains the business cycle over the past three decades. Economic balance and a healthy economy require that Supply = Demand Here supply and demand refer to the provision of goods and services in the entire economy. The main source of supply is: Productivity The main source of demand are: People’s Real Wages Because of investment and new technology, productivity rises over time, so that demand will grow as fast as supply only if Productivity growth = Real wage growth But the U.S. real wage (the purchasing power of the average salary) has been stagnant or even falling, so that in the absence of other changes, over time Supply > Demand

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Demand can also be raised artificially through government and consumer borrowing. Rising debt is the only way then left to maintain supplydemand balance. This has been happening in America for the past thirty years, since 1980. When Productivity growth = Growth of the real wage plus debt Supply = Demand Thus over the past three decades, with the real wage growth nearing zero, U.S. demand-supply balance has been maintained through ever-present budget deficits and soaring consumer debt and housing debt. The Fed chairmen, first Alan Greenspan and now Ben Bernanke, made sure that interest rates remained low to lure more and more people into borrowing. The banks also lent a helping hand in this process and extended credit recklessly. If they had not done so, there would have been overproduction and hence growing joblessness. Thus the main arteries of the economy—the Fed, the government, and the banks—all participated to postpone overproduction and unemployment. So by now the potential problem is huge. The Debt Crisis Productivity rises almost every year; so, with wages stagnant, the demandsupply balance requires that the debt rises every year as well. But this is impossible, because eventually borrowers run out of good collateral. For a while banks accept bad collateral, which eventually backfires, because debtors default and inf lict mounting losses on lenders. That process started in early 2007 and continued in 2008. The Share Market Crisis When the demand-supply balance is maintained not by wage growth but by debt growth, profits rise sharply as the entire fruit of rising productivity goes to producers. So share price bubbles are born. The bubbles burst when debt growth slows and debt-supported profits vanish. This happened in the 1920s, and the stock market bubble punctured in 1929, when consumer debt failed to grow. This also happened between 1982 and 2000, the year of the government budget surplus. As the surplus arrived, debt growth slowed, and the share market bubble of the past two decades burst open. The Housing Bubble When the share market crashes, the Fed is forced into a panicky interestrate cut to prevent a depression. This is what happened from 2001 to 2003 which in turn created the housing bubble, which also had to burst

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open once debt-growth slowed in 2007. The credit crunch was then inevitable. The Oil Price Rise Profit growth is huge relative to opportunities available for business investment; since business expansion, because of paltry consumer demand growth, is insufficient to absorb the bulging profit, money seeks speculative avenues; this way oil hedge funds were born that began raising the price of oil even in a slowing economy. Some of these funds were and are sponsored by the oil companies themselves. Thus, the wage-gap hypothesis explains almost everything that the U.S. economy has faced since 1980. Why are we sinking in a sea of debt? Because as the real wage trailed productivity, and demand growth trailed supply growth to threaten overproduction and joblessness, the government followed what is euphemistically called expansionary monetary and fiscal policy. This policy is better called debt creation policy. Government spending soared, income tax rates sank, interest rates fell periodically to lure more and more people into borrowing, 0% financing created even more debt, and Eurocentric economists convinced us that our economy was based on sound fundamentals. (Greenspan, once, exclaimed, “This is the best economy I have seen in 50 years” [Batra 2005, p. 103].) Then profits surged, and so did share prices. But profits and share markets were supported by debt, which had to grow exponentially because productivity outpaced the real wage every year. The moment debt growth slowed, as in 2000 because of the budget surplus, the stock market crashed. Greenspan’s panicky response to the crash spawned the housing bubble. Interest rates now sank so low that people bought houses they could not really afford; they borrowed money on their home equity, even inf lated their incomes. The banks looked the other way and encouraged the process, because their CEOs earned huge commissions and fees. They accepted bad collateral. A time came the borrowers could not pay their monthly mortgages, thanks again to Greenspan who began raising interest rates in 2004. Banks, all over the world, lost billions in 2008, and a credit crisis ensued. That is where things stood at the time of this writing. The government is again repeating the folly of the past three decades, and not addressing the problem of the growing wage gap. Tax rebates were legislated in 2008 to swell the budget deficit; interest rates also plummeted to encourage further borrowing. The same old medicine— the same old band-aid approach. This time, however, even the band-aid will not help. The public has used up its good collateral. There is little home equity left for the borrowers; and banks, chastened by mega losses, will not lend on bad collateral. So the debt creation policy will fail in the current economic milieu.

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My Forecasts I am a strict believer in Milton Friedman’s dictum, namely, the accuracy of a theory lies in its forecasting prowess. Since about 2003, using the wage-gap hypothesis and some cycles, I have made the following forecasts that appeared in books or newspapers: 1. Oil prices will rise or stay high until 2010—even after a recession starts toward the end of the decade. They will crash around 2010 (Batra 1999, 2007). 2. The housing bubble will start to burst in 2007 and continue in that direction at least until 2009. 3. The stock market will fall by the end of 2007 and crash in late 2008 or early 2009. 4. The dollar will collapse by the end of the decade. 5. Inf lation will heat up gradually and then fall sharply in early 2010s. 6. Gold will sky rocket but then crash in the next decade. 7. An unprecedented movement will appear by 2009 to start a revolution against the rule of wealthy lobbyists in politics. The revolution will lead to a new golden age in the next decade.2 There are many other forecasts as well, but these should give us an idea of where we are heading. Their timing, of course, could vary by plus or minus six months. They have all, if I may say so, come true and tell us that more bad times are coming. Even the revolutionary movement has taken shape under the leadership of a charismatic leader, Barack Obama. The Future of Poverty Even though the near future seems to be dark, I feel that that our distant future is very bright—nay effulgent. Owing to space considerations, I will be brief here. My latest work, The New Golden Age: The Coming Revolution against Political Corruption and Economic Chaos, partly derives from my research in the 1970s, when I wrote two books in which I made the following forecasts: ●

● ●

The ayatollahs would take over Iran in 1979 and then rule for a while. The Soviet Communism would vanish by the end of the century. The United States would be entangled in a major fight with fundamentalist Islam starting around 2000.

I used a variety of economic and historical cycles to make my case. According to an economic cycle, we are now in the midst of an inf lationary period where real estate, oil prices, and gold first zoom and then

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collapse. Amazingly, such a cycle has occurred every third decade in American history, with the 1970s being the last such decade. As regards the political cycle, I have used my late teacher’s theory to argue that nations pass through three eras (Sarkar 1967). Some times the military dominates society, sometimes the intellectuals including priests, and some times the wealthy. This political cycle concludes that the age of money is about to end in America, India, and Europe. This cycle also predicts that China, where the rule of money or of wealthy landlords ended in 1949, is about to move into its own golden age. History dictates that the rule of the wealthy always ends in a social revolution culminating in a golden age. This is the basis of my prediction that we are about to move into a period of major economic chaos and poverty that will wake up people to overthrow the rule of money in society in a ballot-box revolution. Then will come a golden age of peace, prosperity, and ethical values. Notes 1. For instance, a World Bank report (2001) summarizes the current view about corruption and poverty in developing economies: The burden of petty corruption falls disproportionately on poor people. . . . For those without money and connections, petty corruption in public health or policy services can have debilitating consequences. Corruption affects the lives of poor people through many other channels as well. It biases government spending away from socially valuable goods, such as education. It diverts public resources from infrastructure investments that could benefit poor people, such as health clinics, and tends to increase public spending on capital-intensive investments and offer opportunities for kickbacks, such as defense contracts. (World Bank 2001, p. 201) This observation from the World Bank offers great insight into the linkage between corruption and poverty in a developing country, except that it also describes many government practices in the United States as well. This quote also appears in Chetwynd, Chetwynd, and Spector (2003). Another useful volume about the corruption-poverty linkage is the collection of essays by Heidenheimer and Johnston (2002). 2. Most of these forecasts appeared in Batra (1999, 2007), and in DiMartino (2006).

Bibliography Andrew, Abel and Ben Bernanke, Macroeconomics, New York: Addison Wesley, 1995. Batra, Ravi, The Downfall of Capitalism and Communism, London: Macmillan, 1978. ———, Muslim Civilization and the Crisis in Iran, Dallas, TX: Liberty Press, 1980. ———, The Crash of the Millennium, New York: Harmony Books, 1999. ———, Greenspan’s Fraud: How Two Decades of His Policies Have Undermined the Global Economy, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. ———, The New Golden Age: The Coming Revolution against Political Corruption and Economic Chaos, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. Chetwynd, Eric, Frances Chetwynd, and Bertram Spector, “Corruption and Poverty: A Review of Recent Literature,” manuscript, Management Systems International, January 2003. Consumer Affairs, “Oil Mergers Blamed for Higher Prices,” Consumeaffairs.com, April 2, 2004. DiMartino, Danielle, “Blaming it on Greenspan, Batra Says Ex-Fed Chief Created Housing Bubble, Trade Deficit,” The Dallas Morning News, April 19, 2006. Economic Report of the President, Washington, DC, 2008. Federal Trade Commission, The Dynamic of Supply, Demand and Competition, ftc.gov, July 2005.

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Heidenheimer, Arnold and Michael Johnston, eds., Political Corruption: Concepts and Contexts, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2002. Hope, Christopher, “BP Chief Blames Oil Price Ramping,” The Telegraph, April 26, 2006. Samuleson, Paul and Wolfgong Stolper, “Protection and Real Wages,” Review of Economic Studies, June 1941. Sarkar, Prabhat R., Human Society, Part 2, Denver CO.: Renaissance Universal Press, 1967. World Bank, World Development Report 2000/2001: Attacking Poverty, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.

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Perspectives on Africa, West, South, and East Asia

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CH A P T E R

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Pan-African and Afro-Asian Alternatives [to] and Critiques [of Eurocentrism] M at h e w F or s tat e r

we can do anything together almost if not enough beyond that the repudiated cancel of the if we would have forgot genesis in special shoes revelating out your eyes in ripped rhythms we refusing to drown manning our newspaper sailboats and on down the river of given slipping our slivers silver slipped the beat conga down mountain lion lapping sun in with a wet tongue runs the warm in to swarm on the wet there get there by the any possible means possible means no retreating but the onward march lions onward through eons the ions the slipped silver neon the cry on onward lions march! search! reaching with butter tongues warm wet reach! the search resurging resurfacing facing up and out the cloud eye percussed percussioned the cushioned i on a rush f lashed f lush royal curses foiled fell a rash hush over roll red rover lashed out lassoed about swashbuckled brick red without pouting smashed south a whitewash found dark inside a mouth found dark found dark somewhere in the kitchen children switching wilderness to match the tenderness of this green and blue

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In the winter/spring of 1983, at age twenty-one, I formally converted to Buddhism and also enrolled in my first semester of college courses at Temple University in Philadelphia. The emphasis with the Buddhism for me at this point was on the practice rather than the theory, but the practice motivated me to study Buddhist philosophy. At Temple, I took Math, English, Studio Art (Drawing), and a course entitled, “An Introduction to the Black Aesthetic” offered by the Department of Pan-African Studies and taught by the internationally acclaimed poet, Sonia Sanchez. The class with “The Professor” led me to other courses offered by the Department of Pan-African Studies, the name of which was changed in 1985 to African American Studies, my undergraduate major. My studies of Buddhism and Black Studies were not separate, but rather the concepts of each were continuously overlapping, complementing one another in many ways and on multiple levels. Afro-Orientalism, Pan-Africanism, and Africalogy: Black Studies at Temple University in the 1970s and 1980s Black Studies formally arose in the 1960s as a result of student activism and community struggle. Of course, in retrospect many works from before that time can be said to be part of that tradition, one going back hundreds and even thousands of years (Adams 1977; Crouchett 1971). The first department of Black Studies was created in 1969 at San Francisco State University, the result of student and community protest, and at Temple a similar struggle led to the creation of the Afro-Asian Institute in 1971, which became the Department of Pan-African Studies in 1975 (Tran 1987b, p. 1; Mazama 2005). Sonia Sanchez had been one of the original faculty members in Black Studies at San Francisco State, and she was part of Pan-African Studies at Temple, where she arrived in 1977. Her course, “Introduction to the Black Aesthetic,” followed somewhat in the tradition of Addison Gayle, Jr. (1971) and Hoyt Fuller (1968), but definitely with Sanchez’s own style and f lavor. Black Fire (1968), the famous collection edited by Imamu Amiri Baraka [LeRoi Jones] and Larry Neal, was the textbook, along with many articles and plenty of poetry. Anyone who has seen or heard Sonia Sanchez perform her poetry will understand when I say that her performances in class had the same spirit and energy (see, e.g., http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-_ eEhTXo4I&feature=related). Cecil Conteen Gray, in his 2001 book, Afrocentric Thought and Praxis, wrote of Sanchez’s 1995 collection of poems, Wounded in the House of a Friend that “the entire work is a “wordwaterfall” of powerful, freeing, prophetic nommo” (Gray, p. 128, n34). Sanchez herself exhibited nommo, the transformative power of word/sound, in the classroom, as she does in her everyday life. The musical and oral traditions of African peoples are ones that have always been as vital to life as eating,

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sleeping, and breathing. Eurocentric compartmentalization and categorization of various aspects of experience so as to separate them from one another suppress recognition of the interrelatedness and interconnectedness of all phenomena. This has been used in part to permit rationalization of the oppression of peoples and destruction of cultures different from one’s own (Ani 1994). The musical and oral traditions of Continental and Diasporan Africans are integrated into every aspect of daily life, including work, education, healing ceremonies, rituals, entertainment, festivals, politics, celebrations, and games. One must try to imagine no separation between music, dance, and poetry—all the arts—between those arts and life and religion and politics, no separation, the whole connected experience of Life (and death and life and . . .). This is most difficult and near impossible for those brought up on the idea of ‘a place for everything and everything in its place.’ Ashenafi Kebede informs us that the Shona verb kunzwa and the Ethiopian mesmat both mean “to hear” but are also used to indicate “to perceive by touch, sight or hearing; to understand; to feel” (Kebede 1982). Sound, word, voice, cry, call, chant, are vibration and creation, an affirmation of life. Kebede continues that, “music helps us pass into other realms of consciousness. The heightened feeling enhanced by musical experience is aligned with spirituality and the world in which things are no longer subject to time and space.” James G. Spady refers to this transcendence when writing that “these are the timeless people. Timeless Places. Untimed Spaces. Our voice does not begin with a whisper ushering in some military band. That voice does not enter an ear. It explodes a lobe. It is the hushed volcano searing its way through space.” Not only the ecstatic joy of time transcended, but also the dread and pain of this particular moment in time was expressed by Sanchez as part of the whole of the African experience integral to understanding Black culture and history. But the Blues never becomes hopeless, there always remains a stubborn optimism even in the midst of deepest despair. Nommo can be expressed in numerous ways: Coltrane’s sax, speeches of Dr. King and Malcolm X, poetry of Jayne Cortez, children singing while clapping hands or playing jump rope, a friend telling a story or a joke—or insulting you (ranking, the dozens). Meaning may be expressed not only, or even primarily, through the literal definitions of words, but their very sound. The spoken word’s inseparability from music, dance, drama, costume ref lects the multifaceted, collaborative character of the oral tradition. Jessica Hagedorn describes the concept she has for the poetry reading as “an extravaganza of voices and moving bodies playing instruments that would hypnotize an audience numbed by the pomp and circumstance of academia, forgetting that the origins of poetry are oral and physical” (Hagedorn 1981, p. 140). Sanchez was also living and teaching Black Feminism and African Womanism before there were the names (Collins 1990; Hudson-

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Weems 1993; Dove 1998). This was part of the larger message of the course that throughout continental and diasporan African cultural production was the unity of politics and culture. Not only that Enslaved Africans communicated messages of resistance through song or African Americans naming a jazz or reggae song for Garvey or Malcolm, but the very energy communicated by the music itself is liberatory and transformative. The next semester I saw the Pan African Studies Department offered a course on “Mass Communications and the Third World,” taught by a Professor Tran Van Dinh. The course description sounded good so I signed up. Turned out Tran was Vietnamese professor who had been very involved in the struggle against colonialism back to the early postwar period as a staff officer of the Vietnam Liberation (later, People’s) Army (Tran 1970, 1987a). Since then he had been a participant in the Bandung Conference of 1955 and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) from its inception, as well as a diplomat who eventually emigrated to the United States and was an active scholar, artist, and political rebel. At first I wondered about his “fit” in a Pan-African Studies Department, but soon began to understand. In his course, as in his Independence, Liberation, Revolution: An Approach to the Understanding of the Third World, Tran begins by stating that his “methodology is rooted in the concrete reality of being born into and raised in a family of Confucian-Buddhist scholars in Vietnam”: I am therefore a recipient of the original Vietnamese culture, of the synthesized Indian and Chinese religions and philosophies that penetrated the Vietnamese society even before the Christian era. (1987b, p. 6) He goes on to lay out some of the tools that his approach utilizes, including the “Confucian Sino-Vietnamese concept of the ‘rectification of names’,” Buddhist philosophy, Taoism, the Vietnamese Tinh/Ly (feeling/reason or emotion/logic) distinction, and Marxian theoretical analysis (especially the Marxist notion of alienation). This allows Tran to clear the table of the preconceptions and assumptions of the Eurocentric worldview, including those that support both idealism and vulgar materialism. “A major blind-spot of Marxism—in particular European Marxism— concerns the base-superstructure dichotomy,” Tran writes. Much better for Tran is the more “cultural” conception of the base-superstructure relation put forward by Amilcar Cabral, the African Marxist who led the PAIGC (Party for the Independence of Guinea Bissau and the Cape Verde Islands), and who was assassinated by the Portuguese (Cabral 1979). Tran was also an explicit proponent of the work of the underappreciated Canadian Marxist communications scholar, Dallas W. Smythe, with whom he also worked closely for a number of years (Smythe 1981, 1987). In addition to being reminiscent of Raymond Williams’ discussion of ideology and consciousness in his Marxism and Literature (1977), Smythe’s

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theoretical stance may be said to have the f lavor of Vygotsky (1962) and Voloshinov (1973), and anticipated the turn toward nondogmatic, antiessentialist and non-determinist forms of historical materialism. Tran calls the base, “forming structures,” and refers to superstructure as “transforming structures” (1987b, p. 20). The traditional presentation of base/superstructure is ahistorical and unrealistic (p. 13, n1). Tran argues that relative primacy of the economic base in Europe is a result in part of strong theistic religious traditions. In African and Chinese cultures, in contrast, ideology arises out of the materiality of daily life and the symbolic world is concrete: The concretization of symbols is manifest in four major cultural tools which still form the bases for the cultural expression of all peoples in the Third World, if not all humankind. They are: the mask, the drum, music, and poetry. The interrelations between them are very close and their functions are often interchangeable. Collectively, they constitute channels through which a human being, totally immersed in the FS [forming structures] and TS [transforming structures] of the community communicate with his or her social or spiritual environments. To a Westerner, a mask is a work of art. To an African, it is a “necessary ritual instrument or cult object . . .” Through the mask, as well as through the drum, through music and poetry, an Asian and particularly an African relates him or herself to the society of the living and the dead . . . Among oppressed peoples, in particular the Blacks in the United States, music has been and continues to be the expression of their insuppressible freedom, their spiritual integrity, their cultural identity. (1987b, p. 23) Tran takes the position that Pan-Africanism is the “most enduring and contains more progressive ideologies within it” than any of the other “Pan” (or other third world) movements, and clearly for him the spirit of Bandung and the Non-Aligned Movement came directly out of Pan-Africanism (p. 36). African America plays a crucial and important role in the Pan-African movement, where it also finds its most militant expression: The historical contribution of the Black struggle in the United States [and the Caribbean] to the anti-colonial and anti-imperialist movements in the Third World and to Pan-Africanism has been generally misunderstood, downgraded, and ignored. This has led to the erroneous conclusion that it was the emergence of independent African nation-states that ignited the Black uprisings in the U.S. in the 1960s. Kwame Nkrumah, himself a college student in the U.S., recognized that the opposite was true . . . The Pan-African Movement has its beginnings in the liberation struggle of African Americans. (Tran 1987b, p. 42)

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The mutual inf luences f lowing between Asia, Africa, and the Americas run in multiple directions, as will be seen, but Tran’s “fit” in the Department of Pan-African Studies is no more curious than Richard Wright’s or Adam Clayton Powell’s attendance at the Bandung Conference of 1955. By the mid-1980s, Pan-African Studies at Temple had been under constant attack for many years, resulting in a decline in faculty and resources, although the Pan-African Studies Community Education Program (PASCEP, which continues today) had over one thousand community members enrolled in its courses (Mazama 2005; Tran 1987b, p. 1). In 1984, Molefi Kete Asante, the founder of Afrocentricity, was hired at Temple to chair the department, the name of which was changed to African American Studies in 1985. Asante, the editor of the Journal of Black Studies, began hiring faculty trained in African-centered research and pedagogy and the critique of Eurocentrism. Among the hires over the next ten years—by which time Temple was offering an M.A. and the world’s first Ph.D. in Black Studies—were C. Tsehloane Keto, Kariamu Welsh-Asante, James Ravell and Thelma Ravell-Pinto, Theophile Obengo, Abu Abarry, Ama Mazama, and more. In addition to Tran and Sonia Sanchez, Alfred Moleah, Peter Rigby, and Odeyo Ayaga were in or associated with the department and continued to offer courses for different periods of time. Asante was the heart and soul of the department and the driving force that brought Temple recognition as the premier Department of African American Studies. His work is well known and his contributions have been widely examined, but many others have also contributed to the development of the African-centered approach, including Asante’s colleagues and students at Temple (C. T. Keto, Cecil Gray) and Marimba Ani [a. k. a. Dona Richards] of Hunter College. There is also considerable diversity among African-centered perspectives, and while the terms Afrocentric, African-centered, and Africentric may be new, there were those who worked—and lived—in the general framework before there existed those names. It is important to note that despite the perception among some that the move from Pan-African Studies to African American Studies represented a sharp break, my own experience was of significant overlap, obvious—and more subtle—continuities, and interesting complementarities. There may have been some change in emphases, but as is often the case the differences in the two periods at Temple were more apparent to the faculty members than the students. One of the important contributions of the Afrocentric approach regards the analysis of ideology. African-centered scholars criticize Eurocentrism first and foremost for presenting the specific as universal, which is the definition of ideology (in the pejorative sense). Courses on “Literature,” “History,” “Philosophy,” and so on, historically include only European authors and traditions, and as such should be called “European Literature,” “European History,” “European Philosophy.” The particular (European) is put forward as universal. On the other hand, courses that dealt with African and African-American authors and topics, when offered at all,

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are called “African-American Literature,” “Black History,” “African Philosophy,” and so on, and are not presented as having universal significance or messages. Another important African-centered contribution has therefore been to correct spurious scholarship. Afrocentric scholars began doing the work of refuting false claims such as that Africa has no history, and that African peoples were/are “primitive,” “backward,” “uncivilized,” and so forth. Since Ancient Egypt and other Nile Valley civilizations were taken out of Africa and put in the “Middle East” (i.e., Western Asia), and their inf luence on Ancient Greece downplayed or dismissed, Afrocentric scholars, following Diop (1974), began doing the work of re-discovering Africa’s past. This was also true for the Diaspora, where peoples of African descent were said to have made little or no contributions. In the face of both ideological and institutional racisms, the notion of “race” itself had to be deconstructed and many African-centered scholars were at the forefront pioneering the analysis of racism and the intersections of race, class, and gender. Afrocentric scholars anticipated many of the insights of interpretive social science and critical theory, for example arguing against scientism and demonstrating the impossibility of valuefree or objective knowledge. Another emphasis of the Afrocentric approach concerned repairing the relationship between the Diaspora and the Continent. The seamless connections between African Continental and Diasporan traditions in the arts, culture, philosophy, religion, and so on, were rediscovered and demonstrated (see, e.g., Thompson 1983). Despite the attempt to destroy African traditions, they continued to thrive in the Diaspora. Again, while some may have viewed the two versions of the department—Afro-Asian/Pan-African and Afrocentric—as at odds, for me at the time it was the best of both worlds, and much more f lowingly consistent than might appear on the surface. Anti-colonialism and anti-racism were pillars of both liberatory nationalism and “third world” Marxism, was what connected Nkrumah, Richard Wright, Cheikh Anta Diop, Walter Rodney, Samir Amin, Paul Robeson, Fanon, C. L. R. James, Ngugi, W. E. B. Du Bois, Aime Cesaire, and others together in a seamless tapestry of resistance. Is there any greater symbol of such a stance than Bandung? At the same time as I was immersed in Black Studies, I had begun practicing Buddhism, and my interpretations of each were inf luenced by one another. Exploring the connections—between Africa and the African diaspora, between Asia and Africa, between Buddhism and Black Studies. “Two, but Not Two”: Dependent Origination, Human Revolution, and Happiness in This World From the very beginning, my introduction to Buddhism connected to Africa and Black Studies. It was my jazz saxophone teacher, Bobby Zankel,

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who played with Cecil Taylor, who first taught me to chant Nam Myoho Renge Kyo. Zankel would later marry Molefi Asante’s administrative assistant, the poet Sekai Zankel, who also practices Buddhism. One of the first things I learned is that there are many denominations of Buddhism, some as different from one another as Buddhism is from Christianity or other religions. I joined the SGI (Soka Gakkai International), an international lay organization of Nichiren Buddhists. SGI-USA, the organization in the United States, has many more African American members than most Buddhist denominations, and a higher percentage of Black members than African Americans as a proportion of the U.S. population (Hammond and Machacek 1999). There are also many Asian-American members, and not only Japanese, but Thai, Chinese, Korean, Malaysian, and others. Nichiren Buddhism is in the Lotus Sutra tradition, part of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition that moved from India to China to Korea and Japan and around the world, and that is associated with the names of Buddhist scholars or founders and leaders of Lotus Sutra Buddhist sects such as Nagarjuna, Kumarajiva, T’ien Tai (or Chih-I), Miao-lo, Dengyo, Nichiren, Makiguchi, Toda, and Ikeda. There are two main messages of the Lotus Sutra. First, in the Lotus Sutra Shakyamuni (Siddhartha or Gautama) stated that all persons without distinction possess the Buddha nature or enlightened life-condition as a potential in their life. This was a radically egalitarian position directed against the caste system, oppression of women, and any other form of hierarchy. The second message was that Shakyamuni stated that the story goes that he attained enlightenment under the Bodhi tree at some certain age and that was the start of Buddhism. He said that is wrong, “Buddha” simply means life itself and has existed from the far distant past, everyone has Buddha in their life, and Buddhahood is not a point it is an ongoing process, a process of self-reformation toward a life filled with abundant compassion and service for others (Bodhisattva practice). The lotus symbolizes, among other things, the simultaneity of cause and effect, since it seeds and f lowers at the same time. A fundamental concept of the Lotus Sutra tradition, and many other Buddhist traditions is the principle of dependent origination, sometimes called conditioned genesis, creative becoming, creative co-origination, or the interrelatedness or social nature of reality (see Jacobson 1983). Dependent origination means that nothing exists in isolation, but it goes beyond even the view that all phenomena are interrelated. Against atomism, reductionism, and mechanistic determinism, this holistic view echoes the “ecological” view put forward by, among others, Lappe and Callicott (1991): “organisms are not only mutually related and interdependent; they are also mutually defining” (Lappe and Callicott 1991, p. 247). In terms of society and social relations, dependent origination “means a world of mutual assistance and support, a world in which all people respect all others” (Galtung and Ikeda 1995, pp. 31–32).

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Dependent origination has points of contact with Tran’s rejection of base/superstructure discussed earlier, and also resonates with African worldviews: dependent origination . . . teaches that all phenomena produce effects as a result of interaction between internal and external causes, is known as both the dual-cause and the multiple-cause theory. It is no mere mechanistic determinism, where a single cause produces a single effect in the physical world. Rather, it is a comprehensive doctrine that, while encompassing the principle of the chain of cause and effect, in the end asserts the importance of the relationship among multiple external causes. Since effects arise from the interaction among multiple external causes and between internal and external causes, it follows that these relationships are endowed with a degree of freedom. In this sense, the Buddhist principle of dependent origination may be said to have something in common with Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle . . . A Buddhist theory of knowledge of this sort brims with philosophical import and substance that appear to transcend the mechanistic worldview based on the reductionist approach. (Ikeda 1998, pp. 68–69) Another fundamental concept of the Lotus Sutra tradition, and that relates to the issues raised by dependent origination, is the concept of funi, a contraction of funi nini, “two, but not two,” and nini funi, “not two, but two.” This is different than other Eastern and new age notions of “oneness” and is much closer to a kind of dialectical internal relation that rejects Cartesian and other Western (and even some Eastern) dichotomies and dualisms, whether oppositional or separate. It can be thought of as “two in appearance but fundamentally inseparable and mutually defining.” Two of many different funi concepts that are of interest here are esho funi and shiki shin funi. Esho is a contraction of Eho, or life, and shoho, or environment. Life and the environment in which it exists are in one sense “two,” of course; I know I am a distinct being and that everything that lies outside my skin is not “me” in the way that everything within my skin—my bones and guts and blood and internal organs, as well as my heart and mind and spirit, constitutes my “self.” But there is another sense in which my life—both physically and spiritually—and my environment—both natural and social—are inseparably and mutually related. I can catch a cold by breathing in the air from outside my body that has germs; I can affect my environment, including other people, and my environment affects me. As Lappe and Callicott put it: A species is thus “internally related” to its habitat . . . determined by its network of relationships . . . a species is the intersection of a multiplicity of strands in the web of life. It is not only located in its context or related to its context; it is literally constituted by its context. (Lappe and Callicott 1991)

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Shiki shin funi means that “spirit and matter are two, but not two” (and “not two, but two”). There is no pure spirit, with no material aspect, and there is no pure matter that has no spiritual dimension. All phenomena have both spiritual and material aspects, although like life and its environment, spirit and matter are distinct and distinguishable aspects of a single reality. A single coin has both a head and a tail, each identifiable on their own, but both part of the single coin. Erring in either direction would be misleading, in other words extreme versions of both materialism and idealism are missing something vitally important. To view phenomena in such a balanced manner is characteristic of the “middle way” of Buddhism: The Mystic law in which we believe is the eternal middle way, the way which transcends the extremes of two one-sided and opposing views. Buddhism expounds the principle of “oneness of body and mind [or spirit and matter],” explaining that the two seemingly distinct phenomena, the physical and spiritual aspects of life, are two integral phases of the same entity. It encompasses, integrates and transcends both spiritualism and materialism. (Ikeda 1985, p. 126) The connections between the Buddhist and African worldviews, and their contrast with European traditions, became clearer as I became a student of Black Studies and a practitioner of Buddhism. “Buddhism and the Akan religion share the belief . . . that death is not the opposite of life but that death is a continuation of life” (Hakutani 2006, p. 186; cf. Ani 1994, pp. 206–207). As Bob Kaufman, the late, great, African American Buddhist poet of the Beat generation wrote: “When I die, I won’t stay Dead” (1965, p. 30). Sonia Sanchez, in her “Love Poem” for Tupac, writes: the old ones say we don’t die we are just passing through into another space. Toward a Bandung Epistemology In Bandung . . . was the first unity meeting in centuries of Black people. And once you study what happened at the Bandung conference, and the results of the Bandung conference, it actually serves as a model for the same procedure you and I can use to get our problems solved. Malcolm X Think about it: Gandhi’s commitments were largely formed in his African experience; King was inf luenced by Gandhi, and the Civil

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Rights movement in the U.S. inf luenced the ANC and the antiapartheid struggle. Of course, at the same time, young members of the Black Power movement were inspired by the African liberation movements and the works of their leaders—Nkrumah, Lumumba, Cabral, Nyerere—themselves inspired by the Movement (Cleaver 1998, p. 12). Recall the impact visiting Asia and Africa had on Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s identification with the Vietnamese people in his later years. Recently a book of Native Son author Richard Wright’s haiku has been published. Sonia Sanchez does “blues haiku” as well as tanka and other Asian poetic forms. Coltrane paid homage to Asian culture and philosophy—the musical connections are significant. Tran was at Bandung, so were Richard Wright and Adam Clayton Powell. One European observer was puzzled by Powell’s attendance and behavior: “present in Bandung . . . was the American Negro Congressman Adam Clayton Powell: . . . distributing cigars to all and sundry, with or without provocation” ( Jansen 1966, p. 187). But Richard Wright understood: “The astounding aspect of Congressman Powell’s appearance at Bandung was that he felt the call, felt its meaning . . .” (Wright 1956, pp. 178–179). Du Bois wrote extensively on Asia, and would have been at Bandung except that he, like Paul Robeson, was denied a visa to attend by U.S. officials (Mullen and Watson 2005). Whether it is Larry Neal referring to “the frame of reference based on the humanism of the Bandung world” when writing about Amiri Baraka (Neal 1966), or Ikeda (2001, p. 152) adopting Bandung’s principles as his own (“For the people of the Third World, the conscience of all Asian and African peoples is beautifully crystalized in the principles laid down in the first Afro-Asian Conference held in Bandung, Indonesia . . . These five principles of peace are much more than relics of the past”), the Bandung spirit became a unifying symbol that continues to inspire hope to this day. Some, however, have argued that with the end of formal political colonization of most Asian and African nations and the “triumph of capitalism,” “it is no longer clear what overcoming Western power actually means” (Scott 1999, p. 14; see also, Persaud 2003; Prashad 2006): with the weakening of the cognitive political vocabularies of nation and socialism in which oppositional Third World futures were articulated, it is no longer clear how alternatives are to be thought, much less defended. In short, there is now a fundamental crisis in the Third World in which the very coherence of the modern-secular project— with its assurance of progressive social-economic development, with its dependence upon the organizational form of the nation-state, with its sense of privilege of representative democracy and competitive elections, and so on—can no longer be taken for granted. (Scott 1999, pp. 14–15)

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But the problem is that while the critique of neoliberalism is fairly well developed, as are even the critiques of Eurocentric epistemological and methodological foundations, what is necessary is to develop the positive alternatives that will take their place. These alternatives themselves must be based on new epistemological grounds. The proposition being made here is that such a “Bandung episteme” can be fashioned out of the kind of Afro-Asian conceptual frameworks explored above. One of the key implications of those teachers who have been living examples of how to go about doing this important work—whether Sanchez, Tran, Asante and the other Afrocentric scholars, or Ikeda—is that there are no purely political-economic solutions, on the one hand, nor is there any purely spiritual path out of our present predicaments. Political changes brought about by people who are suffering from the same three poisons of greed, hate, and ignorance as those whom they have replaced will have no hope for success, while those who make the same mistake “upside-down” by seeking some kind of other-worldly spiritual salvation, ignoring the principles that “faith equals daily life” and “this world is the ultimate reality,” will likewise fail in their efforts. What is necessary, then, is a true twenty-first-century Bandung middle way between idealism and vulgar materialism. Such an alternative will never be possible based on traditional Eurocentric groundings, but requires the kind of understandings provided by such African and Asian concepts such as nommo, dependent origination, nini funi, and the like. In other words, we cannot change reality without understanding it, and our vision of reality has been poisoned by Eurocentric hegemony, to the point that even our criticisms of Eurocentrism have remained stuck within that worldview, as have our attempts to craft alternatives. It is time to get down to the necessary hard work of building a Bandung world on Afro-Asian principles. Our hope for success itself can be derived from Afro-Asian lessons: Even if the night is bad, morning will come. (Fulani proverb) Winter always turns to spring. ( Japanese Buddhist saying) Bibliography Adams, Russell L. (1977) “Black Studies Perspectives,” Journal of Negro Education, vol. 46, no. 2, Spring, pp. 99–117. Ani, Marimba [Dona Richards] (1994) Yurugu: An African-Centered Critique of European Cultural Thought and Behavior, Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Asante, Molefi (1988 [1980]) Afrocentricity: The Theory of Social Change, Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Baraka, Imamu Amiri [LeRoi Jones] and Larry Neal, eds. (1968) Black Fire: An Anthology of AfroAmerican Writing, New York: William Morrow. Cabral, Amilcar (1979) Unity and Struggle, New York: Monthly Review Press. Chege, Michael (2006) “Color Lines: Africa and Asia in the Twenty-first Century,” in H. M. McFerson, ed., Blacks and Asians, Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, pp. 513–523.

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Crouchett, Lawrence (1971) “Early Black Studies Movements,” Journal of Black Studies, vol. 2, no. 2, December, pp. 189–200. Diop, Cheikh Anta (1974) The African Origin of Civilization, New York: Lawrence Hill. Dove, Nah (1998) Afrikan Mothers, Albany: SUNY Press. Fraser, Cary (2003) “An American Dilemma: Race and Realpolitik in the American Response to the Bandung Conference, 1955,” in B. G. Plummer, ed., Window on Freedom: Race, Civil Rights, and Foreign Affairs, 1945–1988, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, pp. 115–140. Galtung, Johan, and Daisaku Ikeda (1995) Choose Peace, London: Pluto Press. Gray, Cecil Conteen (2001) Afrocentric Thought and Praxis: An Intellectual History, Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Hagedorn, Jessica (1981) “Makebelieve Music,” in S. Vincent and E. Zweig, eds., The Poetry Reading, San Francisco, CA: Momo’s Press. Hakutani, Yoshinobu (2006) Cross-Cultural Visions in African-American Modernism, Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press. Hammond, Phillip, and David Machacek (1999) Soka Gakkai in America, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hill Collins, Patricia (1990) Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, Boston: Unwin Hyman. Hudson-Weems, Clenora (1993) Africana Womanism: Reclaiming Ourselves, Troy, MI: Bedford. Ikeda, Daisaku (1985) Buddhism in Action, Vol. II, Tokyo: NSIC. ——— (2003 [1988]) Unlocking the Mysteries of Birth and Death, Santa Monica, CA: Middleway Press. ——— (2001) For the Sake of Peace, Santa Monica, CA: Middleway Press. Ikeda, Daisaku, and Chandra Wickramasinghe (1998) Space and Eternal Life, London: Journeyman. Ikeda, Daisaku, Saito Katsuji, Endo Takanori, and Suda Haruo (2003) The Wisdom of the Lotus Sutra, Volume V, Santa Monica, CA: World Tribune Press. Jacobson, Nolan Pliny (1983) Buddhism & the Contemporary World, Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Jansen, G. H. (1966) Non-alignment and the Afro-Asian States, New York: Praeger. Kaufman, Bob (1965) Solitudes Crowded with Loneliness. New York: New Directions. Kebede, Ashenafi (1982) The Roots of Black Music: the Vocal, Instrumental, and Dance Heritage of Africa and Black America, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Keto, C. Tsehloane (2001) Vision and Time, Lanham, MD: University Press. Lappe, Frances Moore, and J. Baird Callicott (1991) “Individual and Community in Society and Nature,” in M. Zweig, ed., Religion and Economic Justice, Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, pp. 245–252. Malcolm X (2005) “Message to the Grass Roots” in Lois Palken Rudnick, Judith E. Smith, and Rachel Rubin, eds., American Identities: An Introductory Textbook, New York: Blackwell, pp. 119–124. Mazama, Ama (2005) “African American Studies: The First Doctoral Program,” in M. K. Asante and A. Mazama, eds., Encyclopedia of Black Studies, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 24–28. Mullen, Bill V. (2003) “W. E. B. Du Bois, Dark Princess, and the Afro-Asian International,” in B. V. Mullen and J. Smethurst, eds., Left of the Color Line, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, pp. 87–106. ——— (2004) Afro-Orientalism, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Mullen, Bill V., and Cathryn Watson, eds. (2005) W. E. B. Du Bois on Asia, Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. Mushakoji, Kinhide (2008) “Towards a New Bandung: The Global Civil Society and the UN Multilateral System,” in K. P. Clements and N. Mizner, eds., The Center Holds: UN Reform for 21st Century Challenges, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, pp. 145–164. Neal, Larry (1966) “The Development of LeRoi Jones, Part I,” Liberator, vol. 6, no. 1, January, p. 20. Persaud, Randolph B. (2003) “Reconceptualizing the Global South’s Perspective—The End of the Bandung Spirit,” in J. A. Braveboy-Wagner, ed., The Foreign Policies of the Global South: Rethinking Conceptual Frameworks, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, pp. 49–63. Prashad, Vijay (2000) The Karma of Brown Folk, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ——— (2006) “Bandung is Done—Passages in AfroAsian Epistemology,” in H. RaphaelHernandez and S. Steen, eds., AfroAsian Encounters: Culture, History, Politics, New York: New York University Press, pp. xi–xxiii.

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Sanchez, Sonia (1995) Wounded in the House of a Friend, Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Scott, David (1999) Refashioning Futures, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Singham, A. W., and Tran Van Dinh, eds. (1976) From Bandung to Colombo: Conferences of the NonAligned Countries, 1955–75, New York: Third Press Review. Smethurst, James Edward (2005) The Black Arts Movement, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Smythe, Dallas W. (1981) Dependency Road: Communications, Capitalism, Consciousness and Canada, Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Thompson, Robert F. (1983) Flash of the Spirit, New York: Random House. Tran Van Dinh (1970) “The Birth of the Pathet Lao Army,” in N. S. Adams and A. W. McCoy, eds., Laos: War and Revolution, New York: Harper & Row, pp. 424–438. ——— (1976) “Non-aligned but ‘Committed to the Hilt’,” in A. W. Singham and T. Van Dinh, eds., From Bandung to Colombo: Conferences of the Non-Aligned Countries, 1955–75, New York: Third Press Review, pp. 195–201. ——— (1987a) Communication and Diplomacy in a Changing World, Norwood, NJ: Ablex. ——— (1987b) Independence, Liberation, Revolution: An Approach to the Understanding of the Third World, Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Tyson, Timothy B. (1999) Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Voloshinov, V. N. (1973) Marxism and the Philosophy of Language, New York: Seminar Press. Von Eschen, Penny M. (1997) Race against Empire: Black Americans and Anticolonialism, 1937–1957, Ithaca, NY: Cornell. Vygotsky, L. S. (1962) Thought and Language, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Wright, Richard (1956) The Color Curtain: A Report on the Bandung Conference, Cleveland, OH: World. ——— (1998) Haiku: This Other World, New York: Arcade.

CH A P T E R

F I V E

Economic Development and the Fabrication of the Middle East as a Eurocentric Project F i r at D e m i r a n d Fa dh e l K a b ou b

1. Introduction Economists deserve a fair share of the blame for their contribution to Eurocentrism. Joseph Schumpeter’s classic History of Economic Analysis (1954) taught generations of economists that there was a “Great Gap” in the development of economic thought between ancient Greece and the European Renaissance. During the “Dark Ages,” he argued, there was nothing of significant intellectual contribution worth studying. Schumpeter and his followers have completely ignored the contributions made to economics by Al-Ghazali, Ibn Khaldun, Ibn Taimiyah, Ibn Qayyim, Abu Yousuf, and Ibn Sina, among many others. Several decades later, the so-called Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is still struggling with the socioeconomic consequences of Eurocentrism. Mainstream economics (i.e., neoclassical) focuses on uncovering the universal laws of economic behavior that apply regardless of time and space. Such laws, however, happen to be impregnated with Eurocentric notions of “economic rationality” and modernity. As such, neoclassical economics asserts that people everywhere are essentially the same, and therefore all that needs to be done is to help them (willingly or unwillingly) discover the rational way of organizing their economies. The Orientalist paradigm, however, takes the position that MENA’s culture and people are special and different. Accordingly, the Middle Eastern culture including the dominant religion (i.e., Islam) creates major impediments not only to economic development, and the rise of capitalism and free enterprise, but also to the spread of democracy, and civil society. It is these two approaches to MENA that have dominated the economic analysis of the region and have driven the policy agenda for decades.

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The recent revival of writings on MENA coincides with the rise of a new wave of wars from within and outside the region. The strategic importance of the region combined with the old attitudes of anti-Islamism and Orientalism led to a series of publications in Economics, as in other fields, to explain the apparent backwardness and underdevelopment of the region. However, the old Orientalist habits of thought and Eurocentric methods engulfed most of the findings of those studies and did very little to further our understanding of development and underdevelopment in the region. The list of the so-called factors of underdevelopment is long but can be summarized as: (a) lack of Western style institutions such as the legal code, and cultural barriers inf luenced by Islam; (b) state-oriented inward looking economic policies; (c) lack of “integration” with the world economy; (d) chilling investment climate and political instability; and (e) capital market imperfections, low levels of human capital, high population growth, and low productivity. In this paper, we review the growth and development experience of the MENA countries with a special attention to the institutional and historical roots of underdevelopment in the region. We argue that there is a general lack of historical analysis of the current problems in the region not the least any study of the effect of Eurocentric modes of institution building. This, we believe, not only creates the wrong impression that the existing barriers to development are ahistorical, but also shadows any analysis of the intra- and interregional interactions, including the colonial and the most recent postcolonial periods. The paper concludes with an alternative agenda to undo the stronghold of Eurocentrism in the region. 2. Eurocentrism and the Fabrication of MENA as a Regional Unit We define Eurocentrism as the presumption that Western European (and North American) social standards and values (which are assumed to be unique to Europe) are the only accepted means for evaluating the performance of other societies simply by virtue of being more “modern,” “enlightened,” “civilized,” and “superior.” Eurocentrism is a special case of Ethnocentrism, but of all the ethnocentric habits of thought Eurocentrism has been by far the most dominant one since the eighteenth century. This mode of thinking has permeated cultures across the world, the various academic disciplines in the social sciences, and inevitably legal and political institutions. Being Eurocentric does not necessarily mean that one is from the West, in fact the gravest form of Eurocentrism is the one adopted by the modern states and their elites in the so-called East or Orient. Indigenous Eurocentrism in the Orient, we argue, is the ultimate success of the Eurocentric project and was mostly achieved through coercive intrusion by colonial powers (and by domestic elites), and was later transferred to the deeply Eurocentric postcolonial authorities that continued

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the modernist agenda either with a capitalist or socialist f lavor. In fact, one of the most cited justifications for colonialism has been to bring civilization, modernity, and progress to the colonized world. As a result, more than half a century after the end of colonialism the Eurocentric habits of thought continue to be entrenched in the conventional wisdom: We have been taught . . . that there exists an entity called the West and that one can think of this West as a society and civilization independent of and in opposition to other societies and civilizations [i.e., the East]. Many of us even grew up believing that this West has [an autonomous] genealogy according to which ancient Greek begat Rome, Rome begat Christian Europe, Christian Europe begat the Renaissance, the Renaissance the Enlightenment, the Enlightenment political democracy and the industrial revolution. Industry, crossed with democracy, in turn yielded the United States embodying the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness . . . [That is] misleading, first, because it turns history into a moral success story, a race in time in which each [Western] runner of the race passes on the torch of liberty to the next relay. History is thus converted into a tale about the furtherance of virtue, about how the virtuous [i.e., the West] win out over the bad guys [the East]. (Wolf 1982, cited in Hobson 2004, p. 1) Thus, Eurocentrism denies the contribution of non-Western societies to the collective achievements of human kind by teaching that “the history of Europe covers the essential history of civilization” (Du Bois 1946, p. 148). As pointed out by Frank (1998, p. 9), the myth of European exceptionalism encompasses a number of basic arguments: “(i) social development is caused by characteristics which are internal to society, (ii) the historical development of society is either an evolutionary process or a gradual decline. These arguments allow Orientalists to establish their dichotomous ideal types of Western society whose inner essence unfolds in a dynamic process towards democratic industrialism” (Turner 1986, p. 81). Accordingly, as argued by Max Weber, the Occident is characterized by a unique combination of rationality and activism (Hodgson 1993, p. 86). Wallerstein (1996) identifies five ways in which social sciences express their Eurocentric bias: (i) a historiography that claims European scientific superiority over other cultures; (ii) the parochialism of its universalism claiming that made-in-Europe science has discovered the “laws of motion” of both nature and society, and that such laws are valid across time and space; (iii) its assumptions that the “West” is uniquely and especially “civilized”; (iv) its Orientalism (as defined in the works of Anouar Abdel-Malek and Edward Said); and (v) its attempts to impose the theory of progress (Wallerstein 1996, p. 1). As a result, proponents of both capitalism and socialism, which Kanth (1997) described as “the twin faces of Janus,” often fell into the traps

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of Eurocentric ideology. Accordingly, the Left often neglects “to ref lect on exactly how much of Marxism is infected with similar notions” (Kanth 1997, p. 90). The best known example is probably Marx with his Eurocentric imagination of the “Orient where civilization was too low and the territorial extent too vast to call into life voluntary association” (Marx 1853). In contrast, the Occident was characterized by voluntary association that led to the development of private enterprise. The period between 1700 and 1850 clearly dates the rise of Eurocentrism as a fundamental construct of the “West” as a superior society blessed with all possible virtues and moral values that the “East” lacked. Needless to say that the geographic references to “East” and “West” in their modernist meanings are precisely the construct of the same Eurocentric imaginary. The MENA region itself is a Eurocentric fabrication aimed at essentializing the region and its people. As Halliday explains: We should long ago have resisted the temptation to see the region as a single, integrated political or socio-economic whole [. . .]. One of the besetting distortions of the region, replicated by Western stereotyping and local ideology alike, is that the region’s politics and history can be explained by timeless cultural features, a Middle Eastern “essence” or an “Islamic mindset.” (Halliday 1999, p. 4) For our analysis, therefore, first we need to clarify what the MENA region is, and its usefulness as a unit of analysis. Like most of the developing world, the MENA region was more of a product of strategic factors from the European point of view than anything else. As Lewis and Wigen (1997, p. 37) exposed, geographically speaking seeing Europe and Asia as parts of a single continent would have been a more accurate classification but would fall short of granting Europe the superiority that “Western Europeans” believed it deserved. By fabricating a seemingly scientific continental division between Europe and Asia, Western scholars managed to strengthen the notion of a cultural dichotomy between these two regions. Moreover, starting from the beginning the Middle East was not a region defined by cultural, historical, or geographical units but by strategic military needs. In fact, the term itself was the brainchild of the military theorist Alfred Thayer Mahan in 1902 to refer to the region neighboring the Persian Gulf (Lewis and Wigen 1997, p. 65). Furthermore, if the Middle East is in the middle from the perspective of Western Europe (and North America) then which region and countries lie in the Near East? The most visible sign of a lack of structural basis for the fabrication of such a unit of analysis is the continuing confusion regarding the borders of this region. A quick look at the current social sciences literature reveals a lack of consensus on which countries to include in this region. The list ranges from all North Africa, some Central Asia (such as Afghanistan), Persian Gulf (i.e., Iran, Bahrain, UAE, Qatar), Asia Minor (Turkey), Mediterranean island(s) (Malta but not Cyprus for some unknown

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reason), and Eastern Mediterranean (Israel, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria). It is common practice to exclude Cyprus and Malta from the classification although (according to the geographical and historical justifications used for other countries) they are part of the region. The same problem applies to the exclusion of Armenia and Azerbaijan from the list. Another visible sign of the absurdity of using MENA as a unit of analysis and the apparent difficulty of using it for comparative research is the presence of multiple classifications. To give an example, it is common to classify the countries in the region based on: oil rich/oil poor; labor rich—oil rich (Iran, Iraq)/labor poor—oil rich (Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Libya, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia); labor rich–oil poor (Egypt, Turkey); oil poor–limited natural resource (Israel, Tunisia, West Bank and Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon); natural resource poor states (Sudan, Yemen); NICs (Turkey, Egypt, Tunisia); industrialized (Israel) countries (i.e., Richards and Waterbury 1996). Despite this multiplicity, still no one questions the usefulness of classifying all these countries in one group despite different economic, historical, cultural and geographical mappings. The fabricated mapping of the region has long been internalized by the region itself. In addition to the imagined existence of the region as a unit of analysis, the region also took for granted the basic tenets of modernity as defined in Europe. As discussed by Kanth (1997) and Hobson (2004), equating Westernization with modernity presupposes geographical and cultural uniqueness and superiority of Western Europe over the rest of the world. Despite the presence of a growing body of research documenting and challenging the claim that democracy, individualism, secularism, market society and in general modernity started in Europe and is an end product of European culture, the intellectuals, academicians, the military and policy makers continue to impose an imagined version of modernity on their populations. 3. Eurocentrism and Economic Development in MENA The Eurocentric modes of analyzing the East through economic, cultural, and geographical determinism have a long history both on the left and right side of the economics literature. According to a majority of writings from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, the Orientalists did not reach a stage to have private property, which was (and still is) seen as one of the root causes of their underdevelopment. In fact, “the absence of landed property is indeed the key to the whole of the East. Therein lies its political and religious history” (Engels 1853; Marx 1853). According to this view, since private property is the foundation of capitalism, the East remained in a subservient position to the West (Kuran 2004). Max Weber (1905) was probably one of the most prominent initial perpetrators of the Eurocentric claim that the cultural traits of the Islamic

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dynasties of the Abbasids, Mamluks, and Ottomans were less conducive to the development of the rational, predictable, and evolving legal structures that are required for the emergence of rational capitalism. He argued that the legal and political institutions of the Muslim world produced deficiencies that could not guarantee property rights whereas Europe was able to do so and therefore bring about the transition from feudalism to capitalism. When we look at the contemporary tales of underdevelopment in MENA, it is still a common practice to explain the lagged performance of the region for the last two centuries with the legacy of cultural and religious institutions and traits. On the basis of World Values Survey data, Guiso, Sapienza, and Zingales (2002) claimed that Islam is negatively correlated “with attitudes that are conducive to growth,” and that compared to the other major religions, Muslims are the anti-market. Barro and McCleary (2002), however, find no empirical evidence for a link between religion and national macroeconomic performance. Their motivation for this line of research in economics is driven by a belief that religiosity enhances certain traits such as thrift, honesty, hard work, and openness to strangers, all of which according to neoclassical theory promote productivity and economic growth. Similarly, a recent empirical study by Marcus Noland (2003) refutes the Eurocentric assertion that Islam presents an impediment to economic growth. Likewise, using a cluster analysis with sixtytwo countries and forty-four indicators of economic institutions, Pryor (2007) shows that Islam as a religion has relatively little inf luence on the economic institutions, the economic system, or the economic and social performance of a country Nevertheless, Kuran (2004) continues to blame (a) the Islamic waq f or trusts that locked capital into a dysfunctional institution, (b) Islamic inheritance law, which dispersed inheritance among multiple heirs, and (c) the individualism of Islamic law as preventing decentralized capital accumulation and the rise of private enterprise and civil society à la Europe. He further argues that “the commonness of autocratic rule in the region stands, then, among the continuing legacies of traditional Islamic law” (Kuran 2004, p. 87). In contrast, “in the West many social services came to be provided by self-governing and, hence, more f lexible organizations. Also, the West had a greater variety of organizational forms, which allowed more experimentation in the delivery of services” (Kuran 2004, p. 81, emphasis added). Likewise, Landes (1969) firmly denies that Muslim “culture” can permit any technological initiative. He further argues that “if we learn anything from the history of economic development it is that culture makes all the difference” (1998, p. 516). According to Landes, only Western culture is blessed with the core prerequisites for success: “work, thrift, honesty, patience, tenacity” (Landes 1998, p. 523). According to this view, MENA’s economic decline and its current political and social backwardness are due to the very nature of the Islamic culture that prevented the development of the pillars of the free market and democratic institutions.

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Moreover, since political transition to democracy is seen as a stage in the development from authoritarian governments that are endemic and indigenous to the Orientals, the colonial experience is generally viewed as a positive contribution, as the first seed of enlightenment in the region (Marx 1953; Booth and Seligman 1994). For example, Paldam (1998, p. 177) argues that “Many of these countries [in Africa and Islamic/Arab world] experienced a period of colonization by a European power, which effectively ended the traditional pattern, and instilled the ideal of some type of democracy.” Yet, in fact “all attempts [. . .] to invoke pre-Modern seminal traits in the Occident can be shown to fail under close historical analysis, once other societies begin to be known as intimately as the Occident” (Hodgson 1993, p. 86). Moreover, as Inalcik (1969) emphasized, Islamic society and law “shaped themselves from the very first in accordance with the ideas and aims of a rising merchant class” (Inalcik 1969, p. 101). Furthermore, such reductionist generalization of European development experience ignores the centralized and state-led development examples of European states such as Germany. The same is true for the conf licting portrayal of the region with two opposite poles, communalism on one side and individualism on the other. Besides, the same individualism was often used to explain European exceptionalism and success vis-à-vis the rest of the world. In addition, the lagging performance of the region vis-à-vis Europe came far too recently on a historical scale to be pinned on the inf luence of religious (or cultural) institutions. Therefore, any attempt to explain the decline in economic performance of the region after the eighteenth century with the religious/cultural factors or institutions should also be able to explain how the same institutions could create the opposite results prior to that date. Looking through non-Eurocentric lenses, the economic history of MENA is anything but static and can be characterized by several cycles of growth and accumulation. The region enjoyed higher levels of economic development and prosperity compared to its counterparts in Europe. The overall urbanization rate, for example, was much higher than Europe. Paris, for instance, had 125,000 inhabitants compared to Cairo with 450,000 or Istanbul with 700,000 around 1500 (Bairoch 1997, pp. 517–537). Even more surprising to the Eurocentric perceptions, in the sixteenth and seventeenth century, a city like Kayseri in Anatolia with a population of 33,000 was within the same order of magnitude as Amsterdam and Barcelona (Faroqhi 1987, p. 43). Historically, the MENA region was a thriving center of trade both originating within the region and as a crossroads for trade routes between Europe, East Asia, and Southern Africa. The Muslim contribution to science and technology during the European dark ages ranges from surgical medical instruments and pharmaceutical products to the development of mathematics, algebra, trigonometry, optics, architecture, and astronomy. The MENA region was a thriving civilization leading the way in the

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development of sciences, arts, and culture. However, the shift in the balance of power between MENA and Europe over the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and Europe’s subsequent industrialization instituted a new pattern of trade, that which manufactures exports from Europe in return for primary products and raw materials and led to the subsequent decline and decimation of existing manufacturing and crafts production that the region had enjoyed. During this period, any attempt by the region to industrialize was forcefully prevented (most notably by Britain and France) such as the industrialization efforts by Muhammad Ali in Egypt (Issawi 1966, p. 363). This not only significantly shifted the pattern of production and trade, but also served to disrupt intra-regional trade in agriculture and manufactured goods, which had expanded under the consolidation of the region under the Ottoman rule (Owen 1993). Furthermore, the often repeated Eurocentric claim that modern globalization began in 1500 with the European Enlightenment and geographical discoveries has been aptly challenged by Hobson (2004) who argued that the “East” had a well established global economy at least since 500 which he called the “oriental globalization” stretching from North Africa and Middle East to China, India and Korea in the East and Polynesia in the South. Hobson explains that the level of scientific and technological progress that took place in the “East” allowed for revolutionary improvements in productivity, specialization, transportation, commerce, and overall quality of life. Hobson’s work shows that China had undergone an early industrial revolution in the steel industry centuries before Europe. The Arabs in the Middle East had almost absolute control over international trade by controlling the major trade routes stretching from Spain and Arabia to China and India. The claim that capitalism was strictly an invention of the European Enlightenment is also challenged by the fact that financial institutions, international clearing unions, credit, monetary contracts, and a very elaborate taxation system was already in place in the oriental global economy centuries before Adam Smith began to imagine what a capitalist system would look like. In retrospect, the fabrication of classless Eastern (i.e., Ottoman) despotism as an antithesis to European monarchy was a product of European identity formation, especially given the presence of a vibrant merchant class, numerous and well-established religious nonprofit foundations and occupational interest groups in the form of guilds throughout MENA (Faroqhi 2004, p. 591; Islamoglu-Inan 2004, p. 3; Inalcik 2005, p. 83). In this respect, the heavy emphasis on the geographical determinants of sociopolitical structures served two purposes. On the one hand, it gave the theory the halo of scientific correctness, and on the other hand, it helped reassure the distinctness of Europe from Asia. The famous though completely discredited Asiatic Mode of Production (AMP) theory of Marx and Engels was a product of this line of thinking. The AMP theory encompassed the assumption of Oriental Despotism, which is defined as a centralized strong state (i.e., the despot) with no

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vertical linkages to society through intermediate social classes with the agrarian base located at the bottom. This has important implications for the reinterpretation of the past as well as the present and future. Accordingly, the absence of any civil society and the lack of any pressure group or class to limit the absolute authority of the state are the defining characteristics of the non-European states in the East. The current research in economics and political science continues to use the so-called common sociopolitical roots of oriental despotism in explaining the relative underdevelopment of the region. Accordingly, repressive political (i.e., military and state bureaucracy) and cultural (i.e., Islamic) institutions legitimize the oppressive nature of the state that is itself a product of the historical and geographical forces. This line of analysis also serves multiple purposes for the current political order and for the Western consciousness. First, it helps free the Western world from any responsibility in the underdevelopment and the continuation of oppressive authoritarian regimes in the region. This narrative skips over the role of colonial powers in the erection of dictatorships in the region, Second, this helps justify Western interventions in the region to bring the famous trinity of “development, democracy and human rights.” Accordingly, Western colonial interventions take the form of a progressive force to eradicate suppressive sociopolitical forces and liberate local populace from indigenous barriers that slow the development process. Therefore, the substitution of the Despotic state with a more humane colonial state was not a regressive development. Also, when the replacement was done through local allies, this was still a better choice than the despotic indigenous state structure (Islamoglu-Inan 2004). 4. Formation of Independent States with Jacobinist Institution Building Upon independence, the newly formed states in the region continued the colonial habits of thought in their organization of the state apparatus. Most notably they took for granted the European explanation of the reasons behind the region’s backwardness and tried to imitate European success by reshaping themselves after the European image. Moreover, the new rulers took it as one of their major targets to civilize the natives during the nation building process. During this period, the Westernization of the “East” (without adopting the institutions or economic foundations) took the form of forced cultural changes such as dress codes, changing alphabet (in the Turkish case), measurement system, closing religious NGOs and sects, and such. The forced Westernization went to such extreme that in Turkey, for instance, traditional classical music was banned from radio broadcast from 1934 to 1936. And, Article 222 of the Turkish Penal Code based on a law dating back to 1925 made it compulsory to wear a hat and required prison terms for those who violate it. To this day, the elites still

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continue to see the realities of their countries through the distorted lens of the European enlightenment. 1. The Formation of Centralized State The state-led economic policies in the region were first introduced by colonial governments in an effort to enforce the direct colonial control over resources, and through the introduction of colonial law and order. The top-down colonial policies have sterilized socioeconomic participation, eliminated any form of active political discourse, and instilled a culture of inaction from the part of the population. Consequently, the concept of governance inherited by postcolonial governments became synonymous with the role played by colonial authorities, but with a nationalist agenda aimed at modernizing the economy and “catching-up” with the West. The catching up process has been shaped by the Weberian hypothesis; therefore policies were introduced to secularize society in order to enhance capitalist development. Accordingly, the state elites who were mostly former soldiers all agreed on the need for a strong centralized authoritarian state. As a result, despite the diversity in economic performance and resource endowments in the region, a characteristic shared by virtually all countries (including Turkey and Israel) regardless of professed ideology (i.e., socialist, republican, monarchy etc.) was until very recently (i.e., late 1980s) that they had a large public sector that led the development process (Richards and Waterbury 1996). Also one needs to take into account the fear of neocolonialism on the behalf of postcolonial states such as Egypt, Algeria and Libya given that the former colonial powers had a profound interest in continuing their previous hegemony through the economic arena rather than by direct military confrontation. For example, regarding the independence of Egypt and the Suez problem, Tignor (1987, p. 486) argued that “webs of economic connections would keep Egypt in the British orbit” even after British forces were withdrawn from the canal base. In this respect, the still bitter memories of the destruction of local industrial development by the colonial powers also contributed to the policy choice in favor of heavy industry based state-led growth model. Using the public sector as the engine of growth and development, the majority of the states also experienced the usual sequencing in terms of development models, going through an Import Substitution Industrialization (accompanied by land reform) which would be disrupted (usually following an economic and/or political crisis, such as Egypt 1967, 1974; Tunisia 1969; Turkey 1980) and be replaced by an outward oriented development model where the role of state is minimized through domestic and external liberalization programs. During the ISI period the state had the responsibility for infrastructural buildup, educational and health services, industrialization and societal

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transformation while engaging in a mixed relationship with the private sector. Despite the presence of a generally hostile attitude (by the state bureaucracy), the private sector in most countries benefited largely from intermediate products supplied by the state enterprises at discounted prices or from other subsidies in the form of directed credits or foreign exchange. As elsewhere, one of the characteristics of the ISI era was that during this period the accumulation process became highly dependent on politics rather than markets. Entrepreneurs relied on the state bureaucracy and the subsidies it provided, rather than exploiting the opportunities created by the market itself. The political and economic environment thus created opportunities for wide-ranging rent-seeking behavior within the business community, as businesses competed for the special set of incentives provided by the state. 2. Development Bottlenecks1 In addition to the distortions created in the economy from a centralized, highly inefficient, untransparent, unaccountable, and mostly corrupt state structure, there are other problems that limit economic growth and development in the region (Dahi and Demir 2008). In particular, one of the most visible effects of Eurocentric ideology is in the field of human capital formation. The disproportionate weight on higher education instead of primary and secondary was a byproduct of the distorted perception of modernity through positivist lenses in the region. The newly independent states put greater emphasis on higher education for two reasons: One was the urgent need for a cadre of state bureaucracy loyal to the ideals and establishment ideology of the state. Given that a majority of educated class and military elites were perished during decades of wars, the new states started with a very low human capital base. The second reason, we think, was the belief that Western military and economic success resulted from the presence of a highly skilled technical labor force, which was interpreted as more engineers. Regarding the first reason, following political independence the majority of MENA countries faced a daunting task to educate their population. For example, adult illiteracy around independence was 70% in Syria, 85% in Algeria, Iraq, and Libya, 90% in Sudan, 53% in Kuwait, 45% in Lebanon (Ghonemy 1998). The colonial powers had established parallel systems of education and significant discrimination in education that left the majority of population, especially in rural areas, with dilapidated and low quality (if any) public schools while the urban elites and sectors friendly to colonial powers enjoyed high quality educational establishments whose quality resembled those in Europe. For example, French authorities in Algeria allocated 20% of public expenditure on education to Muslims who were 90% of the population while the British allocated only 1.5% of the total budget on health and education combined in 1891 in Egypt. At the time of independence in 1951, Libya had only two citizens with university degrees (Ghonemy 1998).

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Since the postindependence period the MENA countries have invested a high proportion of their GDP towards education and health, and have made remarkable gains on both accounts. Illiteracy has dropped from 60% in 1980 to about 43% in mid-1990s while school enrollment at all levels went up from 31 million to 56 million during the same period (UNDP 2003). However there is still widespread illiteracy among youth and adults and even higher illiteracy rates among women and the rural poor, which suggests that the performances could have been better if governments had been willing to allocate a larger share of their budgets to education. The second reason, a side effect of the industrialization attempts by the MENA countries was a reallocation of resources towards higher education, which typically have lower social rates of return than primary education. The result has been the oddity of large numbers of unemployed highly educated workers together with large numbers of illiterate adults and youth (Richards and Waterbury 1996). In the case of Egypt, for instance, despite an illiteracy rate of around 50% more than 100,000 university graduates enter the job market every year (Weaver 1995 quoted in Lubeck 1998, p. 303). 3. Sociopolitical Conflicts and the Revival of Oriental Despotism The region has been plagued with ongoing sociopolitical conf licts starting from the final years of the Ottoman Empire and erection of colonial regimes. Having borders drawn based on politics by the colonial powers rather than historical, cultural or ethnic backgrounds or on social consensus led to subsequent ethnic and religious civil conf licts (for a list of these conf licts, see Elbadawi 2005, pp. 306–307). In addition, from 1948 until today the Middle East has witnessed four wars between Israel and several of its Arab neighbors, three wars with Western countries, the second longest conventional war in the twentieth century (Iran-Iraq War), the full occupation of Iraq and Palestine, and partial occupation of Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria, extended periods of economic sanctions on Syria, Iraq, Sudan, and Libya, and dozens of coups d’états instigated from within and outside the region. The persistence of ethnic, religious, and sociopolitical conf licts, continuous wars and military occupations helped strengthen authoritarian state structures and did not provide a stable environment for development. In this respect, the artificial mapping of the region with sovereign borders overlapping with different ethnic and religious groups with different historical and cultural backgrounds further fed into the authoritarian state structure with the excuse that the survival of the unity of the country is dependent on the suppression of popular demands by different groups. On the other hand, the survival of these mostly autocratic regimes required distribution of economic rents to a wider group of supporters including labor aristocracy, landowners as well as peasantry. In this respect, what is common in the region is that a continuous f low of revenues

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(e.g., from oil rents) has helped postpone economic and political reforms (excluding Turkey and to some extent Israel). Furthermore, the formation of pro-establishment interest group coalitions helped create support among the public for the survival of the existing regimes. In Arab countries, the political and economic programs of authoritarian populist regimes were designated as Arab nationalism and Arab socialism. The authoritarian populist Arab regimes as well as Turkish military governments acknowledged workers and peasants as central components of their regimes’ survival. Land reform programs (despite their limited coverage) were often used as tools to increase legitimacy of the regimes (i.e., in Egypt, Syria, Iraq Algeria, and Turkey). Increasing social spending on education and other services as well as increasing government employment might have encouraged society to tolerate undemocratic rule and human rights violations. These processes and conf licts have had a direct impact on state structure and overall trajectory of development, as well as development strategies and choices available at any given period in time. First of all the Oriental Despot became a reality with a strong centralized state that stayed in power through the use of its military, bureaucratic and legal arms. The suppression of popular demands, ethnic/religious conf licts became the norm across the region. As a result the state structure is organized around a small state elite and the military establishment surrounded by a group of labor aristocracy, dependent private businesses and peasantry. The presence of internal and external threats to the survival of the regimes that are established without a social consensus on a landscape divided by artificial borders, did not create a stable environment for growth. Instead, the original sin of Eurocentrism and European colonialism that created artificial satellite states in the region, resulted in ever growing barriers for stability and development. As a result (or on the pretext) of civil conf licts the mostly authoritarian regimes have devoted a sizable portion of their budgets to military spending. Average military expenditures to GDP ratio in the region was 6.6% between 1990 and 2004 with a maximum of 21.8% in Kuwait and minimum of 1.8% in Tunisia (the overall average was 5.5% in 2003). Comparatively, the averages were 1.4%, 0.5%, 2.5%, and 1.6% in Argentina, Mexico, Malaysia, and Hungary for the same period (SIPRI). Such high military spending creates a substantial potential for peace dividend in the region (Rodrik, Fischer, and Tuma 1993; Carkoglu, Eder, and Kirisci 1998). 4. The New Game in Town: Neoliberalism As discussed in the previous sections, the Eurocentric and Orientalist state ideology that defines itself based on the imagined other in the form of backward, undeveloped, uncivilized and un-intellectual religious masses that comprise most of the populace, required suppression of populist demands and any opposition to the top-down nature of economic and political decision making. As a result, the whole process of structural shifts has been

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accomplished under military rule in all countries in the region. This includes the initial creation and formation of nation states under the image of European states and institutions, as well as the final demise of the stateled growth model towards an outward oriented free market model based on the neoliberal economic design. For the last two decades all economic transitions to a free market model with a liberalized domestic market and a decentralized state have been achieved under dictatorships with a total ban on any popular resistance from labor unions, universities and other interest groups (e.g., Turkey, Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco since the early 1980s). Therefore, the same top-down nature of policy implementation is true even more so today when almost all the countries in the region follow policy advices from outside the region to imitate the Western success in development. The most common signs of this are as follows: the attempts to reorganize the state structure to reverse economic nationalism, industrially biased state development, and anti-imperialist rhetoric that will open the door for privatizing state enterprises that were seen as the symbols of postcolonial independence. Globalization and integration to the modern world this time means an unquestioning acceptance of the neoliberal economic policies. A recent example of unconditional surrender of domestic economic decision making to Western based institutions and unelected technocrats, is the appointment of Kemal Dervis, then vice president of World Bank, as the economy minister in the aftermath of the most serious economic crisis in the history of the Turkish republic in 2001. Thus, two endemic aspects of the liberalization and the accompa nying structural adjustment programs have contributed to the increasing authoritarianism and un-democratization of the countries in the region; the first one is the nature of the implementation of these programs as have been elsewhere: and what we call as “technocratization” of the economic life by which we refer to the increasing independent autonomous institutional units that are in charge of economic decision making in the public sphere. More and more responsibilities of the democratically elected governments have been transferred to these nontransparent units while increasing the autonomy of the already existing ones. This development, despite the textbook rhetoric of eliminating corruption, and populist decision making, has increased the already existing epidemic of non-transparency and unaccountability in the public sphere while increasing insecurity among people in society. The second development has been the collapse of the public sector finance at the same time with downsizing of the state activities in the market. Lack of any form of social safety nets has left the society without any means to provide their basic needs and has further led to increasing social tensions and instability. After all, the issues seemed to be much too important for the “voters to be left to decide for themselves.” In terms of the past performance, in contrast to the neoliberal rhetoric that identifies free markets as a precursor of free societies, the economic liberalization and deregulation programs have not removed the state from the market or eliminated prof ligate public subsidies. “Its major impact has

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been to concentrate public funds into different, but fewer hands. The state has turned resources away from agriculture, industry and the underlying problems of training and employment. It now subsidizes financiers instead of factories, speculators instead of schools” (Mitchell 1999, p. 31, also see Yeldan 2006; Demir 2004). Furthermore, despite the implementation of comprehensive trade and financial liberalization programs along the neoliberal paradigm including tariff reductions, privatization, tax breaks and eased restrictions on foreign ownership, as well as establishment of free trade zones and other incentives to encourage Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), capital f lows to the region remain minimal. The region’s share of FDI fell to 0.7% in 2000 from 2.5% in 1980 (Hirata et al. 2004). On the other hand, income inequality and poverty rates have increased since the implementation of the neoliberal reform policies (Ali and Elbadawi 2002; Fergany 1998). In retrospect, poverty reduction has been one of the top priorities of the newly independent states and as a result, the region enjoyed the lowest incidence of poverty and income inequality of any region in the developing world (Adams and Page 2003). The driving force in this was not only the need to create a support base for the new regimes among the population but also the bitter memories of the colonial era. People saw a connection between the advance of European colonialism and the rise of underdevelopment and poverty in most developing countries (Davis 2001, p. 14). Even natural disasters such as “drought and famine gave foreign creditors, allied with indigenous money lenders and compradors, new opportunities to tighten control over local rural economies through debt or outright expropriation. Pauperized countryside likewise provided rich harvests of cheap plantation labor as well as missionary converts and orphans to be raised in faith” (Davis 2001, p. 91). Therefore, it was no surprise that the postcolonial states, either because of a pragmatic realization of the conditions of regime survival or genuine desire for overcoming underdevelopment, aimed at restoring economic independence while eliminating poverty. However, the slow growth coupled with neoliberal reforms, which have scaled back the role of the state, have also reversed the trend of declining inequality (Ali and Elbadawi 2002; Fergany 1998). 5. Reform from Within Together with the repressed popular demands from the general population, as well as from different ethnic and religious groups, the biggest obstacle to reform in the region is the conf lict between the elites and their interpretation of Western modernity and the local populace who feel that they must be vigilant and protect themselves against outside forces that historically dominated the region. The resistance is also against the distorted version of modernity imposed by the ruling elites. In this respect, the so-called traditionalist masses versus modernist state elites

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dichotomy did actually result from the weakening of the communication channels between the state and the people through either colonial states or Eurocentric postcolonial ones; rather than from the absence of civil society or from the regressive nature of Eastern cultures or religion (Islamoglu-Inan 2004). The reorganization of state structure away from social and indigenous institutions (on the pretext that they are regressive, archaic and non-Western/non-modern) toward Western-based ones with increased undemocratic decision making (through courts, military establishment, state bureaucracy, etc.) undermined the political authority of the ruling elites and state bureaucracy. Increasing poverty, and concentration of wealth in the hands of a few and widespread corruption further widened this gap. As a result, the last century of the Ottomans witnessed hundreds of peasant revolts motivated by economic as well as political estrangement of the large sections of the society. As a result, society started seeing the current rulers and the forced Westernization as a rupture from the idealized past and took a defensive position to the newly implemented institutions and state structure. Thus, as the rulers saw their salvation in the adoption of Western culture and institutions (that they regarded as precursors of civilization and development), the society started appearing as an obstacle to be overcome. Social engineering took the form of modernist bureaucrat versus traditionalist backward society that needed to be civilized. This had significant ramifications throughout the last three centuries in all segments of society. On the one hand, the elites saw their easterner-ness as a handicap limiting their achievement of full potential and therefore did everything to erase any sign of this eastern-ness. On the other hand, the society became traditionalist seeing the new institutions as the root cause of all evil, not to mention the forced unification and separation of the geographical landscape. The continuing Western support for local dictators and the ongoing military conf licts such as the second Iraq War on the pretext of bringing democracy also made many suspicious of real interests of former colonial powers. In retrospect, the elites’ internalized habit of looking at their own societies through the distorted Eurocentric lenses perpetuate the old problems in a vicious cycle and limit any chance of reconciliation with the general public. In the case of Turkey, for example, despite the presence of overwhelming data suggesting economic conditions as the primary concern of general public, the army continues to pin point fundamentalist threat as the top priority. This also enables the elites and the military across the region to consolidate their power in all realms of economic and political life while eliminating any public opposition. Given this background, the rise of ultra religious, ethnic as well as nationalistic parties may partly be explained by: (a) the historical dichotomy between the state elites and the society, especially given the latest developments in the Middle East where the state elites and the military supported the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan while not intervening in the human tragedy in Palestine; (b) the growing income inequality;

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(c) the continuing presence of autocratic regimes supported by the major powers under the pretext of securing the f low of oil to the developed countries markets; (d) the low rates of economic growth and the lack of new employment opportunities combined with high population growth; and (e) loose social consensus and forced unification/separation of the peoples of the region in artificial national borders. The solutions to the current problems require structural changes involving the revival of civil society, which has become increasingly vocal in its criticism of the current regimes. The ability of state elites to retain their control depends on their ability to negotiate new terms for mutual existence with these opposition forces. The role of civil society is also crucial in curtailing rampant corruption which currently puts the region at the bottom of the transparency index. Furthermore, the definition of backwardness according to Eurocentric notions of Islam and the Middle East needs to be changed. This opens the door for alternative explanations for the low level of development in the region. And finally, Arab states need to increase cooperation and perhaps develop a regional union similar to the European Union. This would limit the intra-regional conf licts, increase cooperation and can prevent the use of national conf licts as a tool for power by local rulers. This would also transform the citizenship definition from ethnicbased to citizenship-based which may help solve ethnic conf licts. 6. Conclusion The development trajectory of the MENA region that we have described above bears witness to the following Eurocentric traits: (1) an artificial fabrication of a heterogeneous geographic, cultural, ethnic, and religious entity into a single homogeneous unit defined as the Other, the nonWest, the Rest, the East, the Near East, the Orient, the Middle East, and eventually MENA; (2) a systematic denial of the contributions made by non-Western civilizations to science, culture, and humanity; (3) a systematic representation of the inherent backwardness of the region based on a cultural and religious heritage that prevents the emergence of civil society, and capitalistic and democratic institutions; (4) a justifiable colonization in the name of bringing civilization, modernity, democracy, and prosperity to the region; (5) a state-led modernization strategy by authoritarian postcolonial governments coupled with the creation of an elite bourgeoisie to perpetuate a top-down political and economic domination of the indigenous population; and (6) a continuous backing of dictatorship regimes by the West to the detriment of the local population despite all the rhetoric about democracy and freedom. This paper argued that Eurocentric thought was not just the product of the European political Right but rather also a doctrine endorsed by the Left. It was the perpetuation of the myth that the Islamic culture was non-conducive to the development of property rights that has eventually

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stalled the process of growth, and continues to prevent the contemporary MENA region from reaching a level of economic development. The paper argued, however, that the major explanations of underdevelopment speculated in the economic literature have ignored the important institutional legacy of colonization which had dismantled the preexisting political, legal, cultural, and economic institutional fabric of a thriving civilization, and had replaced it by a centralized and rigid colonial structure, which was then reproduced by nondemocratic postcolonial governments, and most recently through aggressive neoliberal policies. Undoing nearly three centuries of Eurocentric habits of thought is no easy task, but the paper nonetheless proposed an alternative agenda for economic reform, namely an inclusive and decentralized political system in which a vibrant civil society plays a vital role in the economic and political future of the region. Most importantly, however, undoing the stronghold of Eurocentrism requires an internal conscious recognition of what Eurocentrism has done to the region. Thus, recognizing that the region’s culture and diversity is not a burden that needs to be cleansed is a crucial step in reviving the region’s sense of self-confidence. And finally, once it is recognized that the region’s diverse culture is a common asset rather than a liability, increased economic cooperation and integration within the region becomes the most viable strategy for economic prosperity, equity, and social justice. It is this ultimate battle against Eurocentric ideology that will determine the economic success of the MENA region. Notes The authors would like to thank Omar S. Dahi, Rajani Kanth, Sohrab Behdad, Amit Basole, Philip A. O’Hara, Rana Odeh, and Aymen Kaboub for their thoughtful comments and suggestions. The paper also benefited from great conversations with all conference participants. The usual disclaimer applies. 1. This section is partly based on Dahi and Demir (2008).

Bibliography Adams, R. H. Jr., and J. Page. “Poverty, Inequality, and Growth in Selected Middle East and North Africa Countries, 1980–2000,” World Development, vol. 31, 2003, pp. 2027–2048. Ali, A. A., and I. A. Elbadawi. “Poverty in the Arab World: The Role of Inequality and Growth,” in I. Sirageldin, ed., Human Capital: Population Economics in the Middle East. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2002, pp. 62–95. Bairoch, Paul. Victoires et déboires II : Histoire économique et sociale du monde du XVIe siècle à nos jours. Paris: Gallimard, 1997. Barro, Robert J., and Rachel M. McCleary. “Religion and Political Economy in an International Panel,” NBER Working Paper 8931. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2002. Booth, J. A., and M. A. Seligman. “Paths to Democracy and the Political Culture in Costa Rica, Mexico and Nicaragua,” in L. Diamond, ed., Political Culture and Democracy in Developing Countries. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1994, pp. 99–130.

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Carkoglu, A., M. Eder, and K. Kirisci. The Political Economy of Regional Cooperation in the Middle East. London: Routledge Press, 1998. Dahi, Omar, and Firat Demir. “The Middle East and North Africa,” in A. K. Dutt and J. Ros, eds., International Handbook of Development Economics. Northampton MA: Edward Elgar, 2008, vol. 2, Chapter 68, pp. 522–535. Davis, M. Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino Families and the Making of the Third World. London: Verso, 2002. Demir, Firat. “A Failure Story: Politics and Financial Liberalization in Turkey, Revisiting the Revolving Door Hypothesis,” World Development, vol. 32, 2004, pp. 851–869. Du Bois, W. E. B. Africa and the World. New York: International, 1946. Elbadawi, I. A. “Reviving Growth in the Arab World,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, vol. 53, 2005, pp. 293–326. Fergany, N. “Human Impact of Capitalist Restructuring in Arab Countries,” Journal of Development and Economic Policies, vol. 1, 1998, pp. 9–46. Fischer, S., D. Rodrik, and E. Tuma, eds. The Economics of Middle East Peace: Views from the Region. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993. Frank, Andre Gunder. ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. Guiso, Luigi, Paola Sapienza, and Luigi Zingales. “People’s Opium? Religion and Economic Activities,” NBER Working Paper 9237. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2002. Halliday, Fred. “Millennial Middle East: Changing Orders, Shifting Borders,” Middle East Research and Information Project, vol. 213, Winter 1999, pp. 4–9. Hirata, H., H. K. Sunghyun, and M. A Kose. “Integration and Fluctuations: The Case of MENA,” Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, vol. 40, 2004, pp. 48–67. Hobson, John M. The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Inalcik, H. “Capital Formation in the Ottoman Empire,” The Journal of Economic History, vol. 29, 1969, pp. 97–140. Islamoglu-Inan, H. “Introduction: Oriental Despotism in World-System Perspective,” in H. Islamoglu-Inan, ed., The Ottoman Empire and the World Economy. Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. 1–24. Issawi, C. “The Economic Development of Egypt, 1800–1960, A Book of Readings,” in C. Issawi, ed., The Economic History of the Middle East 1800–1914. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966, pp. 359–374. Kanth, Rajani Kannepalli. Breaking with the Enlightenment: The Twilight of History and the Rediscovery of Utopia. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press International, 1997. Landes, David S. The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969. ———. The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor, New York: W. W. Norton, 1998. Lewis, Martin W., and Karen E. Wigen. The Myth of Continents: A Critique of Metageography, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. Lubeck, P. M. “Islamist Responses to Globalization: Cultural Conf lict in Egypt, Algeria, and Malaysia,” in B. Crawford and R. D. Lipschutz, eds., The Myth of “Ethnic Conflict.” Berkeley: University of California Press/University of California International and Area Studies Digital Collection, Edited Volume 98, 1998, pp. 293–319. Marx, Karl. The British Rule in India, the New York Herald Tribune 1, 1853. Marx-Engels Correspondence. Engels to Marx In London. Source: MECW, vol. 39, p. 335; First published in full in MEGA, Berlin, 1929 [1853]. Mitchell, T. “Dreamland: The Neoliberalism of Your Desires,” Middle East Report, vol. 210, Spring 1999, pp. 28–33. Noland, Marcus. “Religion, Culture, and Economic Performance,” Institute for International Economics, Working Paper 03/8 (2003).

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Olmsted, Jennifer. “Orientalism and Economic Methods: (Re)reading Feminist Economic Discussions of Islam,” in Eiman O. Zein-Elabdin and S. Charusheela, eds., Postcolonialism meets Economics. London and New York: Routledge, 2004, pp. 165–182. Owen, Roger. The Middle East in the World Economy 1800–1914. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993. Paldam, Martin. “Does Economic Growth Lead to Political Stability?” in Silvio Borner and Martin Paldam, eds., The Political Dimension of Economic Growth, Proceedings of the IEA Conference held in San Jose, Costa Rica. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998, pp. 171–193. Pryor, F. L. “The Economic Impact of Islam on Developing Countries,” World Development, vol. 35, 2007, pp. 1815–1835. Richards, A., and J. Waterbury. A Political Economy of the Middle East. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996. Rodrik, D. “Where Did All the Growth Go? External Shocks, Social Conf licts, and Growth Collapses.” Unpublished paper, 1998. Saint-Exupéry, Antoine de. The Little Prince, translated from French by Katherine Woods. San Diego, CA: Harvest Books, 1982. Schumpeter, Joseph A. History of Economic Analysis. New York: Oxford University Press, 1954. UNDP. Arab Human Development Report 2003: Creating a Knowledge Society. New York: United Nations, 2003. Wallerstein, Immanuel. “Eurocentrism and Its Avatars: The Dilemmas of Social Science,” Unpublished paper (1996). Available at http://www.binghamton.edu/f bc/iweuroc.htm. Accessed on May 6, 2008. Weber, Max. The Protestant Ethic and the “Spirit” of Capitalism and Other Writings. New York: Penguin Books, 2002 [1905]. Woolf, Eric. Europe and the People without History. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1982. Yeldan, E. “Neoliberal Global Remedies: From Speculative-Led Growth to IMF-Led Crisis in Turkey,” Review of Radical Political Economics, vol. 38, Spring 2006, pp. 193–213.

CH A P T E R

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The Phantom of Liberty: Mo(der)nism and Postcolonial Imaginations in India R aj e s h B h at tac h a rya a n d A m i t Ba s ol e

1. Introduction On May 31, 2003, Jurgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida, two of the greatest living European philosophers at that time, issued a joint declaration, in some European newspapers. It was entitled “After the War: The Rebirth of Europe.” The context was the political protests in various European cities against the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq on the one hand and the support of various European leaders (Tony Blair, Vaclav Havel, and Silvio Berlusconi among others) to the U.S. aggression on the other hand. It called upon “European peoples” to recognize and celebrate “four distinctively European achievements: the separation of church and state, the faith in the power of politics and a relatively benign state to ameliorate the impact of capitalism, the ethos of solidarity in the struggle for social justice, and the high esteem accorded to international law and the rights of the individual” (Heffernan 2005, p. 573). This document was mainly written by Habermas and only endorsed by Derrida. However, in a conversation with Giovanna Borradori on the September 11 attacks and global terrorism, Derrida made the following statement: I say this without any Eurocentrism . . . But I persist in using this name “Europe,” even if in quotation marks, because, in the long and patient deconstruction required for the transformation to come, the experience Europe inaugurated at the time of the Enlightenment in the relationship between the political and the theological or, rather, the religious, though still uneven, unfulfilled, relative, and complex, will have left in European political space absolutely original marks with regard to religious doctrine . . . Such marks can be found neither in the Arab world nor in the Muslim world, nor in the Far East, nor

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even . . . in American democracy, in what in fact governs not the principles but the predominant reality of American political culture.1 We used to know Derrida as a postmodernist par excellence, one who would militate against any “centrism,” who waged a war against hierarchy of categories and championed the notion of “difference” over “hierarchy.” It is remarkable to see the same Derrida, when faced with the “clash of civilizations,” returning to the European Enlightenment for a solution. There is not even a hint that the other civilization locked in the clash has anything to offer in terms of a desirable international and social order. Not only that, the solution explicitly recognizes the values intrinsic to the European Enlightenment and finds them totally absent in Islamic civilizations. We choose to begin with this remarkable statement because it forces us to revisit the issue of Eurocentrism with a new urgency around a new question—why does Eurocentrism persist? But Europe is not the social formation wherein we search for an answer to this question. We grant and accept that all societies are ethnocentric. Rather, we turn to non-Europe, in our case, postcolonial India, to listen to the murmurs of a deep “fear” that forecloses any open encounter of the (post)colonized with their own nonEuropean worldviews. In undertaking this project, we are emboldened by the example of Kanth (1997, 2005) who has delivered a comprehensive and uncompromising verdict on the philosophy of modernism and in particular on its proclivity to convince us of its own emancipatory potential. We find that we cling to Eurocentric discourses, even when we recognize them as such, for fear of losing any vision of a “free,” emancipated future. Progressive thinkers refuse to step out of Eurocentric terrains because they fear that all social projects of emancipation—poverty eradication, human rights, fight against tyranny, exploitation and hierarchy, and secularism— would lose the ally of the oppressed, namely, science and rationality that are self-proclaimed virtues of European modernist thought. We argue that this “fear” was significant in shaping India’s development experience and India’s social experiments after decolonization. Gandhi’s non-Eurocentric model for postcolonial India was shunted by the modernist Nehru who, with all his best intentions, thought that Gandhi’s morality would be an obstacle in devising a social order that liberates people from poverty and oppression. It continues to shape reactions to present day political controversies. We also argue that contemporary Indian social scientists suffer from the same “fear,” even when they militate against colonial “powerknowledge” and even when they are faced with historical opportunities of paradigmatic shifts. This paper is an interrogation of that fear, a turnaround and a brazen stare into the fear that stalks us. 2. The Silent Coup and Freedom at Midnight India’s independence was marked by a peculiar conjuncture of events; while the transfer of power from Britain to India was in its final phase of

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negotiation, internally there was a silent coup by which the modernists took control over the nation-making of India. The Indian struggle for independence was animated to a significant degree by the Gandhian discourse on local economic autonomy and decentralized democracy. In the Gandhian vision, the village was the basis of both a self-sufficient economy (based on simple tools, artisanal production and frugal consumption) and political autonomy (the panchayati raj, i.e., local self-governance at the village level). Thus Gandhi notes: My idea of Village Swaraj is that it is a complete republic, independent of its neighbors for its own vital wants, and yet interdependent for many others in which dependence is necessary. (Gandhi 1962, p. 31) And again, Independence must begin at the bottom. Thus every village will be a republic or Panchayat having full powers. It follow, therefore, that every village has to be self-sustained and capable of managing its affairs even to the extent of defending itself against the whole world. (p. 69) One does not have to subscribe to the Gandhian worldview in order to appreciate his vision of a moral society that emphasizes frugality over unbridled lust and acquisitiveness, self-sufficiency over anarchy of markets in a capitalist profit-making economy, and political autonomy over techno-bureaucratic control. One only needs to understand the ethics of Ahimsa (non-violence) at work in his ideal society—in his rejection of the violent interventions of “industrialism” in ecology, culture and reproductive processes of social life. It is this morality that drew millions to every call of Gandhi in India’s struggle for independence. The negation of the Gandhian vision, in independent India, thus constitutes a betrayal of the Indian masses, just as capitalism betrayed the masses that stormed the Bastille. The panchayati raj was negated by a strongly centralized Indian federalism and a regime of administration by “experts” and bureaucrats. The local self-sufficient economy was negated by the rational centralized planning exercise in which resource allocation and distribution on a national scale was done by fiat. Local self-sufficiency was systematically destroyed to make way for national markets and national f lows of resources, labor and money. The nation, and not the village, was the unit of Soviet-style planning models adopted by independent India under Nehru. In short, the modernists rejected the Gandhian vision of a communitarian society with economically self-sufficient “village republics” and decentralized governance in favor of a secular, liberal democracy riding on fast economic growth through large-scale industrialization and urbanization.2 The entire debate on whether modernization in the European style was a desirable or possible course for India to take was rather quickly moved from the political to the scientific-bureaucratic terrain of planning led

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by the famous Indian Statistical Institute. As Chatterjee (1993, p. 202) notes, the struggle between the Nehruvian and the Gandhian notion of economic development or “the debate on the need for industrialization . . . was politically resolved by successfully constituting planning as a domain outside ‘the squabbles and conf licts of politics.’ ” This was aided greatly by the birth of the new field of Development Economics. The pioneers of this discipline, Arthur Lewis (1954), Ragnar Nurkse (1953) and Albert Hirschmann (1958) saw modernization (or capitalist accumulation and industrialization) as the only viable solution for achieving rapid alleviation of poverty. Rostow’s (1960) “Stages of Economic Growth” stated more openly and crudely what was an unstated assumption behind most early development planning—that salvation for the poor nations lay in mimicking the West. The depoliticization of this debate and its displacement onto the techno-bureaucratic terrain of “developmentalism”3 meant nothing less than dissolution of the anti-Eurocentric moments of anticolonial resistance movements. We see this as the decisive victory of Eurocentrism wherein the independent nation-state legitimized and defined itself on a notion of social and economic development singularly informed by Eurocentric discourses. An appropriate symbol for this is perhaps the resignation from the pre-independence National Planning Commission (NPC) of J. C. Kumarappa, the sole Gandhian voice on the commission, who questioned the authority of the NPC to discuss plans for industrialization and eventually dropped out after “virtually every other member had disagreed with his views.” 4 Gandhi differed with modernists such as Nehru not only on the meaning of economic development but also on the nature of the future Indian state. The debate of the Constituent Assembly of India, on the eve of the adoption of the Constitution of Independent India brought into high relief, in the political domain, the central conf lict between the Gandhian view of the village or community as the fundamental unit of Indian polity and the liberal, European view of the individual as the fundamental unit. Ridiculing the complaint leveled by some Gandhians that the draft constitution had no place for the “ancient polity of India,” Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, the author of the constitution commented on India’s villages: That they [the Indian villages] have survived through all vicissitudes maybe a fact. But mere survival has no value . . . I hold that these village republics have been the ruination of India . . . What is the village but a sink of localism, a den of ignorance, narrow-mindedness and communalism? I am glad that the Draft Constitution has discarded the village and adopted the individual as its unit. (quoted in Dharampal 1962/2000, pp. 25–26) We have quoted Ambedkar at such length because as the writer of independent India’s constitution his voice carried great weight and furthermore, coming as he did from the lowest caste in society (he was himself a

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dalit 5 or an “untouchable”) his view of the village as a den of oppression carries moral force. Ambedkar was captivated by liberal modernist discourse (he was John Dewey’s student at Columbia University) because of its emancipatory potential. His caste position forced him to challenge the ethicality of the Gandhian village community. Gandhi’s vision of independent India’s polity emphasized decentralization of power to the village panchayats.6 This, Ambedkar feared, would only strengthen the local structures of hierarchy within which dalits had suffered for generations. This contradiction, symbolized by the many (and at times bitter) interactions between Gandhi and Ambedkar, is still fundamentally unresolved and the allegation of strengthening local hierarchies is frequently leveled on communitarian thinkers today. Thus in the modernist view, as secular, liberal, and feminist critics remind us, the community is the domain of un-freedom, a site of caste and gender oppression, class exploitation, and poverty. The individuated modern (urban) civil society is, if not the domain of freedom, at least a step in the right direction. At the other extreme, for Gandhi, the community is the domain of freedom while the modern “free” individual is a slave to the capitalist and the market. The Gandhians have pointed out that the laborer in capitalism is degraded and alienated; his creativity as an artisan is destroyed and he becomes an appendage to the machine; bourgeois civil society is the space where private property and accumulation are glorified and rewarded, as a result of which capitalism leads to massive ecological destruction, poverty and inequality worldwide. It is thus a confrontation between two sets of truth-claims. A priori there is no reason why the choice between the individual and the community is a predestined one. But the teleology of Eurocentric history, wherein Europe’s transition from community to civil society (through the agency of capital), is simultaneously universalized as well as cast as progress (“as it happened in Europe, so it will elsewhere, and a good thing too!”) makes the choice predestined. While recognizing that the community harbors many kinds of exploitative social relationships, we pose the following question: if it took centuries to reform capitalism—to end slavery and colonial empires, to sensitize the capitalist society to race, gender and class—the process is still ongoing— then why could a communitarian society modeled on Gandhi’s village republics not be similarly reformed, democratized and sensitized to prevailing hierarchies? 3. The Ally of the Oppressed The nation-making of India was thus firmly anchored in modernist Eurocentric discourses. The social engineering designed to end poverty, achieve growth and end social oppression of various types established and reconfirmed European modernity as the “ally of the oppressed.” The Gandhian opposition in time petered out. This led to an imperialism of

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categories and a loss of language—other languages, other’s languages. Other worldviews were slowly erased in education, health, law, administration, and policy space. Over time other worldviews have become inaccessible to us, shaped as we are, in and through institutions of modernity. We observe that emancipatory or progressive ideas in order to be recognized as being such must speak in the language of liberal or radical European social theory. Non-European emancipatory discourses can only fall short of “true emancipation” at best, or are a threat to the latter at worst. The Gandhian political project may be unique—and may be recognized and admired as such—in promoting a certain morality valued by the majority of human beings (e.g., ahimsa or nonviolence). Yet his strident criticism of Western civilization, including modern science, medicine and education disqualify Gandhi as a relevant political thinker in the modern political culture. We would rather tolerate the violence of capitalism which, the telos of modernity tells us, will produce its own “grave-diggers,” the working class, rather than put our faith in supposedly timeless, unchanging Gandhian communities.7 Yet, the violence of modernity (particularly economic development) and predatory capital has led to numerous and multiplying acts of resistance to this Eurocentric project. Communities have thrown themselves against capital to resist dispossession and environmental degradation. In recent decades, modernity has come under criticism in both its homeland and in post-colonies. Concerns with livelihood and environment have made us go back to Gandhi such that “inside every thinking Indian, there is a Gandhian and a Marxist struggling for supremacy” (Guha 2001, p. 6). The resurgence of community against capital all over the world has reinstated the debate between Gandhi and Nehru in contemporary times. In the economic sphere, large-scale exclusion of the laboring population from the capitalist miracle has shattered the image of modernity as the ally of the oppressed. The continued sabotage of sovereignty of third world countries not only by richer nation-states, but also by supra-national bodies such as World Bank, IMF, WTO, and so on have cast doubt over the liberal intentions of modernity. But as in 1947, the fear of non-Eurocentric discourses stops us from articulating a counter-hegemonic position against capital grounded in the community. Contemporary debates clearly betray this fear. Consider the arguments of Sarkar (2000) and Nanda (2002, 2003) that a critique of Eurocentrism or of “Enlightenment rationalism” unwittingly strengthens the forces of religious fundamentalism. In the context of the rise of the Hindu fundamentalist Right in Indian politics, many are apprehensive about a possible Fascist movement in India. Parallels have been identified between the rise of Fascism in Europe and the rise of Hindutva8 in India. To challenge Enlightenment philosophy and to claim a non-Eurocentric history for Indian subalterns in the given context is perceived to be dangerous because it might lead to a kind of indigenism uncomfortably close to the chauvinistic claims of the Hindu

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Right.9 Critiques of Enlightenment rationality are seen to undermine secularism in the fight against religious fundamentalism, since secularism is understood to be a unique Enlightenment legacy. Local culture and history is deemed irrelevant in addressing a contemporary social and political problem. Thus the fact that South Asia is home to numerous indigenous traditions (such as sufism and bhakti) some of which had historically diffused the tensions created by organized Hinduism and Islam, and in the process created a syncretic, pluralistic faith, counts for very little in this formulation.10 In his reply to Sarkar, Chakrabarty (2000) laments this loss: It is true that the experience of fascism has left a certain trauma in leftist intellectuals in the West. They have ceded to the fascists all moments of poetry, mysticism and the religious and the mysterious in the construction of political sentiments and communities (however transient and inoperative). Romanticism now only reminds them of Nazis. Ours are cultures rich in these elements. Gandhi, Tagore and a host of other nationalists have shown by their examples what tremendous creative energies these elements could unleash in us when mobilized for the purpose of fabricating new forms of life. It would be sad if we ceded this entire heritage to the Hindu extremists out of a fear that our romanticism must be the same as whatever the Europeans produced under that name in their histories, and that our present blunders, whatever these are, must be the same as theirs in the past. What, indeed, could be a greater instance of submission to a Eurocentric imagination than that fear? (Chakrabarty 2000, p. 277) Noting that recent scholarship in the Subaltern Studies school has tended to challenge “Enlightenment rationalism” and Eurocentrism, and has valorized “the community,” Sarkar (2000) comments on the “shared discursive space” between this position and the rhetoric of the Hindu Right: . . . the Hindu right often attacks the secular, liberal nation-state as a Western importation, precisely the burden of much late-Subaltern argument: suggesting affinities that are hopefully, still distasteful, yet difficult to repudiate within the parameters of an anti-Enlightenment discourse grounded in notions of community. (p. 313) But does a critique of Eurocentrism automatically bring us closer to the forces of reaction and fundamentalism? We think not. For example, Gandhian philosophy can certainly be described as “an antiEnlightenment discourse grounded in notions of community,” and although in Sarkar’s estimation it therefore automatically shares discursive space with Hindu fundamentalism, Gandhi himself was as much an

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object of criticism of the Hindu right (and indeed was assassinated by a member of the Hindu right) as of the Left. Further Gandhi’s philosophy of the community as a site of resistance against modernity drew as much upon what Rudolph and Rudolph (2006) have called the “Other West” (Ruskin, Carlyle, Carpenter, Thoreau, and Tolstoy) as it did upon Gandhi’s own reading of Indian history and Indian texts. Thus Gandhi found allies in the West sympathetic to his own project, as it were on his own terms. Sarkar (2000) is understandably skeptical of a critique of a homogenized notion of “Western colonial power/knowledge” and “Enlightenment rationalism” and of the uncritical valorization of “the community” that leads to a blindness to class, caste and gender, all of which form persistent and important structures of oppression within communities. He articulates his fear thus: Culturalism rejects the importance of class and class struggle, while notions of civil, democratic, feminist and liberal individual rights— many of them indubitably derived from certain Enlightenment traditions—get delegitimized by a repudiation of the Enlightenment as a bloc. (p. 318) These are exactly the concerns of Nanda (2003) who advances a similar though more general criticism of “postmodern intellectuals “who uphold left-wing political ideals, but who have lost all confidence in the classic leftwing cultural ideals of scientific reason, modernity and the Enlightenment” (p. 1, emphasis in the original). Here we see clearly the fear that rejection of Eurocentric social categories or worldview is counter-productive to the emancipation of the oppressed; in part because alien categories can break up traditional hierarchies (such as those based on caste or gender) in a way that is politically explosive. Point taken. But in her eagerness to demonstrate the links between Hindu fascism, neo-Gandhism, and postcolonial/postmodern scholarship Nanda overlooks their many important distinctions. The unspoken assumption is always that truly empancipatory or liberatory potential is carried only by modern science, and only a movement toward liberal, secular democracy of the Western kind can be considered progress. As Nanda (2003) forcefully asserts, “Skeptical reason, institutionalized by modern science, is the standpoint epistemology of the oppressed” (p. xiii, emphasis in the original). And further, “it is time it [modern science] was recognized, once again, as an ally of social justice, peace and advancement all around the world” (p. 267). Nanda points to the numerous instances of empowerment of oppressed groups utilizing Western notions of rights, democracy and equality before the law.11 Thus her strongest weapon is her assertion that this liberal, scientific utopia is desired by the very subaltern and oppressed peoples, in whose name calls for decolonization and respect for all knowledge traditions are put forth by “fashionable” postmodern and postcolonial intellectuals. In other words,

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the battle against Eurocentrism is basically an elite concern; the masses simply want more Euro-modernity. Although we agree with Nanda (2002, p. 217) that the “underdog” need not always “reject [modern science] as alien and undesirable” we also observe that confrontations and contestations between “Science” and “Tradition” are allowed within the modernist frame, only so long as the ultimate victory of Science is assured. We do not deny that leftliberal political categories are useful in constructing resistance to oppression in many forms. Specifically, within the European institutions that we carry as a colonial legacy these categories offer certain empowering possibilities. These European categories will clash with other, local nonEuropean categories in the complex space of postcolonial experience. Categories can and should clash but outcomes should not be predestined if one wishes to eschew epistemic violence. Within the Eurocentric social discourses, however, only one outcome is sensible or desirable, even permitted—the subaltern’s acceptance of European modernity. The rejection of European modernity by the subaltern is deemed unacceptable and the acceptance of non-Eurocentric rationality by the modernist is not even a possibility worthy of consideration. This epistemic position is imperial/colonial. Rather than demand “epistemic purity” (whether European or indigenous) from political emancipation projects, we emphasize the need to break the hegemonic hold of Eurocentric liberal and radical thought as the sole credible mode of thought available to us. We are led to this position partly by the observation that the response of the “underdog” is unlikely to be reducible to such simple binaries as acceptance or rejection of “Western values” or “the legacy of the Enlightenment.” We have already seen above that the Gandhian communitarian model was as much “Eastern” as it was inf luenced by the “Other West.” But the point can also be illustrated by Nanda’s own example of B. R. Ambedkar and his use of Eurocentric rationality in fighting caste. Nanda (2002, p. 217) notes that “Ambedkar and his dalit followers challenged the brahminical knowledge about the natural world not in the name of their own dalit caste myths and origin stories, but in the name of scientifically obtained objective truth.” Yet Ambedkar’s most prominent act of rebellion, the celebration of which still today draws millions of dalits from all over India, is his conversion to Buddhism. Thus Ambedkar found his exit from the oppression of tradition, not only in the liberalism of John Dewey but equally so in a 2,500-year-old religious, anti-caste movement. Nanda understands this act as Ambedkar’s conversion to “reason and scientific method” based on his being able to “hybridize” John Dewey’s ideas on scientific temper with the Buddha’s teachings. But she admits that indigenous anti-caste movements and numerous heterodox anti-Vedic schools also played a part in inf luencing Ambedkar. The reliance on Buddhist and other non-brahmin philosophies by dalit leaders is for Nanda (2003, p. 192), “an attempt to find a cultural homologue for materialist and skeptical traditions in

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India’s minority, non-Vedic traditions.” Why can the same acts not be read as drawing upon European ideas to the extent that they strengthen indigenous sources of resistance? Or is this merely a matter of semantics? We think not. Nanda (2003) recognizes the postcolonial condition of hybridity, typified here by Gandhi and Ambedkar, but feels that postmodernist theorists have wrongly adopted a “celebratory stance toward hybridity as the politics of emancipation” (p. 178). An uncritical valorization of hybridity is wrong in her opinion because it sees no problem with say a farmer’s adoption of high-yield seeds and chemical fertilizer and the same farmer’s deeply hierarchical and patriarchal worldview. Thus she is led to her conclusion: “It is the incompleteness of the project of Enlightenment, rather than an excess of it, that explains India’s turn to reactionary modernism” (p. 43, emphasis in the original). How can we then explain the fact that France, which— more than any other European nation—took secularism to its height by legally separating the state from religion in public life, at the same time, denied this separation in Algeria and instead relied on the most conservative religious discourses in colonial administration? How can we make sense of John Stuart Mill when he ruled out the colonized from the land of liberty—claiming they were as yet not fit for liberty?12 Was it not hybridization on part of the enlightened Europe—that is, a reactionary modernism of Europe, a modernism that was always and already reactionary? Was Enlightenment incomplete in Europe too, then?13 An important caveat is in order here. Our project is not a mere “celebration of hybridity,” that Nanda scornfully attributes to the postmodernist movement. We are not content ascribing the label “alternative modernity” to the phenomenon of high-tech agriculture mixed in with caste and gender oppression. We do not argue for a challenge to Eurocentrism merely to assert postcolonial identity, difference or agency. We rather ask that political emancipation projects that do not speak in the language of liberal and radical European thought ought not to be automatically suspect for that reason alone. Ultimately, as regards challenging Eurocentrism, Nanda’s anxiety stems from the belief that “treating rationality and knowledge as completely constructed by culture puts culture beyond a reasoned critique” (Nanda 2002, p. 216). Thus in showing Eurocentric rationalism to be parochialism masquerading as universalism14 Nanda is afraid that we might strengthen the notion of a “Hindu rationality” which can conveniently justify all manner of oppression. But as the existence of numerous anti-caste and religious tolerance movements which not only contributed to religious tolerance between different religious communities, but also advanced other emancipatory demands, such as the demand for more equality between women and men (in case of bhakti) shows, treating rationality as a cultural phenomenon does not put culture beyond critique. To assert this is to overlook thousands of years of liberation struggles against all manner of oppression, that predate nineteenth-century European liberal and radical thought.

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4. The Pashchimikrit and the Bahishkrit Paradoxically, we cling to Eurocentric discourses even at a time when local politics and local communities have risen to unprecedented prominence in the Indian political space shattering previous strangleholds of both Westernized and indigenous elites. We argue that this phenomenon (which we describe in more detail shortly) opens up a historical opportunity for the development of genuine non-traditional, non-modern alternatives. Development in India began with big-bang industrialization in the first two decades after independence. This regime of economic planning, inspired by Soviet five-year planning models, was buttressed by the absolute dominance of Indian politics by the Indian National Congress. Khilnani (1999) notes that the Congress Party15 was able to rule India unchallenged for the first two decades after independence because of an “unbeatable” coalition that it forged between “commercial and industrial capitalists, rural landlords, and the bureaucratic and managerial elite (in the later decades, newly enriched farmers and unionized public-sector workers . . .)” (p. 79). These were social groups which had either been brought into existence with colonial rule or had greatly benefited from it. They constituted the pashchimikrit samaj (Westernized society) whose vision of a future society was largely based upon the European experience and whose liberal and radical sections (such as the intelligentsia) drank deeply from the internal critiques of Europe’s modernity. The pashchimikrit samaj was aff licted with the “imperialism of categories” and saw Indian society largely through Western eyes (Sahasrabudhey 1991). This development model came to be challenged by late 1960s, when economists were dismayed to find that two decades of rapid growth had not ended material deprivations of India’s majority. Dandekar and Rath’s (1971) pioneering study on poverty showed that economic development in India in the 1960s did not benefit the poorest 40% of the population at all, despite the high rate of growth of national income in the first three five-year plans. As disillusionment with the planning model set in, starting with the 1980s and picking up pace since the reforms of 1991, the Indian economy was restructured along neoliberal lines and the transition from “a closed to an open” economy is still ongoing.16 Despite a decade or more of reforms, however, a general picture of poverty and exclusion prevails. The poverty rate still stands at 30% (albeit reduced from 50% in the 1970s) and the Gini coefficient measuring inequality has actually risen from 28–29 to 35–36 (rural and urban respectively).17 Even today, only about 27 million people—7 to 8 per cent of the workforce—are employed in the organized sector, that is, public sector and organized private sector. The rest of the non-agricultural workforce earns its livelihood in the urban and rural informal sectors with low incomes and precarious conditions of employment unprotected by laws and social security provisions. What is obvious is that even when industry increased its share of national

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income, it did not support a correspondingly larger population. Rather, agriculture, with a decreasing share of national income, has to harbor a more than proportionate burden of population. At the same time that it provides secure, protected jobs at a decent salary to only 7%–8% of population, the development of the modern economy led to the displacement of 25–50 millions since 1951 (Murickan et al. 2003). Between 1950 and 1991, only 25% of displaced people have been rehabilitated, leaving aside questions regarding what constitutes adequate compensation. During the same time, 30%–50% of common property resources have been depleted. Jodha (1991) claims that traditional common property resource management had collapsed in 90% of the villages he surveyed. In short, expanding capitalism breaks down traditional economies, yet cannot provide livelihoods for the people thus displaced from their traditional sources of subsistence. The vast majority of small and marginal peasants, tribals, rural landless laborers, as well as the urban unorganized workers (street vendors, casual workers, sweat shop workers, etc.) are victims of dispossession resulting from capitalist accumulation. Dispossessed, disentitled or otherwise diminished, these groups found themselves excluded from meaningful participation in society—both due to the lack of adequate income opportunities in the high-productivity modern economy and the absence of a social welfare system for such a large section of the population. This history of dispossession and economic exclusion traces a continuity across both regimes and creates—as its own historical product—the bahishkrit samaj (ostracized society). The bahishkrit samaj is neither rural nor traditional—that is, it is not a preindustrial, precapitalist residue. Rather it is the victim of dispossession that accompanies capitalist growth and as such is to be found everywhere (in the countryside and in the cities, in agriculture, in industry and in services) as the historical product of modern capitalist development. The “jobless” growth of the modern economy sucks up natural resources at an accelerated rate, yet modern technology is becoming more and more labor-saving. As a result the modern economy requires an ever more share of natural resources and an ever-shrinking part of the global workforce, which means that a burgeoning “surplus” labor force must subsist on a dwindling resource base. Modern capitalism creates its own huge wasteland—a seething mass of “excluded” poor with inadequate resources to sustain life. This great social divide is eloquently captured in the pashchimikrit—bahishkrit distinction—which we owe to Sahasrabudhey (1991)—where the binary opposite of “Westernized” is not “Indian,” but rather, “ostracized or excluded.” The Eurocentric economic model leads not only to a minority of “beneficiaries of development” and a huge mass of “refugees of development”— the pashchimikrit and bahishkrit in the economic sense—but also different modes of organization of life in the pashchimikrit and bahishkrit samaj. While the pashchimikrit samaj valorizes private acquisition and accumulation, bahishkrit samaj sustains itself on a “culture of sharing.” Yet the latter is

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denigrated as a culture of poverty, rather than a culture of convivial nonviolent survival. The former is still hegemonic as a culture of progress, in the sense that it is a way out of poverty, even though it has threatened the survival and livelihood of majority of mankind. Thus the pashchimikritbahishkrit distinction is as much cultural, even epistemic, as economic. Kumarappa’s resignation from the National Planning Commission was the exit of the first bahishkrit from the nation-making of India, even before India became independent. Paradoxically, despite the economic exclusion and cultural domination, the bahishkrit samaj is more and more visible in the political sphere. By any criterion, Indian democracy has f lourished and almost every major social, cultural, and economic issue in India is represented in mainstream Indian political space via political parties. Caste, class, religion, language, ethnicity, autonomy—all these issues are prominently present in the contemporary Indian polity. In this sense, there has been an Indianization of Indian politics over time, such that issues more specific to the “local” are politically dominant compared to the universal European categories like secularization, modernization, development and socialist planning which ruled for the first 25 years of Indian independence. More and more people are voting and participating in the broader electoral processes in India in the recent times. Moreover, more and more people from the oppressed and marginalized social groups are voting. Rural participation exceeds urban, hence by extension, poorer sections of Indian society are voting in greater numbers than the richer.18 At the national level, participation of women, dalits, and adivasis (indigenous peoples) has increased. Palshikar and Kumar (2004) conclude that “if we are comparing the present situation with the one that obtained till the 1970s, then it may be accurate to argue that social deprivation is no more an obstacle for electoral participation” (p. 5414). In a similar vein Nayyar (1998) discusses the radical disjuncture between economics and politics in India today pulling the population in opposite directions. In the sphere of economic life, more and more people are excluded from the benefits of economic growth under the neoliberal regime, yet the same marginalized groups are included in the political processes of electoral democracy. “The rich dominate the economy now more than earlier, but the poor have a strong voice in the polity more than earlier. And there is a mismatch” (Suri 2004, p. 5405). Even, outside the electoral sphere, the bahishkrit is visibly engaged in a direct confrontation with the state as well as private capital. Both violent and non-violent local resistances to development projects have garnered more and more attention. Starting with the Chipko and Narmada struggles in the 1970s and 1980s to the myriad struggles in Kalinganagar (against POSCO-India), Plachimada (against Coca Cola), Singur and Nandigram (against the Government of West Bengal), and so on, all have brought home the point that development is a politically negotiated process.19 No longer can a later-day Nehru with sanguinity and confidence, ask his citizens to suffer “in the interest of the country.”20 Radical challenges in the

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form of people’s movements have emerged against the prevailing models of development. These non-party political movements have encompassed a gamut of social issues ranging from class and caste based struggles to local control of local resources and have involved sections of Indian society that have traditionally been excluded in formal politics (tribals, dalits, women, small peasants, informal sector workers). And yet, despite the manifold multiplication of such indigenous resistances, Indian social scientists and philosophers have not seized on the opportunity to construct non-Eurocentric categories and discourses. It is to this problem that we now turn. 5. Order of Discourse and the Rarefaction of Knowledge In a recent article, Basu (2007) has argued in the context of the controversy over the acquisition of farmlands for industrialization in India that displacement of farming populations for industrial project is an act of “primitive accumulation” by global capital. He believes that the global calculus of capital can only be countered by the concrete and the locally embedded values of communities. By communities, we mean groups of people who populate a distinct “life-space” in the society and even as members of the broader society, have another identity which is a product of sharing and surviving on a certain resource base and community infrastructure and network. These communities can be traditional (forest dwellers and tribal groups) as well as contemporary (the informal waste recyclers, street hawkers and slum communities in metropolises). The ethics of the local— as we understand it in the Gandhian tradition—is the ethics of survival, conservation and reproduction which provides an alternative to global capital’s logic of expansion, transformation and accumulation. Yet, can we expect this call for a return to the local to snowball into a major epistemic overhaul—the inauguration of a new episteme—non-modernist, yet progressive and emancipatory and drawing on different sources of wisdom and life-experience? Can we argue for “situated knowledge” which “takes into account local knowledge and practice—how denizens perceive and interpret their world,” and recognizes that “[t]heory constructed from below produces different futures than theory constructed from above”? (Rudolph 2005, p. 17). We argue that retrieving the non-European local discourses, traditions and world views might help us pluralize the space of knowledge. Modeled as it is on Euro-modernist institutions, the Indian educational system either relegates alternative non-modernist philosophies to the margins or restricts them to special areas of study. Further, the international Academy, with its system of rewards and punishments makes non-European discourses unavailable or un-remunerative. We argue that the institutional infrastructure of Eurocentric knowledge production may make certain non-European critical traditions simply inaccessible to the

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social scientists working on the postcolonial experience. Chakrabarty (2000) recognizes this loss of language: Faced with the task of analyzing development or social practices in modern India, few if any Indian social scientists or social scientists of India would argue seriously with, say the thirteenth century logician Gangesa or with the grammarian and linguistic philosopher Bartrihari . . . Sad though it is, one result of European colonial rule in South Asia is that the intellectual traditions once unbroken and alive in Sanskrit, Persian or Arabic are now only matters of historical research. . . . And yet past European thinkers and their categories are never quite dead for us in the same way. (pp. 5–6) Interestingly, Chakrabarty also talks about the constructed nature of the “European intellectual tradition,” pointing out how work by Martin Bernal (1991) and Samir Amin (1989) has problematized the very idea of an unbroken tradition from classical Greece to Renaissance or earlyEnlightenment Europe. The “appropriation” of classical Greek scholars was, if anything, the defining feature of the intellectual revival of Europe in the fourteenth–seventeenth centuries. Aristotle was 1,500 years and three civilizations (Greek, Roman, and Islamic) removed from Bacon. Could it seriously be argued that scholars such as Bhartrihari, Ibn Khaldun, or Abul Fazl, are hopelessly removed from our circumstance and that we are unable to engage with them, if the very European Enlightenment that we cling to was built upon a similar intellectual adventure? We have argued that in part it is the fear of being labeled “reactionary,” “nativist,” “cultural nationalist,” or even “fascist” that makes us hesitant. Within the confines of European radical and critical thought we are safe from such allegations. But if we step outside, we are deserting the only reliable ally we have in the battle against exploitation, poverty and oppression. But that is not the only reason. Even protests against Eurocentrism, in so far as they are lodged in the global academic institutions—which are shaped and dominated by European theoretical traditions—are subjected to a “discursive price of admission.”21 Even the resistance to Eurocentrism has to be based on Western texts in order to be intelligible to the reviewers and referees of international publishing circuits. Can we hope to publish in an international journal an article that refers primarily to vernacular texts, the majority of which might never be translated into major European languages? Even if it gets published, the author will surely be criticized for citing obscure texts. Yet there is a sustained articulation of challenges to European modernity in many vernacular texts—in bad print and cheap jackets— published by small local Third World publishing houses. The “unavailability” of alternative non-European discourses ref lects a materiality inherent in the discursive practices and institutions of global academia—a materiality that has the effect of screening out a large set of articulations, utterances, statements and cries as “non-serious,” “non-scientific” knowledge.

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Of course the status of Science in modernist thought has been subjected to trenchant critique by philosophers in the European tradition (e.g., Husserl, Heidegger, and Foucault) as well as outside it (e.g., Ashis Nandy and Rajani Kanth).22 One cannot overemphasize the point that hegemony of official Science undermines the democracy of knowledge itself. In this spirit, our project is to draw attention to the fact that knowledge, rather than being scarce and held by experts, is much more abundant in society and much more democratically held than widely believed. It is produced at many social sites, the academia and the laboratory being just some of them. And the increasing prominence of the bahishkrit samaj should provoke an examination of its knowledge and should be converted into a sustained critique of Eurocentrism as well as the development of non-Eurocentric emancipatory visions for society. Thus we emphasize that ours is not a call to replace the hegemony of Eurocentrism and “modern” Science with the authority of “tradition” or the holy cow of the “community.” Instead we argue for epistemic humility and plurality of knowledge. The political assertion of the bahishkrit samaj has unveiled reserves of alternative knowledges, epistemes—which cannot be strictly classified according to the traditional/modern binary, but ref lect a hybridization motivated by the struggle for livelihood in the face of predatory capital.23 Even more interestingly, some of these movements have directly confronted both, the Eurocentric nature of the planning and the neoliberal development models, as well as traditional knowledge hierarchies. In a recent article Sangvai (2007) notes that the challenge for the new social movements “has been to counter the new paradigm of modernism and development by proposing alternatives that are not ‘archaic or traditional’ but rather rely greatly on local cultures, initiatives and knowledge as key driving forces.” And again, The conventional development model is established on the notion that there exists only one linear knowledge base. The new consciousness questions its supremacy and validity itself . . . The appreciation of plurality of knowledge, of every community and group, based on certain criterion, is replacing the hegemonic concept of “knowledge”. Limiting the vast spectrum of knowledge due to the colonial or brahminical approach, we are deprived of a rich and varied world of knowledge, expressions and production processes that common people developed. (p. 115) 6. Protean Power and Instrumentalization of the “Local” Power shifts continually to accommodate resistance and old language of resistance may become new means of exercising power. So observe that since the 1990s and into this century proponents of the neoliberal

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agenda such as the World Bank and USAID have been prominently pushing the idea of participatory development and of the importance of indigenous knowledge.24 The “new development economics” would seem to have learned its lessons from failure of technocratic, state-based approaches. It speaks in a language similar to that employed by radical anti-Eurocentric critics. Indigenous or traditional knowledge of the sort that Sangvai (2007) alludes to has already found its own comfortable niche in development discourse. Mainstream thinking on sustainable development has acknowledged that “poor-people’s knowledge” (to use the title of a 2004 World Bank publication), should play an essential role in their own development. The rhetoric of participatory, sustainable development based on indigenous knowledge, has proved entirely consistent with neoliberal macroeconomic policy with its emphasis on fiscal austerity, roll-back of the State’s welfare activity and a devolution of responsibility (but often not resources) to local government and small communities. The Seventy-third and Seventy-fourth Amendments to Indian Constitution are landmark events toward promoting the panchayati system of governance.25 Is this turn toward local self-government under neoliberalism a genuine move to decentralize power or yet another way to trim the powers of the state against capital and the giving up of all pretence of the state’s promise of radical economic uplift; a failure masked as radical democratization? Perhaps unsurprisingly, at the same time that these concepts have become widely prevalent, they have been purged of any radical edge they may possess. Thus indigenous knowledge is often conceptualized not as a non-Eurocentric vision of a future society free of oppression and injustice but rather as a reservoir of solutions or “box of tools” to be drawn upon as needed for the realization of the original modernist goals of development and transformation of third world societies. Local knowledge can be a force for radical transformation and for mounting a locally grounded challenge to the new imperialism, as Basu, Sangvai, and many others have argued. But for this, the apolitical and technocentric category of indigenous knowledge needs to be replaced by a more politically useful category. Knowledge is not merely a collection of technical fixes or production methods; knowledge belongs to a worldview that is itself the product of a particular social organization, a particular type of society, a culture, a history, an ecology. Thus for example, when we valorize “local knowledge” or “traditional knowledge” only as far as it relates to say the sustainable use of forest produce, and ignore the knowledge produced by the same community about social organization, about role of markets, or norms of consumption, commodification of resources etc., we slide from a sociopolitical to a technical understanding of knowledge. A fuller consideration of the merits and demerits of indigenous knowledge discourse in challenging Eurocentrism is outside the scope of this article. We simply hope to have provided some initial comments in this direction.

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Rajesh Bhattacharya and Amit Basole 7. Conclusion

In this paper we have put forward a few arguments to explain the enduring hegemony of Eurocentric political and social thought. An important achievement of Eurocentric social theory has been to monopolize the position of ally of the oppressed, that is, the uniquely progressive role in the struggle against exploitation, injustice and poverty. As a result critical thinkers cling to modernist thought, even when they recognize its Eurocentric premises, for fear of losing any vision of a free, emancipated future. We argue that this fear was significant in shaping India’s development experience and India’s social experiments after decolonization. The imperialism of liberal-radical European ideas has erased, deformed, denigrated or written off other emancipatory projects embedded in heterogeneous local discourses and philosophies. In independent India, the Gandhian vision of a moral economy and a democratic society suffered similar fate in its struggle against European models of economic development. While the modernist project of development has increasingly come under attack due to its failure in delivering a decent standard of life for people in the developing world, the loss of language resulting from the erasure of local discourses has forced/persuaded postcolonial scholars to argue that alternative nonEurocentric discourses may be irretrievably lost to us. Instead we argue that it is the institutional infrastructure of the Academy that reproduces and sustains the domination of Western texts resulting in what has been called the imperialism of categories. We argue, moreover, that academic elitism leads scholars to overlook the essential plurality of knowledge—the fact that knowledge is produced at many social sites, the Academy being just one among many other such sites. People, in, and through living, produce alternatives, counter-discourses. In order to chisel out categories of thought that do justice to our lived experience, that is, in order to reclaim a plurality of languages for ourselves, we need to use this “social” archive of alternatives to European modernity. That is why a return to the “local” is so important for fabricating any alternative to Eurocentric thoughts and to counter the elitism of social thought. We end with a cautionary note that even local discourses are being appropriated and their radical potential subverted by the high institutions of modernity in the name of decentralization, globalization and inclusion. Before we conclude, a confession is in order. Throughout this paper, we have engaged in the art and politics of representation—in talking about “Europe” and “non-Europe,” as if there is only one of each type, as if one can talk about a “Europe” and a “non-Europe,” as if the terms themselves do not carry the marks of discursive violence. We acknowledge that in doing so we become complicit in the violence. In defense, we have this to say. We are contesting the hegemonic representation of modern Europe as the apostle of liberty. In this we are building solidarity with those traditions within Europe which have contested this representation and continue to do so. There is nothing uniquely non-European about communitarian

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ethics or a pluralistic worldview that recognizes the values of the “local.” We have cited several Western texts in presenting and substantiating our anti-Eurocentric views—texts which speak for “Europe’s own other”— though we have not clearly traced our intellectual debt to those traditions. This is partly due to the constraints of space and partly because we wanted to emphasize the urgent need to revisit the traditions of local discourses within postcolonial India. That is why we have suppressed the irrepressible plurality that inheres in the figure of Europe, not to deny it, but to take the gaze away from Europe—a plural Europe, notwithstanding— toward a plural India. In doing so, we believe, we also contribute toward counter-hegemonic struggles within Europe, against a totalizing figure of “Europe.” In assailing this figure of Europe, we are slaying the Phantom of Liberty that stalks the pluralist multitude in Europe as elsewhere. We also have to make a second confession. We have militated against Eurocentrism, yet we have not clearly stated whether the community or the local is free from ethnocentrism of its own kind. We admit that human beings will perhaps always be ethnocentric. In arguing for the “local” and the “plural”—that is, a radical heterogeneity of worldviews and discourses— we hope to weaken the power and violence of ethnocentrisms. After all ethnocentrism in its benign form is simply the limit of our knowledge— something that we are unable to transcend, a view of life that is necessarily bounded. When we come across other cultures, we ought to approach them with wonder and a poetic craving for the unknown. We become judgmental only when we extrapolate ourselves beyond our natural limits, beyond the ethical boundaries of our collective and individual identities. Finally, when we envision a new social order based on a multitude of communities, we do not posit a new utopia, we do not claim that the community is the domain of Freedom. In fact, we share with the critics of community many of their apprehensions. Rather we posit a different terrain of emancipatory struggles. The emancipatory discourses in such a social order will work within an institutional framework based on the episteme of plurality and “embedded/situated” knowledge rather than on the epistemic foundation of universalism and homogeneity. This will also help undermine tendencies toward fascism and aggressive social chauvinisms of different colors so endemic in modernism.

Notes The authors wish to thank Sunil Sahasrabudhey and Pranab Basu for their insightful comments on an earlier draft of the essay. 1. The interview is available online at http://www.press.uchicago.edu/books/derrida/derrida911. html. Last accessed on December 3, 2008. 2. For a discussion of the Gandhi-Nehru debate on economic development see Rudolph and Rudolph (2006) and Khilnani (1999). 3. Developmentalism: An ideology premised on the “need to develop” in societies represented as inadequate and lacking in some a priori criteria.

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4. Chatterjee (1993, pp. 200–210). Other than Kumarappa, the NPC consisted of 4 capitalists, 5 scientists, 3 economists, and 2 political figures (Nehru and the labor leader N. M. Joshi). Chatterjee locates the necessity for displacing development planning into the “expert,” technocratic domain in the foreseen need for forms of expropriation of subsistence producers associated with primitive accumulation “which could not be legitimized through the representative processes of politics.” For a more celebratory account of the heady early days of planning and the prestige given to the tribe of economists see Byres (1998). 5. Dalits—The word means “oppressed” and refers to the lowest position in the Hindu caste hierarchy, those outside the caste system, the “untouchables.” Historically dalits have performed occupations deemed unclean by caste Hindus, such as working with leather, cleaning garbage and human refuse, etc. Even today dalits (also known as the schedules castes) are severely underprivileged segments of Indian society. 6. Gandhi however visualized panchayats as annually elected bodies, not as the traditional council of village elders. Moreover, Gandhi himself was a sort of anarchist when it came to individuality. He was for least governance by the state and even argued that majority opinion is not always the correct way to go. See http://www.calpeacepower.org/0201/gandhi_anarchist.htm. Last accessed on December 3, 2008. 7. We react differently to historical transformation in societies within the Euro-modernist discourses. For example, when Michel Foucault supported the Iranian revolution of 1979 as a radical challenge to European modernity, his comments were taken as “miscalculations” or “follies.” They were considered aberrant writings by an otherwise great philosopher in the European tradition. It was simply Foucault’s “Iran mistake,” a temporary and rare slippage of a great European mind. On the other hand contemporary China’s turn to capitalism is not considered a disaster of the same order as Iran’s turn to Islamism as the former is still an experiment within modernity, even though the turn away from socialistic principles to capitalist wageslavery is disastrous for the laboring population and a regress of the highest order. 8. Hindutva (“Hindu-ness”) is the ideology of a nationalist, Hindu-chauvnist political movement in India, ideologically committed to the idea of a Hindu nation, via a highly selective reading of India’s syncretic civilizational history. The Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) that governed from 1999 to 2004 is part of the Hindutva movement. 9. There are grounds for this fear that we share with Sarkar and Nanda. For example in the name of non-Eurocentric history, a purely Vedic heritage has been claimed for the pre-Vedic Indus/ Harappa Civilization of South Asia in order to demonstrate that Vedic culture is completely indigenous to the sub-continent. Thapar (2002, p. 12) notes: “The notion that the Vedic culture and language had a genesis within the Indian subcontinent goes back to the politicallymotivated Hindutva literature of the 1920s and 1930s. The intention was to insist that the Hindus alone, as lineal descendants of the Aryans, were indigenous, whereas the Muslims and Christians were alien.” 10. Bhakti: Flourishing in the twelfth–seventeenth centuries, the bhakti (devotion) movement was a movement that challenged religious institutions such as caste and ritual and instead emphasized direct union of human and divine via love. Chaitanya, Kabir, Namdev, Meera Bai are some prominent bhakti thinkers, many coming from the lower castes of society. Sufism is the mystical tradition of Islam. In South Asia Sufis such as Nizamuddin Auliya, Amir Khusro, Moinuddin Chisti, and Kabir played an important role in creating a syncretic faith with elements of Hinduism and Islam. 11. Thus we might note: Is it not true that the historically oppressed lower castes in India have managed to emerge as a major political force at the national level through representative political parties, state affirmative actions and parliamentary democracy? Is it not true that social reforms like abolition of child marriage are no longer the agenda of liberal, “Westernized” intelligentsia but finds their leaders among lower caste women in remote villages where strictest patriarchal customs still prevail? Is it not true that Western discourses on homosexuality have enabled support groups and civil society organizations to fight for the rights of gays and lesbians? Finally, is it not true that Western Marxism has helped create in India a powerful working class and one of the biggest Communist parties in the world? 12. “Liberty, as a principle, has no application to any state of things anterior to the time when mankind have become capable of being improved by free and equal discussion. Until then, there is nothing for them but implicit obedience to an Akbar or a Charlemagne, if they are so fortunate as to find one.” (Mill 1975, pp. 15–16, cited in Mehta 1999, p. 70)

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13. Nanda’s preferred “alternative hybridity” combines “a modernist appropriation of rationalist and naturalistic traditions” (typified in her opinion by Ambedkar). Thus hybridity is allowed only in so far as it does not depart from modernist rationalism and naturalism. But why, we wonder, should rationalism itself be restricted to its modernist avatar? Would a hybrid politics taking Buddha’s anti-caste rationalism and the Sufi or Bhakti philosophy of love be unacceptable simply because it fails to pay homage to the Enlightenment? 14. This point has been stressed by several authors including Amin (1989), Wallerstien (1997), Dussel (2000), and Kanth (2005). 15. The Indian National Congress, also known as the Congress party, a leading political party in India, founded in 1885. It played a prominent role in India’s independence struggle under the leadership of Tilak, Gandhi, Subhas Bose and Nehru and after independence ruled unchallenged under the Prime Minister-ship of Jawaharlal Nehru for nearly thirty years. 16. Import duties and tariffs have been substantially lowered or eliminated, stock markets opened to foreign investors, the industrial licensing system dismantled (see Rao and Dutt 2006 for one account). 17. Rao and Dutt (2006). Other indicators show this as well. The average Indian family today is absorbing 115 kg less per year of food-grains than in 1991; average calorie intake has fallen from already low levels, and since data show that urban calorie intake has risen, it is rural absorption that has fallen much more than the average (Patnaik 2007, p. 3134). 18. According to Palshikar and Kumar (2004), 61% rural and semi-urban versus 53% urban in 1999 and 60% dalit as compared to 56% upper-castes in 2004. 19. The Chipko movement (lit. “to stick” in Hindi) began in 1973 in the Uttarakhand region of India and was composed of female peasants who acted to prevent deforestation and to reclaim traditional forest rights threatened by the contractor system of the state Forest Department. The “Save the Narmada” movement has agitated against the construction of the Sardar Sarovar Dam and for tribal rights in Western India since the 1980s. The other examples cited, are more recent struggles mostly against displacement due to proposed industrial projects. Except the anti-Coca Cola agitation in Plachimada which was related to ground-water depletion. 20. “If you are to suffer, you should suffer in the interest of the country.”—Jawaharlal Nehru, speaking to villagers who were to be displaced by the Hirakud Dam, 1948, quoted in Roy (1999). 21. Mowitt (2001, pp. 11–12) talks of the “discursive and institutional infrastructure of the critique of Eurocentrism” and why failure to take that into account may lead to “simply more and better Eurocentrism.” 22. Husserl observed that official Science “relegated ‘life-world’ i.e.[,] the lived world, to the inferior status of domain of ‘non-serious’ knowledge, or subjective knowledge incapable of producing truths. Foucault, similarly, was not against Science, but against the hegemony of Science and called rather for ‘the union of erudite knowledge and local memories.’ ” In Peet (2005, p. 131). 23. There is a rapidly growing literature on concrete application of indigenous/traditional knowledge in present-day contexts, usually combining insights from “modern science” See for example, Warren, Slikkerveer, and Brokensha (1995) and Sillitoe, Bikker, and Pottier (2002). The focus is on technical solutions such as artificial reef management by local communities in coastal fisheries (Kurien 2007), or restoring control of indigenous populations over extraction of rubber from the Brazilian Amazon based on traditional techniques adapted to modern export markets (Hall 2007). The later in particular is an interesting example of a bahishkrit indigenous community relying on its own adapted knowledge base to challenge large-scale deforestation undertaken for industrial meat production. Thus the “technical fixes” are often embedded in the context of a political struggle over who has control of resources and whose knowledge counts as legitimate. It is to this knowledge politics that we wish to draw attention. 24. See for example two recent reports, Woytek, Shroff-Mehta, and Mohan (2004) “Indigenous Knowledge: Local Pathways to Global Development” and Finger and Shuler (2004) “Poor People’s Knowledge: Promoting Intellectual Property in Developing Countries,” both issued under the auspices of the World Bank. 25. Part IX, “The Panchayats” of the Seventy-third Amendment provides for independent elections and finance commissions for panchayats and for one third of the seats to be reserved for women. But early attempts to implement Gandhian-style local government ran into resistance from ministers reluctant to relinquish power as well as from unenthusiastic bureaucrats. See Rudolph and Rudolph (2006). Several states, however, had activated panchayati raj to greater or lesser extent, e.g., West Bengal and Kerala.

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Palshikar, S. and S. Kumar. “Participatory Norm: How Broad-Based Is It?” Economic and Political Weekly, December 18, 2004, Bombay: Sameeksha Trust. Patnaik, U. “Neoliberalism and Rural Poverty in India.” Economic and Political Weekly, July 28, 2007. Peet, R. Theories of Development. New Delhi: Rawat, 2005. Rao, J. M. and Dutt, A. K. “A Decade of Reforms: The Indian Economy in the 1990s.” External Liberalization in Asia, Post-socialist Europe, and Brazil, February 2006, pp. 139–180. Rostow, W. W. The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960. Roy, A. The Greater Common Good. Mumbai, India: India Book Distributor, 1999. Rudolph, L. I. and Rudolph, S. H. Postmodern Gandhi and Other Essays: Gandhi in the World and at Home. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Rudolph, S. H. “The Imperialism of Categories: Situating Knowledge in a Globalizing World,” Perspectives on Politics, vol. 3, no. 1, March 2005, pp. 5–14. Sahasrabudhey, S. Science and Politics: Essays in Gandhian Perspective. New Delhi: Ashish, 1991. Sangvai, S. “The New People’s Movements in India.” Economic and Political Weekly, December 15, 2007. Sarkar, S. “The Decline of the Subaltern in Subaltern Studies,” in Vinayak Chaturvedi, ed., Mapping Subaltern Studies and the Postcolonial. London: Verso, 2000. Sillitoe, P., A. Bicker, and J. Pottier. Participating in Development: Approaches to Indigenous Knowledge. New York: Routledge, 2002. Suri, K. C. “Democracy, Economic Reforms and Election Results in India.” Economic and Political Weekly, December 18, 2004. Thapar, R. “The Rgveda: Encapsulating Social Change” in K. N. Pannikar, Terence J Byres, and Utsa Patnaik, eds., The Making of History: Essays Presented to Irfan Habib. London: Anthem Press, 2002. Wallerstein, I. “Eurocentrism and its Avatars: The Dilemmas of Social Science.” New Left Review vol. 226, 1997, p. 93. Warren, D. M., L. J. Slikkerveer, D. Brokensha (eds.). The Cultural Dimension of Development: Indigenous Knowledge Systems. London: Intermediate Technology, 1995. Woytek, R., Shroff-Mehta P., and Mohan P. C. (eds.) Indigenous Knowledge: Local Pathways to Global Development. The Knowledge and Learning Group, Africa Region, World Bank, 2004. Yadav, Y. “Open Contest, Closed Options.” Seminar, February 2004. ———. “The Elusive Mandate of 2004.” Economic and Political Weekly, December 18, 2004.

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CH A P T E R

SE V E N

Eurocentrism, Modernity, and the Postcolonial Predicament in East Asia K ho Tu ng -Yi

1. Introduction This paper consists of a preliminary inquiry into the nature and symptoms of Eurocentrism in East Asia. My examination of Eurocentrism will include a scrutiny of the meanings of terms such as “postcolonial” and “development,” which when invoked, either separately or in tandem with reference to East Asia, conjures up the notion of liberation and the autonomous self-determination of the region. The term “postcolonial development,” in other words, when used with regard to East Asia, evokes at the outset, the idea of a progressive political process for the formerly colonized nations of the region. Yet I will argue, with reference to what passes for East Asian “development,” that such phenomena can neither be associated with the autonomy of sovereign entities, nor considered to be infused with the potential for political liberation. To be sure, the “development” being referred to has been emptied of all meanings other than the strictly economistic. Moreover, since contemporary East Asian “development” is indefeasibly of Euro-American ideological and material provenance, I would argue that it is little more than a perpetuation of the longstanding North-South (West/East) colonial encounter, which entails relations that are skewed by the usual asymmetries of power—notwithstanding the emerging importance, in absolute terms, of East Asia in the world order. I would argue that many in East Asia (and elsewhere) today fail to see the oppressive nature of such “development” and instead celebrate it because “Eurocentrism” has, over the past five centuries, evolved into becoming the fount of consciousness in the world. The paradox involved in the fact that Eurocentrism should now serve as the basis for the dominant consciousness paradigm in our age of globalization is striking, not

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least because globalization is within popular discourse, cast as a process emphasizing the interdependence of the political, economic and cultural dimensions of humanity. Yet, as will soon be apparent, it is in the nature of Eurocentrism that its critique is so fraught with paradoxes. “Eurocentrism” is used here as a term that refers, but is not restricted, to a particular ethnocentric way of apprehending the world. Yet, paradoxically (again), it is an ethnocentrism that betrays its own ethnoparticularities by way of its claims to universality. The litany of such claims of universalism ranges from the presidential, as in George W’s hubris-laden assertion that, “The liberty we prize is not America’s gift to the world; it is God’s gift to humanity,” to the more mundane, such as the unilinear, yet near-ubiquitous developmentalist argument which attributes poverty in the global South to its failure to replicate and develop the modern (and hence, rational) socio-political, and economic institutions of the global North. In either case, Eurocentrism is invoked in the tendency to subject the rest of humanity to the historical experience of Euro-America. But herein lurks the possibility for another paradox, for just who is “the rest of humanity?” Is Euro-American experience and Eurocentrism the preserve of specific racial, cultural, and geographical categories? The answers to these questions are revealing of still a further irony which bespeaks the nature of Eurocentrism: while it might have begun as a consciousness provincially rooted in Euro-American cultural historicity, its preponderance today renders such racially, culturally and territorially bounded conceptions of its inf luence obsolete. Indeed, now that the teleological conception of history has, largely by dint of force (via colonialism), gained currency among Euro-America’s Other, Eurocentrism has, quite consistent with its claims, become universal. Accordingly, its origins today are neither restricted to the peoples nor to the spatialities of Euro-America but can be found everywhere around the globe, indeed, spawning the much touted phenomenon of “globalization,” albeit one that is clearly at odds with the culturally diverse and interdependent version offered by its proponents. The fact that so many East Asians embrace “development” with such little awareness of the Eurocentric prejudices that underpin it, is a measure of the pervasiveness of Eurocentric consciousness that has come to dominate the region. Hence, far from signifying “liberation,” the Eurocentric oubliette to which much of East Asia is confined in its single-minded quest for “development” can be said to be tantamount to the ultimate colonization, for the capture of minds implied by such “abstract” psychological and cultural subjugation is more difficult to diagnose, let alone expunge, than are the overt predations of more time-honored forms of colonialism. The goal of this essay is therefore to provide a general and introductory account of the symptoms of Eurocentricism which have taken hold in postcolonial East Asia. It is important to point out that the aim of taking

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Eurocentrism to task is made intractable by its ubiquity, one whose extent pervades the very categories of knowledge we are deploying to critique it. Although this challenge will become readily apparent, it is one for which no clear-cut solution exists. The best one can do, it seems, is to resolve to conscientiously and ref lexively interrogate the knowledge categories one invokes to apprehend the world. It is in this spirit of inquiry, one that is simultaneously ref lexive, hermeneutic, dialectical and dialogical, that I will strive to engage in the following. Given that Eurocentrism is subjected to a variety of interpretations, the first part of this essay will attempt to tease out its operative features. For this purpose, I will continue in the inquisitional manner that I have alluded to in the passages above. In other words, I will clarify what the phenomenon of Eurocentrism is, not so much by defining it, but by identifying it within a web of meanings and phenomena. Since our understanding of the subject will naturally also be enhanced by dispensing with what it is not, I will also discuss common perceptions of Eurocentrism, which in my opinion, fail to grasp its foundational characteristics and that, consequently, render it the epistemological and ontological challenge it is today. Section III consists of an effort to identify how Eurocentrism operates in East Asia, and to convey a sense of the degree to which Eurocentric consciousness has taken hold. For this purpose, it is instructive to examine East Asia’s Confucian revival, an episode featuring a “cultural-values” discourse in which East Asia’s impressive capitalist modernization in the latter half of the twentieth century was being attributed to “Confucian/ Asian values.” The Confucian revival was an enterprise that was ardently promoted by certain East Asian political leaders and intellectuals beginning in the 1980s. Despite this episode bearing the hallmarks of a certain cultural triumphalism, I contend that this display of East Asian nationalistic (regionalistic?) exuberance disguises and actually represents a form of Eurocentric colonization so thorough it has passed unbeknownst to its proponents. This episode is instructive on two levels. First, it demonstrates the extreme cultural and psychological violence that is inf licted upon the victims of colonialism. To be sure, it is a violence that is so complete it renders the life-world of the colonizer the only possible milieu for the colonized. Secondly, insofar as this is the case, the colonized, who is now no longer aware of alternatives, begins to frame his “resistance” unconsciously in terms of the language bequeathed him/her by the colonizer, giving rise to what Wallerstein (1997) memorably describes as a form of “Eurocentric anti-Eurocentrism.” In the concluding section, I will return to re-evaluate the notion of postcolonial development as an enterprise of political liberation. The purpose here is to point out that confronting and transcending Eurocentrism is imperative to the process of an authentic de-colonization. I will conclude by offering suggestions as to how this process, which is necessarily intellectual and political, might proceed henceforward.

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As indicated above, and exemplified by the papers in this Volume, what is considered to constitute Eurocentrism is subject to considerable variety. It seems that what it is made out to be is contingent on one’s awareness of Western inf luence in the everyday life-world of the non-West. And because the inf luence exercised by the West over the non-West has been profound and wide-ranging, interpretations of Eurocentrism abound that extend from the superficial and ethereal to the material and concrete. Yet efforts to confront Eurocentrism are only possible if one knows or recognizes what it is, so my purpose here is to try to identify it. 1. As “Superficial Cultural Subordination” In apprehending Eurocentrism, some, for instance, might refer to the near-universal adoption of Western dress codes, others to the voracious consumption worldwide of popular Western cultural artifacts (as symbolized by Hollywood and MTV), and still others, to the global shift toward Western fast-food and dietary patterns. While these are undoubtedly manifestations of a Eurocentered consciousness in the non-West that deserve ref lection, critique and possibly renunciation, I would argue that they exemplify superficial symptoms of Eurocentrism which barely begin to scratch at the surface of the phenomenon. Indeed, while the preponderance of these Western lifestyle symbols in the non-West rightly constitute an indictment of Eurocentrism, one has to ask what political consequences their repudiation, even elimination, may bring forth. By way of a response, it would seem important to note that Eurocentrism of this nature ought to be recognized as a symptom (rather than a cause) of deeper and more enduring conditions, most important of which is the political hegemony the West has established over the globe in the past five centuries. Hence, because the currency given to Hollywood, MTV and other such Western cultural symbols is merely a metaphor for and indeed, a function of the political monopoly the West exercises over the non-West, a renunciation of such cultural artifacts without an analogous dismantling of the power structures that hold together the edifice of Western political dominance cannot amount to more than symbolic posturing. In other words, while Eurocentrism may be understood, quite correctly, as the pervasiveness and consumption of Western cultural objects whose preponderance occurs at the expense, via effacement, of native cultural products, it is an understanding that is inadequate since it fails to take issue with the structures that sustain Western political dominance. The enthusiasm in the everyday life-world of the non-West for Western cultural products is certainly an outcome of Eurocentrism, yet it is but one aspect of its many facets. More to the point, an understanding of Eurocentrism that hinges primarily on Western cultural domination in the realm of fashion, dietary practices, popular culture, and in the many other arenas of

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similarly mundane social activities in the non-West, does not suffice since it merely addresses “surface” (as opposed to “deep”) cultural phenomena and accordingly, fails to account for why such Eurocentric proclivities exist in the first place. The phenomenon of Eurocentrism undoubtedly heaves with deeper meaning. 2. As EuroAmerican Ethnocentrism One could also regard Eurocentrism simply as an instance of ethnocentric parochialism on the part of Euro-Americans in their encounters with the non-West. Ethnocentrism is the inherent human tendency to look at the world from one’s cultural perspective, which causes one, invariably, to gain a skewed reading of things. When conceived of as such, Eurocentrism is considered no differently from other ethnocentrisms since it is normal, inevitable, and in fact, revealing of the inherent limits of being human. Such a view, however, is f lawed in a crucial way since no other ethnocentrism in history has enjoyed such widespread currency nor been able bring to life, its ideas or visions into a global reality in any comparable way. Eurocentrism’s success in this regard should largely be attributed to its (spurious) claim to universality, which entails not only the implicit assumption that Euro-American civilization represents the apotheosis of human civilization, but that it should rightly be the telos and fate of humankind universally. As a matter of fact, it is Eurocentrism’s self-claim to universality which confers upon it the (dubious) legitimacy for its expansionary ambitions. On the other hand, it is this very same claim which negates it as an innocuous ethnocentrism that is limited by the characteristic shortcomings of cultural bias and myopia. This paradox moves us toward an understanding of Eurocentrism at two levels: first, in claiming universal relevance, Eurocentrism is evidently not an ethnocentrism but a refusal to acknowledge, indeed, it is the very denial of, EuroAmerican ethnocentric tendencies. Second, due to the global material transformations that such universalizing tendencies produce, Eurocentrism is not just ideational; it is also material. I will elaborate on this in a moment. 3. As Erroneous and Distorted Historiography Then there are others who understand as Eurocentrism, the tendency to inf late the civilizational achievements of the West—namely, its being first past the post of modernity and the attainment of its vast wealth and global power—by accounting for them as the result of the inherent qualities of the West. Those who seek to disavow Eurocentrism of this kind regard it as problematic particularly because of the skewed historiography it produces. Nonetheless, attempts to explain Western dominance and supremacy in terms of inherent European qualities have a considerable history, dating

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back to the nineteenth century (European) invention of History itself.1 Nonetheless, the explanations deployed have varied over time. Blaut (2000) highlights four of these factors, none of which is mutually exclusive but often invoked in combination with the rest. They are (p. 1): 1. Religion: The notion that Europeans by way of their Judeo-Christian traditions worship the one true God who in turn guides and blesses them. 2. Race: The belief that White people are superior to people of other races. 3. Environment: The natural environment of Europe is better and more favorable than in other parts of the world. 4. Culture: European culture is innately progressive and infused with the creative/enterprising spirit. These explanations, whether taken individually or in combination, continue to enjoy popular acceptance since they constitute the basis of European historical scholarship. I wish here not to elaborate on them but to highlight that in the process of invoking them to account for the naturalness of its superiority, the West is concomitantly failing to acknowledge nonWestern contributions to its supposed civilizational accomplishments. Hence, in short, this interpretation of Eurocentrism sees as its characteristic feature the inf lated, self-referential claims about the “innateness” of “Western” achievements, to the neglect of non-Western contributions.2 Blaut, whose understanding of Eurocentrism appears to be of this variety, regards it as “a unique set of beliefs . . . because it is the intellectual and scholarly rationale for one of the most powerful social interests of the European elite” (1993, p. 10). Blaut proceeds to clarify “powerful social interests” to mean “European colonialism,” which (ibid.) “has been a necessary and very important basis for the continued development of Europe and the continued power of Europe’s elite.” He adds (ibid.), “For this reason, the development of a body of Eurocentric beliefs, justifying and assisting Europe’s colonial activities, has been, and still is, of very great importance. Eurocentrism is quite simply the colonizer’s model of the world.” Insofar as Blaut and those working within this understanding of Eurocentrism are dispensing with the mythology of Europe’s innate superiority and in the process, attempting to restore truth to history, their scholarly efforts are imperative, timely and commendable. Yet I contend that such an understanding of Eurocentrism and confrontation with it suffers a serious shortcoming since it accepts, implicitly, the assumption of Euro-American civilization (i.e., Modernity) as the apotheosis of humanity’s crowning achievement. That is, such a view seems first to accept the Eurocentric claim of the superiority of Western civilization before it rebuts, for their omissions and distortions, the explanations that are offered as the basis of that superiority. This form of anti-Eurocentrism, to restate

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matters somewhat differently, is tantamount to accepting EuroAmerica’s boast about the supremacy of its civilizational accomplishments before demanding that the non-West be duly recognized for its contributions to those achievements. What this perspective invariably suffers is the untenable contradiction of accepting Eurocentrism before “repudiating” it. It is apparent that Eurocentrism prevails when the supposed virtues of “Western civilization” (which in the conceit of the Eurocentric popular consciousness I am critiquing, is often thought synonymous with “civilization”) are not examined, but instead merely assumed worthy of their designation as the ultimate fate of all humanity. Eurocentrism, in the deepest sense, is implicated in the act of acquiescing to Eurocentered values of judgment without awareness of the culturally-tinted nature of those values. This refines our understanding of Eurocentrism further, since it suggests that a more complete appraisal of what it is would have to include consideration of the criteria by which human progress is judged; in particular, it would have to inquire why it is that Euro-American civilization is so widely accepted as the cultural archetype for human progress. Similarly, one has to ask what accredits Euro-American experience with the legitimacy to serve as the template for the evolution of the rest of the world, and why, despite these uncertainties, we find the latter conducting its affairs seemingly in unconscious obeisance to it. 4. As Modernity To colonize is to establish contact with new countries in order to benefit from their total range of resources, to develop these resources for the benefit of the national interest and at the same time to bring to the native peoples the intellectual, social, scientific, moral, cultural, literary, commercial and industrial benefits of which they are deprived and which are the prerogative of the superior races. To colonize, therefore, is to establish an advanced form of civilization in a new country in order to achieve the twin aims we have just mentioned. From a French Outline of Colonial Legislation and Economics, 1912. (quoted in Tipton 1998, p. 251) The discussion thus far has revealed understandings of Eurocentrism to be multi-layered as well as multi-faceted. This is not unexpected, for Eurocentrism, I hope to have shown, is a complex phenomenon which permeates all dimensions of reality at every level of sophistication. And insofar as this is the case, each of the above interpretations is valid in its own right. Yet I have, for the purpose of attaining a thorough understanding of Eurocentrism, probed and sought to elucidate its deeper manifestations. In the process, what has stood out consistently as enduring features of Eurocentrism have been its claim of universality, its monopoly of knowledge categories, its license to deem, then prescribe the things of beauty and

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truth, and basically, to define the raison d’etre of human existence—all this, despite its being only one cultural perspective among many. What this directs us to is a thoroughgoing inquisition of the underlying system of values according to which lived human experiences, within and across cultures, are validated and assigned importance. What has to be examined, in other words, is the entire apparatus that has called for the rationalization of the world and conferred upon us the present knowledge categories by which we understand it. The apparatus in question, it seems, is that of Modernity, since it is on its back that the celebrated accomplishments of Europe ultimately came to be signified, in the smug delusions of Fukuyama (1992), as “the end of history.” Indeed, critically, it was Europe’s status as Modernity’s forerunner which afforded it the self-conferred right to appropriate the spatial and temporal dimensions of social reality. The appropriation of space has occurred historically by colonial conquests and the subsequent tasks of cartography, but perhaps more crucially, the appropriation of temporality, which pertains to the right to calibrate time, is what has made an issue of History, bracketing Europeans inside it while simultaneously leaving non-Europeans outside, “without” it. Europe’s claim of History on the basis of the “intellectual, social, scientific, moral, cultural” and other such prerogatives of its civilization (see opening passage) was, in other words, crucial to instituting within mainstream consciousness the binary oppositions of tradition/modernity, primitive/civilized, third world/first world, developing/developed, and South/North, each of which bring to the fore the contrast between the contemptible and the desirable, the non-West and the West, respectively. It is just such a juxtaposition of the progressiveness of the West on the one hand, with the stagnation of the non-West on the other, which has designated Western civilization as the terminus of human progress universally. After all, one might argue—as liberals do—that it is only time that separates the non-West from the West, tradition from modernity, and the primitive from the civilized. As the argument goes, these binary opposites are sustained only by time lags: indeed, it is only a matter of time before even the “developing” become “developed”; before peoples without History enter into, and eventually reach “the end” of it. In other words, it is Europe’s colonization of the temporal dimension and its appropriation of History in the course of becoming Modern, which has consolidated its claim of universalism. This claim in turn has rendered Europe’s historical trajectory the archetypal template for the non-West by subjecting them to the Eurocentric teleology of human progress. It is apparent from the foregoing that no interpretation of Eurocentrism would suffice without reference to Modernity, since the latter is the repository that provides us with the values by which we evaluate the cultural, political and economic arenas of our contemporary life-world. Moreover, given that Modernity, a product of the eighteenth-century European Enlightenment, has bequeathed us, foremost as ideological slogans, the

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nation-state, individualism, citizenship, nationalism, democracy, liberty, justice, fraternity, equality, socialism/communism, and of course, capitalism, it would seem safe to say that virtually all of us have in one way or other, fallen under its sway; in turn, inevitably, capitulating to some dimension of Eurocentrism. In other words, a comprehensive account of Eurocentrism, I contend, is one that lays bare the homology between Modernity and Eurocentrism. For insofar as Eurocentrism has been the defining characteristic, indeed, the sin qua non of Modernity that furnishes Euro-America with the self-conferred right to carve up the world both temporally and spatially in its own image, Eurocentrism is Modernity—and vice versa. A repudiation of Eurocentrism cannot be sustained without at least an inquisition of Modernity. It is inconceivable to speak of Eurocentrism without reference to Modernity, just as it is quite impossible to refer to Modernity without invoking Eurocentrism. The one is necessarily implicated when speaking about the other. This revelation is important because it entails a number of consequences. Firstly, insofar as the homology drawn between Modernity and Eurocentrism correctly depicts the former as a historically and culturally specific phenomenon, it restores to Modernity a sense of history and culture, with their accompanying correlates of time and place. This relocalization of Modernity to its temporal and spatial origins entails profound philosophical implications for the non-West since it immediately expunges from the aura of Modernity its pretensions of universalism and the Eurocentric teleology of progress that has been so central to it. That is to say, because Modernity is an historical phenomenon unique to a particular culture, its pursuit by (imposition upon) the non-West cannot signify “development” in any authentic or autonomous sense but instead should be seen as an attempt to imitate, and so, reify a particular alien (i.e., Western) cultural experience. The fact that Modernity continues not to be seen as such, but as a seemingly ahistorical and acultural (hence, disembodied, value-neutral and universal) process signifying “development” reveals just the magnitude of the challenge that Eurocentrism poses. Secondly, understanding Eurocentrism as Modernity provides us with an insight into the possible locations where Eurocentrism may be found. For just as Modernity, whose peripatetic and trans-national existence in the present age of globalization belies the cultural and historical circumstances of its beginnings, Eurocentrism can, despite its origination from the lairs of Euro-America, reside and f lourish elsewhere. The expansionary ambitions of Global Capital today, after all, have demonstrated that even if Eurocentrism were to break away from its moorings in EuroAmerica, it will continue to persist. Euro-American agency, in other words, is irrelevant to the perpetuation of Eurocentrism, since agency can be sought (or more aptly, bought) elsewhere. I will attempt to demonstrate this in the following section, where what has transpired as a result of the economic successes of postcolonial East Asia and modern China, appear to lend support to this assertion.

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The persistence of Eurocentrism, furthermore, is revealing of the tremendous difficulties that beset the task of those, particularly in the nonWest, hoping to repudiate it. Since its perpetuation is not dependent on the agency of those deriving from its formative cultures, nor is its demise assured with the denouement of Euro-American hegemony, the sustenance and nourishment of Eurocentrism by recent converts to the Modernist faith outside the physical territories of Euro-America are only too real. Once again, I will draw upon the example provided by East Asia where, owing to the totalizing nature of Eurocentric consciousness, that which purportedly resists Eurocentrism is itself, paradoxically, rendered Eurocentric. Finally, I offer here a few comments in defense of the present conception of Eurocentrism. An interpretation which draws upon Eurocentrism’s homology with Modernity includes, encompasses, and most crucially, explains the interpretations highlighted previously. For instance, while the global preponderance of Western dress codes is indeed symptomatic of Eurocentrism, the interpretation of Eurocentrism-as-Modernity favored here is able to explain such symptoms as the result of the imposition of Modernity via the long history of Western colonization. In other words, this comprehensiveness is a result of an interpretation of Eurocentrism that strives to restore historicity to it; an interpretation permitting not only an understanding of surface appearances, but their root causes as well. Analogously, because Eurocentrism is being here equated with Modernity, its critique incorporates a diverse range of perspectives on social injustices that stem from modern life. The critique of Eurocentrism therefore not only includes critiques that derive from the perspectives of class, gender and race; it adds a further dimension owing to its vantagepoint outside the vestibule of Modernity. This, of course, is not to suggest that social injustices do not exist outside Modernity, but merely to clarify that insofar as such oppressions pertain to and emerge from modern societies, the critique of Eurocentrism is implicitly also a critique of the Modernity that spawns them. Naturally, this then raises the question about the possibility of alternative modernities. Indeed, are there modernities which are nonEurocentric? I now turn to examine the case of East Asia where this issue has generated much interest and intellectual vitality in the wake of its rapid modernization. 3. The Challenge to Eurocentrism?: Confucius and East Asian Development 1. East Asia’s Confucian Resurrection: Origins and Significations In their outward appearance these East Asian nouveaux riches are Westernized. Yet behind this façade the people of these countries

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pursue a way of life that remains essentially Oriental. They prefer to eat oriental food, observe lunar-calendar-based national festivities, place the family in the center of their social and economic relationships, practice ancestor worship, emphasize frugality in life, maintain a strong devotion to education, and accept Confucianism as the essence of their common culture. (Tai 1989, p. 2) The countries I have in mind here are, of course, the successful capitalist ones in the region: Japan, the so-called Four Little Dragons— South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore—and, increasingly, at least some of the countries of ASEAN besides Singapore. Their economic successes have powerfully impressed themselves on the consciousness of people everywhere. The same economic successes have induced both social scientists and politicians in other parts of the world to speak of an “East Asian developmental model.” . . . It is my contention that these countries are sufficiently distinct, as compared with the West, that one is entitled to speak of them as a “second case” of capitalist modernity. (Berger 1988, p. 4) The quotes above reveal that “cultural identity” became an issue of central concern with the unprecedented economic development of East Asia in the latter half of the twentieth century. In particular, because the dynamic East Asian economies—Japan, along with the “four little Dragons” of South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore—were thought to comprise of a Sinitic sphere of inf luence, the thesis of an “East Asian developmental model” was broached. According to Dirlik (1995), the thesis first originated from scholars in the West such as Roderick MacFarquhar, Herman Kahn, Peter Berger, Roy Hof heinz and Kent Calder, and Ezra Vogel, before it was, in many cases, opportunistically appropriated by politicians and intellectuals in the East, who with state largesse, proceeded in its propagation. Naturally, those who accepted such a thesis generally considered the question of “alternative modernities” to be rhetorical. Furthermore, because “the cultural setting of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore has been to a considerable extent shaped by Chinese experiences, which have been, in turn, heavily inf luenced by Confucianism” (Tai 1989, p. 6) the “East Asian developmental model” was one in which the former served as its defining cultural motif. Confucianism, in other words, was being credited as the chief cultural repository furnishing the values that made East Asia’s scintillating economic development possible. Confucianism, which had for much of the twentieth century been disparaged by the West and non-West alike for hindering Modern (both socialist and capitalist) social formations in the Orient, was now being resuscitated and celebrated for supposedly providing the cultural ingredients for successful East Asian economic development.3 Clearly, these evaluations of Confucianism can hardly be more paradoxical: whereas since the late nineteenth century, attainment of modernity

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was thought by all to involve overcoming the Confucian tradition; by the end of the late twentieth century, in the age of global capitalism, successful modernization was being understood to mean association with it. 2. East Asia’s Confucianist Modernity The contrast in the reception of Confucianism between the two periods is perhaps suggestive of the ideological role it was made to serve. I will return to the issue of ideology in a moment. For now, attention should be paid to the fact that the East Asian developmental experience of the mid to late twentieth century was thought of not only as an alternative to Western modernity, but by virtue of its supposed Confucian heritage, conceived to be a modernity that was distinctly non-Eurocentric. In fact, Confucianism was seized upon by the region’s autocratic leaders, most prominently, Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew, and in the guise of “Asian values,” used as a means to justify, by differentiating, East Asian norms of governance vis-àvis those of Western liberal democracies. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) even rescinded its erstwhile anti-Confucianist posture to resuscitate Confucius and usher him into the party’s ideological fold. The motivation of these political leaders to affirm the connection between Confucianism and Modernity, as Bell and Hahm (2003) point out, was not merely to highlight their respective country’s economic successes, but to underscore the notion that the political and economic institutions of their supposedly Confucian-inspired (hence, “non-Eurocentric”) modernity were in many ways, superior to that of the West. This sentiment, which has been expressed on several occasions by members of the region’s political and intellectual establishment, is palpable in the following quotes: The heart of Confucianism lies in “the emphasis on the people and virtue” which is different from capitalism that “lays emphasis on wealth or money and belittles morality.” It is also different from Communism which “stresses material and shortchanges the people.” Both capitalism and Communism have their own base and both deviate from their own root. They do not have an optimistic future. Only the Chinese culture is indeed able to work for the well-being and space of the people and promote the world to a state where harmony, equality and justice prevail. Chen Li-fu, Senior Adviser to the President of Taiwan, and Hou Chi-ming, Professor at Colgate University, United States, in 1989. (quoted in Tipton 1998, p. 407) As this (Confucian) culture better suits the needs of the future, it will thrive particularly well in the next century and will replace modern and contemporary Western culture. Ma Zhenduo (1994, p. 5), Philosophical Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

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Hence, not only was East Asian modernity claimed to be different from that of the Euro-American variety, it was thought to contain the necessary qualities to surpass it as well. Moreover, because it was framed in an “East-against-West,” “us-versus-them” rhetoric, East Asian modernity was, via its supposedly Confucian characteristics, conspicuously being cast as a challenge to Euro-American (and hence, Eurocentric) hegemony. In other words, in the way it was formulated, East Asian modernity was not only non-Eurocentric; it was selfconsciously anti-Eurocentric. 3. Ideology and Dynamics of the Confucian Revival The Master said, “The common people can be made to follow a path but not to understand it.” Confucius, The Analects, VIII. 9 The political ideal, much less the practice, of formal, de jure “democracy” is relatively new in East Asia. No such political regime had existed in the region prior to the twentieth century. Instead, perhaps owing to the strictures of the Confucian tradition, autocratic forms of government have tended to prevail in East Asia historically. They have persisted as the norm till this day. For such reasons, one would be forgiven for regarding the Confucian revival simply as an attempt to justify and perpetuate the authoritarianism of some of the region’s more autocratic regimes (such as Lee Kuan Yew’s People’s Action Party in Singapore, and the CCP in China), while simultaneously curbing the further expansion of liberaldemocratic political processes (Tamney and Chiang 2002). Of course, the issue of “ ideology” resurfaces when such an instrumentalist account of Confucianism is offered. One is indeed unable to ignore the role “ideology” has played in the Confucian revival, for the latter seems to have been, above all things, an exercise in ideological manipulation. As such, while readers may have noticed no mention of the philosophical aspects of Confucianism in the present discourse, they should bear in mind that this omission is not the result of an oversight but rather, a ref lection of precisely how incidental a role Confucian philosophy played in East Asia’s Confucian revival. The establishment of “Confucian Ethics” into the religious education curriculum in Singapore’s secondary schools in the early 1980s, for instance, was motivated not so much by a yearning for the wisdom of the venerable sage as by the government’s concern about the onslaught of Western cultural values on the young as a consequence of capitalist modernization. The values of individualism and materialism, and their concomitant effects of self-centeredness, self-gratification, avarice, and nihilism etc., were thought not only to be detrimental to Singaporean society, but perhaps more important for the government, to its continued capacity to maintain social control.

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At any rate, concern about such matters prompted government leaders to react swiftly. In 1980, Premier Lee urged Singaporeans to develop “team spirit” in its national culture: “We can build up this team spirit, this esprit de corps, where every individual gives of his best for the team. The team, the nation, in turn, takes care of the individual, fairly and equitably. The art of government is the art of building up this team spirit” (quoted in Bellows 1989, p. 215). Some two years later, in February 1982, Lee was proclaiming the importance of cultivating Confucian values in children (Shee 1987, p. 987). This was followed, within the same month, by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Education, Goh Keng Swee’s announcement that Confucian Ethics would be offered as part of the newly introduced religious education program in secondary schools. This brief account of the Singapore government’s remarkable attempt to insert Confucianism into the popular consciousness cannot emphasize sufficiently, the considerable role that it played in propagating Confucianism both nationally and throughout East Asia. State patronage, after all, did not just end with Confucianism making its way into the national school curriculum in 1982. As Lee Kuan Yew has acknowledged in a recent (2007) speech, official patronage extended to the establishment the following year (1983), of the Institute of East Asian Philosophies (IEAP) whose designated purpose was the re-interpretation and propagation of Confucianism.4 Given the state’s largesse, it is little wonder that the Institute quickly developed into a center of congregation for Confucian scholars from the world over. This correspondingly led to the emergence of Singapore as the region’s (and quite probably, the globe’s) most fervent proponent of Confucianism, which is astounding considering that the subject had hardly been considered worthy of public discussion just a few years before. At any rate, Singapore’s efforts to promulgate “Asian values” in the form of Confucianism soon began to have an impact on the other Chinese societies in East Asia. Dirlik (1995, p. 239) points out that, “By the mideighties, a Confucian formation was visible as Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) quickly emerged as sites in an expanding network of conferences on modernization and Confucian and/ or East Asian culture.” Moreover, in 1984, on the “2535th birthday” of Confucius, the China Confucian Foundation was established in the PRC where Confucianism had for much of the past few decades, been officially maligned, expunged, and consigned to the ignominious “feudal” past. Three years later, in 1987, as an example that bespeaks Singapore’s importance in the Confucian revival, the Singapore Institute of East Asian Philosophies jointly sponsored with the China Confucian Foundation, the Sixth Conference on Confucianism in the PRC. Yet the most explicit testimony to Singapore’s inf luence in the Confucian enterprise was still to come. In October 1994, as Leys (1997, pp. xv–xvi) has observed, “The Communist authorities in Peking sponsored a huge symposium to celebrate

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the 2545th anniversary of Confucius birth. The main guest speaker was the former Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew. He was invited apparently because his hosts wished to learn from him the magic recipe (supposedly found in Confucius) for marrying authoritarian politics with capitalist prosperity.” 4. Confucianism, Globalization, and Postcolonialism Owing to space constraints, our discussion of the Confucian revival has been limited exclusively to Singapore, and to a lesser extent, China (and then, only insofar as its experiences derived from the evangelical activities of the former). Apart from my earlier note about the proliferation of conferences on Confucianism, little has been said about how it played out in the other Chinese societies of East Asia, that is, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Even less has been said about how the Confucian revival manifested in Korea and Japan.5 Nonetheless, I would contend this selective emphasis to be justified since Singapore’s autocratic leaders have frequently f launted and often been recognized for their bravado in standing up to the West (see Kemenade 1997 quote subsequently). Because of its apparent belligerence, Singapore serves aptly as an example of how East Asia has framed its challenge to the overall domination of Euro-America (and hence, Eurocentrism). After all, it is generally accepted that Singapore was the chief protagonist in the Confucian revival. And it has, accordingly, been prominent in differentiating between what is supposedly a modernity that is Confucianinspired from one that is spawned of a Euro-American/Protestant ethic. In the same vein, while not challenging (in fact, obsequiously accepting) the larger social, economic and political structures of Euro-American domination, it was also Singapore which had most vociferously asserted, under the cryptic slogan of “Asian values,” the emergent modern East Asian consciousness as a counterpoint to the cultural hegemony of EuroAmerica.6 It is with sympathy to such a view that Kemenade (1997, p. 378) writes, “Confucianism has become the antidote to Western evangelism, which attempts to impose liberal democracy and human rights as a universal political philosophy . . . Singapore has taken the lead in the regional campaign for Asian (Confucianist) values and against decadent Western values. Articles appear regularly in the International Herald Tribune and academic magazines written by ethnic-Chinese and ethnic-Indian Singaporeans who confidently present the West, especially the United States, with a series of warnings to put their own house in order before sending American government officials to Asia’s capitals with a long list of demands, telling them how to run their countries.” Similarly, China’s deployment of Confucianism to battle Western domination in more recent times is equally noteworthy, if not simply important, because of its fast growing inf luence in the global political and

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economic order. As Kemenade (ibid.) has observed, “China is fighting the same battle in the diplomatic-political arena that Singapore is fighting in the press, using Confucianist phraseology such as order, discipline, and the prevalence of the collective good over individual good in order to reject Western interference in domestic affairs and Western universalism in the field of human rights.” In short, my emphasis on Singapore and China in the Confucian revival stems from their similarly self-conscious and explicit efforts to cast Confucianism as a project challenging Euro-American hegemony. Yet, for all this talk about challenging Euro-American power, a central concern of this paper demands that one asks if it actually amounts to that. In other words, can we truly claim “Confucianist” East Asian development to represent a genuine resistance to Euro-American (hence, Eurocentric) hegemony? How, at the very least, are we able to reconcile so-called Confucian-led East Asian development with what we know about Eurocentrism? The motivations of these two East Asian nations to so vigorously partake of the reconstruction and revival of Confucianism have been noted above. Shaped by the political and cultural challenges that have resulted from these nations’ integration into Capitalist modernity, these motivations have essentially revolved around three overt considerations: (i) the wish to cultivate, as Lee says, “a team spirit,” (ii) the wish to legitimize the authoritarianism of the prevailing political regimes while simultaneously repudiating the paternalistic interference of the West in domestic political affairs, and (iii) the desire to mitigate the onslaught of supposedly decadent Western values. Given that these are mundane concerns about sovereignty which would call forth the attention of any self-respecting anti-colonialist, one would, certainly on the face of it, be prone to agree, along with its proponents, that the East Asian Confucian revival constitutes a serious challenge to Eurocentrism. At least, there appears little reason to doubt the anti-colonizing and anti-Eurocentric credentials of the Confucian revival. But there is more than meets the eye, for the explicit motivations that have energized both Singapore and China in reviving Confucianism bespeak a deeper, underlying impulse that reaches the heart of concerns about “cultural identity” in the context of globalization. It is the examination of this impulse, I suggest, which will help us better evaluate the anti-Eurocentric claims, and correspondingly, the liberatory potential of East Asian development. Accordingly, it might be fitting to note that in its assertion of its cultural uniqueness under the rubric of “Asian values,” the East Asian revival of Confucianism had the additional appeal, to those concerned, of serving as an affirmative ideology of collective cultural identity. This account is appealing for it makes much sense of Singapore’s fervor as well as China’s zeal in the Confucian revival. Each has after all, been striving to articulate and to assert its sense of self hood within the context of a globalized Euro-American modernity. It has taken on a frantic urgency in the case of

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Singapore, as is befitting a young postcolonial nation with little of either “history” or “culture” to speak of, apart from that grafted upon it by its colonial masters. Similarly, China, too, has been in the throes of reinventing itself and been forced to entertain questions of its “identity” after the debacle of its Socialist experience. The circumstances surrounding China’s participation in the Confucian revival, however, are intriguing. For unlike Singapore, instead of having a shortage of “culture,” it has “suffered” an excess, of which the more than 2,500-year-old venerable Confucian tradition lies at its heart. Yet it is precisely this “cultural surplus” which, since the progressive, nationalist May Fourth Movement (1919), has been blamed for China’s stagnation and subsequent defeat by the West. With Confucianism being seen in this light, no effort was spared to extirpate it root and branch and to replace in its stead, the “superior” science, technology, and the cultural and political institutions of the West. Under the Communists, the desire to expunge Confucianism continued, even escalated. The following is a description of the vandalism that was perpetrated against it during the Cultural Revolution: “Inspired by the revolutionary spirit of Chairman Mao, Red Guards descended on Qufu, the birthplace of the Master in the eastern province of Shandong, which for them meant the ‘resting place of the stinking corpse of Confucius.’ . . . Mao’s storm troopers destroyed every commemorative column, statue, and piece of furniture that was not too large or massive for their crowbars, and battering rams, laying waste to temple interiors and palaces alike”7 (Kemenade 1997, p. 373). Naturally, it is a striking paradox that China, which had spent most of the twentieth century trying to eradicate its Confucian legacy, should now so conscientiously attempt to revive it. It is at least as ironical that in the process, it should, as the cradle of Confucian civilization, seek Singapore’s counsel on how to proceed! Perhaps more than anything, these developments reveal the thoroughly ideological nature of the Confucian revival. But be that as it may, the task then demands that we explain why East Asia’s ideological concerns vis-à-vis “cultural identity” manifested at the time they did, and not at any other. In other words, while we now understand the Confucian revival to have emerged as an ideological concern, what gave cause for the concern to arise in the first place? It appears reasonable to infer that the timing of the Confucian revival had to do with East Asia’s success in the context of capitalist Modernity, resulting thus in its empowerment and increasing prominence within the prevailing structure of global power relations. This in turn called forth an explanation, which in the context of East Asia’s newfound power, granted East Asians with the somewhat unprecedented freedom and opportunity to provide. It was therefore in this altered global environment that Confucianism was revived and offered up as the explanation for East Asia’s astounding economic development. Indeed, Confucianism served as East Asia’s

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analogue to Europe’s Protestant ethic: just as Weber (1992/1930) had credited the latter for Europe’s rise vis-à-vis Capitalism, the advocates of the Confucian revival were similarly seeking culturalist explanations to celebrate East Asian exceptionalism. Confucius therefore became the motif of East Asia’s triumphant resurgence. Moreover, given that Confucianism (with Daoism) was singled out by Weber (1951) and castigated for being an obstacle to the Orient’s development of Capitalism,8 it hardly seems coincidental that East Asians were now crediting it for their success. The reconciliation of East Asian capitalist success with Weber’s formulation appears evidently self-conscious. In fact, it would not be amiss to regard it as East Asia’s gloating repudiation of Weber’s Eurocentrism, for it is the diametric juxtaposition of East Asia’s Confucianism vis-à-vis Weber’s Protestantism which casts, rather deceivingly, I believe, the Confucian revival as an anti-Eurocentric enterprise. Following from these observations about the timing of East Asia’s grappling with concerns of cultural identity, I would suggest that the intensity to which the “Confucian/Asian values” thesis was asserted, was in turn, correlated with the degree to which East Asian elites felt culturally deficient in relation to the West, and as such, challenged by “Western values.” I have attempted to show this to be the case for Singapore and China, both of which appear thoroughly worked over by Euro-American modernity,9 and which in consequence, have been the most zealous participants in the Confucian revival.

5. Confucian/East Asian Modernity: A Postcolonial Antidote to Eurocentrism? So what, after all, are we to make of East Asia’s postcolonial development and its subsequent attainment of modernity? Can we argue that it represents liberation from its colonial past, that it is a genuinely post-colonial situation of autonomous well-being? It is apparent from the above that Confucianism might well have had nothing to do as an ingredient for the developmental success of East Asia. On the contrary, as explained above, it was the very success of East Asia in a changing global economic landscape that granted it a “voice” to assert its concerns of “cultural identity,” allowing therefore, East Asian expressions of difference, uniqueness, and autonomy. When elaborated in terms of an ideology of Confucianism, this presented East Asian modernity not only as an alternative to Euro-American modernity, but as a repudiation of Eurocentrism as well. Although the presentation of Confucian/East Asian Modernity as antiEurocentric might seem plausible on the face of it, it is in fact deeply problematic. What is today considered to be East Asian development, after all, is its successful incorporation into, and participation in the globalized structures of Capitalist modernity, structures revealed earlier (in Part II)

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to be themselves infused with Eurocentrism. Besides, the need to emphasize “cultural difference” in the form of Confucianism in East Asia is itself an implicit acknowledgement that such differences—in this case, the nuances of East Asian culture—had hitherto not been recognized in the milieu of Capitalist modernity. Indeed, it is an indictment of the totalizing Eurocentric milieu that is Modernity. The claim of Confucian/East Asian modernity as anti-Eurocentric is thus undercut. Hence, to be sure, Confucian/East Asian modernity is not an alternative to Euro-American modernity but verily, a part of it. In the wake of East Asia’s resurging prominence in the context of globalization, Confucianism was revived as an ideology to meet East Asian concerns about “cultural identity.” Consequently, the “Confucian/Asian values” discourse was granted an audience partly because of East Asia’s newfound power, and partly because capitalist modernity, by virtue of its globalization, had now to accommodate the diverse variety of cultures with which it engaged. For these reasons, the thesis of “Confucian values” contributing to East Asian development is dubious. And even if we should seriously consider the “Confucian ethic” as an analogue to Weber’s Protestant spirit in the development of capitalist modernity, we are confronted with difficulties owing to contemporary reformulations/distortions of Confucianism. As Dirlik (1995, p. 266) has put it: “. . . Confucianism has been reconstructed, beyond recognition to any hypothetical Confucian of the past, in accordance with the demands of contemporary East Asian capitalism. It is this articulation of Confucianism to modernization—in this case, capitalist modernization— that is the characteristic of the new discourse on Confucianism.” It follows that the thesis of Confucian/East Asian development as a mode of resistance to Euro-American (and Eurocentric) hegemony, if true, cannot be but an effete, superficial form of resistance. For instead of objecting to the values that give rise to, and sustain Euro-American power, the Confucian revival has sought to articulate, as Dirlik (ibid.) says, “Confucianism to capitalist modernization.” In other words, the Confucian revival does not question the Eurocentrism implicit in the theory of modernization but rather conceptualizes East Asia’s progress in terms of it. Still, to express this in terms of Weber’s formulation about the origins of capitalism, it is tantamount to asserting an essentialized set of “Confucian values” as being on par with “Protestant values” in its compatibility with capitalism, without rejecting Weber’s implicit proposition about the superiority of capitalism in the first place. The proponents of the Confucian revival are therefore not disputing Weber’s more-serious Eurocentric prioritization of capitalism as a progressive social system, but merely his less-serious Eurocentric diagnosis of Confucianism as an obstacle to it. This is what I described previously (In the subsection “As Erroneous and Distorted Historiography”) as “the contradiction of accepting Eurocentrism before ‘repudiating’ it,” or in Wallerstein’s (1997) terms, an instance of “Eurocentric anti-Eurocentrism.”

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Nevertheless, there is yet a further irony in the Confucian revival. Said (1978) had originally conceptualized Orientalism (i.e., an instance of Eurocentrism when applied to the Orient) as the reductionist cultural construction of Asia by Europeans. It is important to note then, that Eurocentrism in the sense that Said meant it has been implicated in this episode, too. The reconstruction of Confucianism in the East Asian Confucian revival has necessarily resorted to the same essentialized notions that had been the target of Said’s critique. What is now different, paradoxically, is that the reductionist cultural constructions of Asians are being perpetrated by the Asian themselves. As Dirlik (1995, p. 273) memorably puts its, “The admission of East Asia to Global Capitalism has been accompanied not by the repudiation of, but, in the self-Orientalization of the “Orientals” themselves, by the apotheosis of, Orientalism.” It seems reasonable to conclude then, that East Asian development does not consist of the liberatory potential to facilitate its emancipation from Euro-American (and hence, Eurocentric) hegemony. On the contrary, the evidence appears to suggest that its participation in modernist development has reinforced the very scourge of Eurocentrism by way of a surreptitious psychological and cultural colonization. So complete has been this colonization that, in the terms employed by Dirlik (ibid.) and Said (1978) mentioned before, Orientals have become Orientalized without necessarily being cognizant of it, or of the violence inf licted upon them in the process. Such are the pernicious effects of psychological and cultural modes of subjugation. What is more, as East Asia has progressed along the trajectory of Euro-American modernization, it has unwittingly become an agent of Eurocentrism. Indeed, insofar as East Asia has become a new center of power within global Capitalist Modernity, Eurocentrism can be thought of as having found another site of residence and propagation, with the implication that its sustenance, as I have indicated, would no longer necessitate Euro-American agency. And it is not without irony either, that as East Asia becomes Eurocentrism’s latest advocate, however unwittingly, the cycle of Modernist oppression would have come full circle, with the formerly colonized now playing the role of colonizer. 4. Conclusion I had begun by expressing my interest in inquiring about the autonomy of postcolonial East Asia whose economic development in the latter half of the twentieth century, had attracted the approbation of the world. It should be evident by now that neither “postcolonial” nor “development,” without rigorous qualification, can be said to accurately ref lect the political standing of contemporary East Asia. By virtue of having been “overcome by Modernity,” to use the memorable phrase of Harootunian (2000), “postcolonial” in the case of East Asia can hardly be interpreted

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to mean “past,” or “after” colonialism, for the colonialism persists. Such is the postcolonial predicament of East Asia today. The autonomy of East Asia, correspondingly, is dubious for it is ensnared in the throes of perhaps the most pernicious form of colonial oppression qua the cultural and psychological aspects of Eurocentrism. There is no wish here to diminish the brutality of more explicit forms of colonialism. Yet cultural colonization is particularly deadly because it is “abstract” and “intangible,” having to do with the ways in which we look, think, feel, and evaluate the world around us, making it immeasurably less amenable to diagnosis, much less confrontation, than are more explicit forms of colonization. In its impulse to impose Euro-American historical experience as the teleological fate of all humanity, Eurocentric colonization forecloses alternative ways of looking, thinking, feeling, and being, thus dispensing with the diversity of cultural perspectives so integral to the survival of humanity today. This has been exemplified in the case of East Asia, where the totalizing presence of a Eurocentric consciousness has inevitably rendered even East Asia’s “challenge” to Eurocentrism, Eurocentric. What then, to do? There is little question that the repudiation of Eurocentrism appears insurmountable. By virtue of its ubiquity and its appropriation of our categories of knowledge, one is inevitably caught employing its terms of discourse. (I must confess to this myself, in my binary juxtaposition of the West with the non-West, Europe, with its Other, but that likely underscores the magnitude of the challenge that confronts us!) Yet the very real threat that Eurocentrism poses to the continued existence of humanity demands that we at least try to negate it. Perhaps as a start, we can do this by reviving and celebrating everywhere, outside the strictures of Modernity, the local traditions and cultures that it so reviles. As Adorno and Horkheimer (1972, p. 3) have remarked, “The fully enlightened world radiates disaster triumphant.” We should take heed and act, or otherwise would have only ourselves to blame if humanity does not survive itself. Notes 1. See Wesseling (2001) and also Hung (2003). 2. See for instance, Hobson (2004), and his piece in this volume (chapter ten). Also, Gunder Frank (1998). 3. Although European sentiment for Confucius had bordered on approbation pre- and early Enlightenment, the contempt shown toward him as the Enlightenment played out, especially from the late eighteenth century onward, is well known. See Hung (2003) for an historical account of Europe’s vacillation between Sinophobism and Sinophilism. Modern Europe’s disdain for Confucius, which persisted into and through the twentieth century, is most famously captured in Weber’s ([1921] 1951) The Religion of China: Confucian and Taoism. See Dirlik (1995) for an intriguing historical account of the political economy of the East Asian Confucian revival. 4. The speech is available online at: http://app.sprinter.gov.sg/data/pr/20070619989.htm. Accessed June 21, 2008.

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5. One seems to have good reason to believe, based on an observation of contemporary trends, that it did not go as far in either country as it had in the Chinese societies of East Asia. 6. Kemenade (1997) has reported of Singapore’s erstwhile minister of information and culture, George Yeo, speaking of “the rebirth of a common East Asian consciousness” which he anticipated would develop to become a “cultural renaissance of historical significance.” 7. For another account of this incident, see Wang (2002). 8. When contrasting Confucianism with the Protestant ethic, Weber wrote: “The Chinese lacked the central, religiously determined, and rational method of life which came from within and which was characteristic of the classical puritan. For the latter, economic success was not an ultimate goal . . . but was a means [for serving God . . . The Confucian] gentleman was ‘not a tool’; that is, in his adjustment to the world and his self-perfection he was an end unto himself, not a means for any functional end. This core of Confucian ethics rejected training in economics for the pursuit of profit . . . Confucian rationalism meant rational adjustment to the world; Puritan rationalism meant rational mastery of the world” (quoted in Tai 1989, p. 9). 9. Kemenade (1997, p. 370) concurs, particularly about the Westernization of Chinese in East Asia. In fact, he argues that, “In their outward behavior as well as in numerous other respects, the Chinese are the most Westernized people in Asia. . . . Other great Asian peoples—such as the Indians, Japanese, and Indonesians—still wear traditional Eastern attire at least part of the time, greet each other in an Eastern way—bowing, with folded hands—whereas the Chinese use the Western handshake and, since the mid-1980s, wear only Western clothing . . . Young people know nothing about their traditional culture, never watch a Peking opera, and are completely absorbed in Western pop culture and Western literature, which is channeled into China via Hong Kong and Taiwan. Their idols are Western soccer players and movie stars, and their ideal is to emigrate to the West.” Perhaps that is why, for the reasons I have highlighted above, the Confucian revival was carried the furthest in the Chinese societies of East Asia.

Bibliography Adorno, T. W and Horkheimer M Dialectic of Enlightenment. New York: Continuum, 1972. Bellows, T. J. “Bridging Tradition and Modernization: The Singapore Bureaucracy,” in H. C. Tai, ed., Confucianism and Economic Development, Washington, DC: Washington Institute Press, 1989. Berger, P. L. “An East Asian Development Model,” in P. L. Berger and H. H. Hsiao, eds., In Search of an East Asian Developmental Model, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1989. Blaut, J. M. Eight Eurocentric Historians, New York: Guildford Press, 2000. ——— The Colonizer’s Model of the World, New York: Guildford Press, 1993. Dirlik, A. F. “Confucius in the Borderlands,” in boundary 2, vol. 22, no. 3, 1995, pp. 229–273. Fukuyama, F. The End of History and the Last Man, New York: Avon Books, 1992. Frank, A. G. Re-Orient: Global Economy in the Asian Age, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. Harootunian, H. Overcome by Modernity, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000. Hegel, G. W. F. G. W. F Hegel: Einleitung in die Geschichteder Philosophie, Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1956. Hobson, J. M. The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Hung, H. F “Orientalist Knowledge and Social Theories: China and the European Conceptions of East-West Differences from 1600 to 1900,” in Sociological Theory, vol. 21, no. 3, 2003, pp. 254–280. Kanth, R. K. Against Eurocentrism: A Transcendent Critique of Modernist Science, Society and Morals, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Kemenade, W. V. China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Inc., New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997. Ma, Z. “Ruxue zai shijie wenhua de diwei” (The Position of Confucianism in the Coming World Culture) in Renmin Ribao (People’s Daily), September 19, 1994, p. 5. Said, E. W. Orientalism, New York: Pantheon Books, 1978. Shee, P. K. “Confucianism in Singapore: Issues of Identity,” in Joseph P. L. Jiang, ed., Confucianism and Modernization: A Symposium, Taipei: Freedom Council, 1987.

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Tai, H. C. “An Oriental Alternative?” in H. C. Tai, ed., Confucianism and Economic Development, Washington, DC: Washington Institute Press, 1989. Tamney, J. B. and Linda Hsueh-Ling Chiang Modernization, Globalization and Confucianism in Chinese Societies, Westport, CT, and London: Praeger, 2002. Tipton, F. B. The Rise of Asia: Economics, Society and Politics in Contemporary Asia, Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1989. Wang, L. “The Confucius Temple Tragedy of the Cultural Revolution,” in Thomas A. Wilson, ed., On Sacred Grounds, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002. Wallerstein, I. “Eurocentrism and its Avatars: The Dilemmas of Social Science,” in New Left Review, 226, 1997, p. 93. Weber, M. The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism, Illinois: Free Press, 1951/1922. ——— The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, New York: Routledge, 1992/1930. Wesseling, H. L. “Eurocentrism. An editorial” in European Review, vol. 9, no. 2, 2001, pp. 121–124.

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Perspectives on the West: Europe and the Americas

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CH A P T E R

EIGH T

On Cultural Bondage: From Eurocentrism to Americocentrism A l i A . M a z ru i

A Yugoslav from Montenegro once taught an African from Mombasa, Kenya, at Oxford University. Among the lessons which the professor from Montenegro taught the young African was a simple proposition: THE

SINS OF THE POWERFUL ACQUIRE SOME OF THE PRESTIGE OF POWER.

The Yugoslav was John Plamenatz who was at the time a distinguished fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford, and who later became a professor of political theory at Oxford.1 The student was Ali Mazrui. In that simple proposition John Plamenatz captured the importance of power in universalizing the culture of the powerful. Even the very vices of Western culture are acquiring worldwide prestige. Muslim societies that once refrained from alcohol are now manifesting increasing alcoholism. Chinese elites are capitulating to Kentucky Fried Chicken and MacDonald hamburgers.2 And Mahatma Gandhi’s country has decided to go nuclear. Western civilization is a pretender to the status of universal validity. Yet there are three forces that contradict that claim. One force is within the West itself. This is the force of historical relativism. What was valid in the West at the beginning of the twentieth century is not necessarily valid in the West at the beginning of the twenty-first century. If validity is changeable in the West itself from generation to generation, how can the claim to universalism be sustained? Another challenge to the West’s claim to universalism is not historical but cross-cultural. This latter challenge is the old nemesis of cultural relativism. We may even reverse the order of the challenge to Western universalism—the cross-cultural challenge first and the historical challenge second.

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Two of the organizing concepts of this essay are therefore, first, cultural relativism (differences in values between societies) and historical relativism (differences in values between historical epochs). One of our theses in this essay is that the moral distance between the West and Islam or between Africa and the West is narrower than often assumed. Another of our theses is that what are regarded as medieval aspects of African culture or Islamic culture may have been shared by Western culture in relatively recent times. In other words, the historical distance between African and Islamic values, on once side, and Western values, on the other, may not be as great as many have assumed. But in addition to historical and cultural relativism, there is relativism in practice, or comparative empirical performance. Is Western practice at variance with Western doctrine? Indeed, are Western standards better fulfilled by other societies than by the West? In some respects, is either Africa or Islam ahead of the West by Western standards themselves? Is there a difference between the European model of Westernism, on one side, and the American model, on the other! But let us first explore globalization before we return to the three areas of relativity—historical, cultural and empirical. What Is Globalization? What is “globalization?” It consists of processes which lead toward global interdependence and increasing rapidity of exchange across vast distances. The word “globalization” is itself quite new, but the actual processes toward global interdependence and exchange started centuries ago.3 Four forces have been major engines behind globalization across time. These have been religion, technology, economy, and empire. These have not necessarily acted separately, but have often reinforced each other. For example, the globalization of Christianity started with the conversion of Emperor Constantine I of Rome in 313 CE.4 The religious conversion of the head of an empire started the process under which Christianity became the dominant religion not only of Europe but also of many other societies thousands of miles from where the religion started. The globalization of Islam began not with converting a ready-made empire, but with building an empire almost from scratch. The Umayyads and Abbasides put together bits of other people’s empires (e.g., former Byzantine Egypt and former Zoroastrian Persia) and created a whole new civilization. Voyages of exploration were another major stage in the process of globalization. Vasco da Gama and Christopher Columbus in the fifteenth century opened up a whole new chapter in the history of globalization. Economy and empire were the major motives. There followed the migration of people symbolized by the Mayf lower. The migration of the Pilgrim Fathers was in part a response to religious and economic imperatives.

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Demographic globalization reached its height in the Americas with the inf lux of millions of people from other hemispheres. In time the population of the United States became a microcosm of the population of the world—with immigrants from every society on earth. The stage was being set for a future American imperium—the eventual emergence of Pax Americana and Americocentrism. The industrial revolution in Europe from the eighteenth century onward was another major chapter in the history of globalization. A marriage between technology and economics resulted in levels of productivity previously unknown in the annals of man. Europe’s prosperity whetted its appetite for new worlds to conquer. The Atlantic slave trade was accelerated, moving millions of Africans from one part of the world to another.5 The slave trade was another European contribution to the future might of the United States. Europe’s appetite also went imperial on a global scale. The British built the largest and most far-f lung colonial empire in human experience. Most of it lasted until the end of World War II.6 The two world wars were themselves manifestations of globalization. The twentieth century is the only century which has witnessed globalized warfare—one from 1914 to 1918 and the other from 1939 to 1945. The cold war was another manifestation of globalization (1948–1989)—because it was power-rivalry on a global scale between two alliances, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Warsaw Pact.7 The United States and the Soviet Union became superpowers. Western Europe declined. While the two world wars were militarily the most destructive empirically, the cold war was the most dangerous potentially. The cold war carried the seeds of planetary annihilation in the nuclear field.8 The final historical stage of globalization came when the industrial revolution was mated with the new information revolution. Interdependence and exchange became dramatically computerized. The most powerful single country by this time was clearly the United States. Pax Americana mobilized three of the four engines of globalization— technology, economy and empire.9 Pax Americana in the second half of the twentieth century did not directly seek to promote a particular religion—but it did help to promote secularism and the ideology of separating church from state. On balance, the impact of Americanization has probably been harmful to religious values worldwide—whether intended or not. Americanized Hindu youth, Americanized Buddhist teenagers or Americanized Muslim youngsters are far less likely to be devout to their faiths than non-Americanized ones. Americocentrism was becoming an alternative to religion. Between Hegemony and Homogeny This brings us to the twin-concepts of homogenization and hegemonization—however ugly the words may be! One of the consequences

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of globalization is that we are getting to be more and more alike across the world every decade. Homogenization is increasing similarity. The second accompanying characteristic of globalization is hegemonization— the paradoxical concentration of power in a particular country or in a particular civilization. While “homogenization” is the process of expanding homogeneity, “hegemonization” is the emergence and consolidation of the hegemonic center. With globalization there have been increasing similarities between and among the societies of the world. But this trend has been accompanied by disproportionate global power among a few countries. Culturally the world first got Europeanized; and then it slowly became Americanized. By the twenty-first century people dress more alike all over the world than they did at the end of the nineteenth century (Homogenization). But the dress code that is getting globalized is overwhelmingly the Western dress code (Hegemonization). Indeed, the man’s suit (European) has become almost universalized in all parts of the world. And the jeans’ revolution (American) has captured the youth dress culture of half the globe.10 By the twenty-first century the human race is closer to having world languages than it was in the nineteenth century, if by a world language we mean one which has at least 300 million speakers, has been adopted by at least ten countries as a national language, has spread to at least two continents as a major language, and is widely used in four continents for special purposes (Homogenization). However, when we examine the languages which have been globalized, they are disproportionately European—especially English and French, and to lesser extent, Spanish (Hegemonization).11 The British Empire was the first to spread the English language. The American imperium later took over the dissemination of English. Arabic is putting forward a strong claim as a world language, but partly because of the globalization of Islam and the role of Arabic as a language of Islamic ritual. By the twenty-first century we are closer to a world economy than we have ever been before in human history. A sneeze in Hong Kong, and certainly a cough in Tokyo can send shock waves around the globe (Homogenization). And yet the powers that control this world economy are disproportionately Western. They are the G-7: The United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Canada, and Italy in that order of economic muscle (Hegemonization). The United States led the way as a producer and consumer, and as a source of capital and technology. By the twenty-first century the Internet has given us instant access to both information and mutual communication across large distances (Homogenization). However, the nerve center of the global Internet system is still located in the United States and has residual links in the United States Federal Government (Hegemonization).12 The educational systems in the twenty-first century are getting more and more similar across the world—with comparable term-units and

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semesters, and increasing professorial similarities, and similarity in course content (Homogenization). But the role-models behind this dramatic academic convergence have been the educational models first of Europe and later of the United States, which have attracted both emulators and imitators (Hegemonization). The ideological systems of the world in the twenty-first century are also converging as market economies seem to emerge triumphant. Liberalization is being widely embraced, either spontaneously or under duress. Anwar Sadat in Egypt opened the gates of infitah, and even the People’s Republic of China has adopted a kind of market Marxism. India is in danger of traversing the distance from Mahatma Gandhi to Mahatma Keynes (Homogenization). The economic supremacy of the United States and the European Union was at last genuinely challenged. However, the people who are orchestrating and sometimes enforcing marketization, liberalization and privatization are still Western economic gurus—reinforced by the power of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the United States, and the European Union. Indeed, Europe is the mother of all modern ideologies, good and evil—liberalism, capitalism, socialism, Marxism, fascism, Nazism and others. The most triumphant by the end of the twentieth century has been Euro-liberal capitalism (market ideologies) (Hegemonic Homogenization). The most inf luential champion of market ideologies was now the United States. Islam: Victim or Victor? At the moment the Muslim world is a net loser from both homogenization and hegemonization. However, will Islam one day gain from homogenization? Only if Muslim values penetrate the global pool. Can people share Muslim values without sharing the Muslim religion? For example many U.S. Muslims find themselves sharing social values with Republicans in the United States: ● ● ● ●

in favour of prayer at school against easy abortion against too much homosexual permissiveness in favour of family values and stable marriages.13

One can be in agreement with Islamic values without being a Muslim. Indeed, the United States after World War I brief ly agreed with the Muslim value against alcohol—and passed the Eighteenth Constitutional Amendment in 1919 outlawing alcohol (consult Coffey 1975 and Kerr 1985). But not enough Americans were convinced. More than a decade later (after Al Capone’s adventures) the Twenty-First Constitutional Amendment was passed in 1933 allowing alcohol (Coffey 1975, p. 315).

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Will Muslim values in the twenty-first century once again gain favor in the United States? There was a time in history when the Muslim presence in the Western world once carried great intellectual and scientific inf luence. These were the days when Arabic words like algebra and zero entered Western scientific lexicons.14 To the present day the West calculates with Arabic numerals. One of the remarkable things about the twentieth century is that it has combined the cultural Westernization of the Muslim world, on the one hand, and the more recent demographic Islamization of the Western world, on the other. The foundations for the cultural Westernization of the Muslim world were laid by Europe mainly in the first half of the twentieth century. The foundations of the demographic Islamization of the Western world are being laid by both Europe and America in the second half of the twentieth century. Let us take each of these two phases of Euro-Islamic interaction in turn. In the first half of the century, the West had colonized more than two thirds of the Muslim world—from Kano to Karachi, from Cairo to Kuala Lumpur, from Dakar to Jakarta. The first half of the twentieth century also witnessed the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the more complete de-Islamization of the European state-system. The aftermath included the abolition of the Caliphate as the symbolic center of Islamic authority. The ummah became more fragmented than ever and became even more receptive to Western cultural penetration. Other forces which facilitated the cultural Westernization of the Muslim world included the replacement of Islamic and Qur’anic schools with Western style schools; the increasing use of European languages in major Muslim countries; the impact of the Western media upon distribution of news, information and entertainment, ranging from magazines, cinema, television, and video, to the new universe of computers.15 Homogenization was responding to the forces of hegemonization. Finally, there has been the omnipresent Western technology—which carries with it not only new skills but also new values. The net result has indeed been a form of globalization of aspects of culture. However, this has been a Eurocentric and Americocentric brand of globalization. An aspect of Western culture is eventually embraced by other cultures—and masquerades as universal. European colonialism was replaced by an informal cultural American hegemony. The globalization of two pieces of Eurocentric world culture may tell the story of things to come: the Western Christian calendar, especially the Gregorian calendar, and the worldwide dress code for men, which we mentioned earlier. Many countries in Africa and Asia have adopted wholesale the Western Christian calendar as their own. They celebrate their independence day according to the Christian calendar, and write their own history according to Gregorian years, using distinctions such as before or after Christ. Some Muslim countries even recognize Sunday as the day of rest instead

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of Friday. In some cultures, the entire Islamic historiography has been reperiodized according to the Christian calendar instead of the Hijjra. The march of history had itself become Eurocentric. From the second half of the twentieth century, both Muslim migration to the West and conversions to Islam within the West have been consolidating a new human Islamic presence. In Europe as a whole, there are now twenty million Muslims, ten million of whom are in Western Europe.16 This figure excludes the Muslims of the Republic of Turkey, who number some fifty million. There are new mosques from Munich to Marseilles.17 The United States has 6 million Muslims, including two Muslim members of the House of Representatives for the first time in 200 years. Paradoxically, the cultural Westernization of the Muslim world is one of the causes behind the demographic Islamization of the West. The cultural Westernization of Muslims contributed to the “brain drain” that lured Muslim professionals and experts from their homes in Muslim countries to jobs and educational institutions in North America and the European Union. The old formal empires of the West have unleashed demographic counterpenetration. Some of the most qualified Muslims in the world have been attracted to professional positions in Europe or North America. It is in that sense that the cultural Westernization of the Muslim world in the first half of the twentieth century was part of the preparation for the demographic Islamization of the West in the second half of the twentieth century. France at last had Muslim women on the cabinet. Britain had Muslims in the House of Lords, both male and female. But not by any means are all Muslim migrants to the West highly qualified. The legacy of Western colonialism also facilitated the migration of less-qualified Muslims from places like Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Senegal, and Algeria into Britain and France—again post-colonial demographic counterpenetration. There have also been occasions when, in need of cheap labor, the West has deliberately encouraged immigration of less-qualified Muslims—as in the case of the importation of Turkish workers into the Federal Republic of Germany in the 1960s and 1970s (see Stowasser 2002, pp. 52–71). As another manifestation of the demographic Islamization of the Western world, there are now over one thousand mosques and Qur’anic centers in the United States alone, as well as professional associations for Muslim engineers, Muslim social scientists and Muslim educators. As we indicated, there are over six million American Muslims—and the number is rising impressively.18 Muslims now probably outnumber Jews in the United States since the end of the twentieth century.19 Islam is currently the fastest growing religion in North America. Barack Hussein Obama is the son of a Muslim, who has now captured the White House. In France, Islam has the second-highest number of adherents; Catholicism has the most followers. In Britain, some Muslims are experimenting with their own Islamic parliament, and others are demanding state subsidies for Muslim schools. The Federal Republic of Germany is

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realizing that importing Turkish workers in the 1970s was also an invitation to the muezzin and the minaret to establish themselves in German cities. Australia has discovered that it is a neighbor to the country with the largest Muslim population in the world (Indonesia). Australia has also discovered an Islamic presence in its own body-politic. Judaism, Christianity and Islam are the three Abrahamic creeds of world history. In the twentieth century, the Western world is often described as a Judeo-Christian civilization, thus linking the West to two of those Abrahamic faiths. But if Muslims already outnumber Jews in countries such as the United States, perhaps Islam is replacing Judaism as the second most important Abrahamic religion after Christianity. Numerically, Islam in time may overshadow Judaism in much of the West, regardless of future immigration policies. The question has thus arisen about how Islam is to be treated in Western classrooms, textbooks and media as Islam becomes a more integral part of Western society. In the Muslim world, education has got substantially Westernized. Is it now the turn of education in the West to become partially Islamized? The Euro-Islamic story of interpenetration continues to unfold. It now overlaps with Americo-Islamic interaction. Is this a new threshold for globalization? Or is it just another manifestation of the postcolonial condition in world history? In fact, it may be both. The counterpenetration by Islam and Muslims into Western civilization will not in itself end Western hegemonization. But an Islamic presence in the Western World on a significant scale may begin to reverse at long last the wheels of cultural homogenization. Values will begin to mix, tastes compete, perspectives intermingle, as a new moral calculus evolves on the world scene. Eurocentrism and Americocentrism continue to be huge bazaars of ideas and values. Empirical Relativism and Moral Performance Let us now return to the three forms of relativity with which we began— historical, cultural and empirical. Hegemonic and homogenizing as Western culture has been, it has not been without its contradictions and serious shortfalls. Its claim to universalism has been up against the relativity of history (temporal), of culture (cross-cultural) and of implementation (the logic of consistency). Let us begin with this third area of relativity—the tests of empiricism and performance. Empirical relativism has two aspects. One aspect concerns whether in practice Western civilization lives up to its own standards. The other aspect concerns situations in which Western ethical standards are better implemented by other civilizations than by the West itself. When a famous Jeffersonian Declaration of Independence pronounces that “all men are created equal” and then the founders build an economy

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in America based on slavery, that is a case of Western culture failing by its own standards. On the other hand, if during the same historical period we study economies without either slavery or caste among the Kikuyu in East Africa or the Tiv in West Africa, we are observing societies which were more egalitarian than the liberal West. The Western Christian ethic of the minimization of violence has repeatedly been honored by Westerners more in the breach than the observance. In the past century Christians have killed more people than have followers of any other religion in any single century. Many of the millions of victims of Christian violence in the two world wars were themselves fellow Christians—though the Holocaust against the Jews and the Gypsies stand out as special cases of genocide perpetrated by Westerners in otherwise Christian nations. If minimization of violence is part of Christian ethics, it is a standard which has not only been violated by the West. It has also been better implemented by other cultures in history. In the first half of the twentieth century India produced Mohandas Gandhi who led one of the most remarkable nonviolent anticolonial movements ever witnessed. Westerners themselves saw Gandhi’s message as the nearest approximation of the Christian ethic of the first half of the twentieth century.20 Mahatma Gandhi’s India gave birth to new principles of passive resistance and satyagraha. Yet Gandhi himself said that it may be through the Black people that the unadulterated message of soul force and passive resistance might be realized (see Kapur 1992, pp. 89–90). If Gandhi was right, this would be one more illustration when the culture which gives birth to an ethic is not necessarily the culture that fulfills the ethic. The Nobel Committee for Peace in Oslo seems to have shared some of Gandhi’s optimism about the soul force of the Black people. Africans and people of African descent who have won the Nobel Prize for Peace since the middle of the twentieth century have included Ralph Bunche (1950), Albert Luthuli (1960), Martin Luther King Jr. (1964), Anwar Sadat (1978) Desmond Tutu (1984), Nelson Mandela (1993), Kofi Annan (2001), and Wangari Maathai (2004). Neither Mahatma Gandhi himself nor any of his compatriots in India ever won the Nobel Prize for Peace. Was Mahatma Gandhi vindicated that the so-called Negro was going to be the best exemplar of soul force? Was this a case of African culture being empirically more Gandhian than Indian culture? In reality Black people have been at least as violent as anything ever perpetrated by Indians. What is distinctive about Africans is their short memory of hate. Jomo Kenyatta was unjustly imprisoned by the British colonial authorities over charges of founding the Mau Mau movement. A British governor also denounced him as “a leader into darkness and death” 21 And yet when Jomo Kenyatta was released he not only forgave the white settlers, but turned the whole country toward a basic pro-Western orientation to

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which it has remained committed ever since. Kenyatta even published a book entitled Suffering without Bitterness (Kenyatta 1968). Ian Smith, the white settler leader of Rhodesia, unilaterally declared independence in 1965 and unleashed a civil war on Rhodesia. Thousands of people, mainly Black, died in the country as a result of policies pursued by Ian Smith. Yet when the war ended in 1980 Ian Smith and his cohorts were not subjected to a Nuremberg-style trial. On the contrary, Ian Smith was himself a member of parliament in a Black-ruled Zimbabwe, busy criticizing the post-Smith Black leaders of Zimbabwe as incompetent and dishonest. Where else but in Africa could such tolerance occur?22 The Nigerian civil war (1967–1970) was the most highly publicized civil conf lict in postcolonial African history. When the war was coming to an end, many people feared that there would be a bloodbath in the defeated eastern region. The Vatican was worried that cities like Enugu and Onitcha, strongholds of Catholicism, would be monuments of devastation and blood-letting. None of these expectations occurred. Nigerians—seldom among the most disciplined of Africans—discovered in 1970 some remarkable resources of self-restraint. There were no triumphant reprisals against the vanquished Biafrans; there were no vengeful trials of “traitors.”23 We have also witnessed the phenomenon of Nelson Mandela. He lost twenty-seven of the best years of his life in prison under the laws of the apartheid regime. Yet when he was released he not only emphasized the policy of reconciliation—he often went beyond the call of duty. On one occasion before he became president White men were fasting unto death after being convicted of terrorist offences by their own white government. Nelson Mandela went out of his way to beg them to eat and thus spare their own lives. When Mandela became president in 1994 it was surely enough that his government would leave the architects of apartheid unmolested. Yet Nelson Mandela went out of his way to pay a social call and have tea with the unrepentant widow of Hendrik F. Verwoed, the supreme architect of the worst forms of apartheid, who shaped the whole racist order from 1958 to 1966. Mandela was having tea with the family of Verwoed.24 Was Mahatma Gandhi correct, after all, that his torch of soul force (satyagraha) might find its brightest manifestations among Black people? Empirical relativism was at work again. In the history of civilizations there are occasions when the image in the mirror is more real that the object it ref lects. Black Gandhians such as Martin Luther King Jr., Desmond Tutu, and, in a unique sense, Nelson Mandela have sometimes ref lected Gandhian soul force more brightly than Gandhians in India. Part of the explanation lies in the soul of African culture itself—with all its capacity for rapid forgiveness.25 It is a positive modification of “the Picture of Dorian Gray.” In Oscar Wilde’s novel, the picture of Dorian Gray is a truer ref lection of the man’s decrepit body and lost soul than the man himself. The decomposition of

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Dorian’s body and soul is transferred from Dorian himself to his picture. The picture is more real than the man. In the case of Gandhism, it is not the decomposition of the soul but its elevation that is transferred from India to the Black experience. In the past 100 years both Indian culture and African culture have, in any case, been guilty of far less blood-letting than the West. Christian minimization of violence has been observed more by non-Christians than by ostensible followers of the Cross. Empirical relativism continues its contradictions. But Western claims to universalism are challenged not just by the forces of empirical contradictions. They are, as we indicated, also challenged by the relativism of history and the relativism of culture. Let us now elaborate on these two areas of history and culture. Between Cultural and Historical Relativism If under cultural relativism, cultures differ across space (from society to society), under historical relativism cultures differ across time—from epoch to epoch or age to age. In Western society pre-marital sex was strongly disapproved of until after World War II. In the nineteenth century it was even punishable. Today sex before marriage is widely practiced in the West with parental consent. This is historical relativism.26 Are laws against gays and lesbians a violation of human rights? Today half the Western world says “yes.” Yet homosexuality between males was a crime in Great Britain until the 1960s—though lesbianism was not outlawed. Now both male and female homosexuality between consenting adults is permitted in most of the Western World. Indeed, a majority of Americans and Europeans would say today that laws against homosexual sexuality are a violation of the rights of gays and lesbians.27 This is historical relativism. On the other hand, in most of the rest of the world homosexuality is still illegal in varying degrees. We are confronting a clash between historical relativism in the West and geo-cultural relativism in the third world. In Africa the two extremes on homosexuality are the neighboring countries of Zimbabwe and South Africa. Zimbabwe’s President Mugabe is a personal crusader against homosexuality. South Africa, on the other hand, has legalized it.28 Almost everywhere in the Western World except the U.S. capital punishment has been abolished. The United States is increasing the number of capital offenses for the time being. But it is almost certain that capital punishment even in the United States will one day be regarded as a violation of human rights. This would be historical relativism within the Western civilization. In Africa South Africa has tried to lead the way against the death penalty. Has it outlived its rational utility? Sometimes cultural relativism and historical relativism converge. This is especially true when Muslim and African countries want to revive legal systems which go back many centuries. Such countries attempt to reenact

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the past in modern conditions. Sudan, Iran, and Saudi Arabia are among the examples where cultural and historical relativism converge. Can you have polygyny or polygamy by consent? In the United States the term “pro-choice” is reserved for the issue of whether a woman wants a baby or not. In the Muslim world and in Africa a woman’s right to choose may include her choice to marry a man who already has another wife. “I would rather share this man than not have him at all.” At least one of Moshood Abiola’s multiple wives in Nigeria had a Western Ph.D., a measure of polygamy by consent. In the West a woman may choose to become a mistress of a married man but she is not allowed to marry the same man and have equal rights as a second wife. That is cultural relativism in sexual mores. Are human rights sometimes trapped between the sacredness of art versus the sacredness of religion? As the West has got more and more secular, it has looked for new abodes of sacredness. By the late twentieth century the freedom of the artist was more sacred to Westerners than respect for religion. Hence the clash that occurred from 1988 onward between the Western world and the Muslim world in relation to Salman Rushdie’s book The Satanic Verses. The book makes fun of the Holy Scripture of Muslims, the Qur’an— suggesting that perhaps the verses were fake or inspired by the Devil. The novel strongly suggests that the prophet Muhammad was a fraud and not a very intelligent one at that. The book puts women bearing the names of the Prophet Muhammad’s wives in a whore-house—prostitutes called Hafsa, Aisha, Khadija, the historic names of the prophet’s wives. The names of the prophet’s wives were supposed to be aphrodisiac for sexual excitement. Iran issued a fatwa or legal judgment accusing Rushdie of a capital religious offense and sentenced him to death in absentia. Iran was the only one of some fifty Muslim countries to pass the death penalty on Rushdie. But there were popular Muslim demonstrations against Rushdie from Kaduna to Karachi.29 Rushdie had to spend at least a decade in cautious hiding. The bad news was that a number of airlines refused at times to have him as a passenger because he was a security risk. The good news, on the other hand, was that he became a millionaire several times over from the book and related products. He became more wealthy but less secure. Westerners have argued that as a novelist Rushdie had a right to write anything he wanted. This was open-ended Eurocentrism. However, Muslims from Lamu to Lahore have argued that he had no right to hold up for obscenity and ridicule some of the most sacred things in Islam. The sacredness of the artist has been in collision with the sacredness of religion over Salman Rushdie’s novel. The West’s claim to universalism sometimes extends from Western values to Western custodial claim to the defense of those values. Even if Western values are universal, is Western practice an implementation of those values?

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One of the more remarkable coincidences of the year 2000 concerns how democracy collided with two people with similar sounding names (Haydar/Haider)—one a Syrian and the other Austrian, one liberal and the other extreme right-wing, one a writer and the other an activist and politician. In Austria Dr. Jorg Haider was deputy governor of Carinthia and chair of the neo-Nazi FPO party that joined the government coalition in the year 2000. The coalition was the outcome of electoral democratic forces in Austria. And yet pro-Democracy fellow members of the European Union turned against the government of Austria and tried to squeeze Haider’s party out of the democratically elected governing coalition. Was democracy fighting against democracy in the European Union over the Austrian question? Certainly most members of the European Union have decided that there is a limit to freedom of political participation (see Pelinka 2005, pp. 80–82, and also Buhr 2007). The other Haydar is Haydar, the Syrian, who published in Cyprus in 1983 a novel entitled Banquet of Seaweed. Lebanon republished the novel in 1992 without any earth tremors. In November 1999 Egypt’s Ministry of Culture followed suit. It published the volume among the major works of modern Arabic literature. There was delayed reaction—until El-Shaab, a pro-Islamist newspaper, published extracts ostensibly insulting to the Prophet Muhammad and Islam.30 Was the Syrian Haydar as much of a threat to the fundamentals of his own Arab civilization as the Austrian Haider had been to his own European civilization? When individuals threaten the fabric of civilization, should democracy give way? If Arab and Islamic civilizations are threatened by a Syrian Haydar, should democracy be subordinated to higher values? If Western civilization is threatened by the Austrian Haider, should Austrian democracy be subordinated to European civilization? In reality both Islam and the West have put limits to freedom of expression and indeed to democratic outcomes. Over Austria the European Union had decided that the values of Western civilization were more important than the outcomes of Austrian democracy. Should the novel Banquet of Seaweed be judged by the standards of Islamic civilization or by the criteria of democracy? The dilemma was crucial but remained unresolved. Empirical Relativism and Comparative Censorship The third area of relativism is once again empirical. How do cultures behave in practice? Our discussion has already entered the arena of Western civil liberties. In what sense is the cultural distance between the West, Africa, and Islam narrower than often assumed? One compelling illustration concerns the issue of censorship and the implementation of values. Here we are again dealing with empirical relativism.

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A book may be censored because of the moral repugnance of its contents. Most Muslim countries and some African ones have banned Salman Rushdie’s novel, The Satanic Verses, because they viewed it as blasphemous and morally repugnant. Alternatively, a book may be censored or banned because of the moral “repugnance” of its author. St. Martin’s Press was going to publish in 1996 a book entitled Goebbels, Mastermind of the Third Reich. Enormous international pressure was put on St. Martin’s Press to withdraw the book. Most of the pressure came from people who could not possibly have read the manuscript of that particular book. The moral objection was to the author of the book, David Irving, who was viewed as an anti-Semitic revisionist historian of the Holocaust. In the case of the particular book on Goebbels, it was probably the singer (David Irving) rather than the song (Mastermind of the Third Reich) which finally made St. Martin’s Press change its mind and withdraw the book (Caravajal 1996). David Irving has since been legally condemned in Britain as anti-Semitic and Holocaust-denier. But a book may also be censored or banned out of fear of its consequences—the equivalent of “clear and present danger.” When India gave this kind of explanation for banning Rushdie’s Satanic Verses—that the book would inf lame religious passions—the West was less than sympathetic. Certainly Rushdie’s publishers paid no attention to prior warnings from India before publication that the book was inf lammatory. The publication of the book even in faraway London did result in loss of life in civil disturbances in Bombay and Karachi in 1989. In contrast, distinguished Western publishers have been known to care enough about the safety of their own staff to make that the reason for rejecting a manuscript. One prominent case is Cambridge University Press’s rejection of the book, Fields of Wheat, Rivers of Blood by Anastasia Karakasidou. The book was about ethnicity in the Greek province of Macedonia. Cambridge’s rejection was directly and frankly linked to its fear for the safety of its staff members in Greece (Lyall 1996). If Viking Penguin Inc., the publishers of The Satanic Verses, had cared as much about South Asian lives as Cambridge University Press cared about its own staff in Greece, the cost in blood of The Satanic Verses would have been reduced. The issue here is still empirical relativism. Does Western practice meet Western standards? Let us now turn more closely to comparative methods of censorship as an aspect of empirical relativism. Censorship in Muslim countries is often crude, and is done by governments, by Mullahs and imams, and more recently by militant Islamic movements. Censorship in the West, on the other hand, is more polished and more decentralized. It is done by advertisers for commercial television, by subscribers to the Public Broadcasting System, by ethnic pressure groups and interest groups, by editors, by publishers and by other controllers of means of communication. In Europe it is sometimes also done by governments.

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The law in the United States protects opinion better than almost anywhere else in the world. In 1986 my television series The Africans: A Triple Heritage was threatened with legal action by Kaiser Aluminum because I had described the company’s terms for the construction of the Akosombo Dam in Ghana as exploitative. Both my own personal lawyer and the lawyers for Public Broadcasting System (PBS) were unanimous in their opinion that Kaiser Aluminum did not stand a chance under American law. We called Kaiser’s bluff, showed the offending sequence, and Kaiser Aluminum did nothing. The threat to free speech in the United States does not come from the law and the Constitution but from nongovernmental forces. The same PBS which was invulnerable before the law on the issue of free speech capitulated to other forces when I metaphorically described Karl Marx as “the last of the Great Jewish prophets.” The earlier British version of my television series had included that phrase. The American version unilaterally deleted it out of fear of offending Jewish Americans. I was never asked for permission to delete. Ironically many viewers in Israel saw the British version complete with the controversial metaphor. What PBS had done was a case of decentralized censorship. The laws of the United States granted me freedom of speech and freedom of opinion—but censorship in the country is perpetrated by editors, financial benefactors, and inf luential pressure groups. It is a special kind of empirical relativism. On one issue of censorship the relevant PBS producing station did consult me. WETA, the PBS station in Washington, DC, was unhappy that I had not injected enough negativism in my portrayal of Libya’s Muammar Qaddafy in a sequence of about three minutes. I was first asked if I would agree to change my commentary and talk more about “terrorism.” When I refused to change my commentary, WETA suggested that we changed the pictures instead—deleting one sequence that appeared to humanize Qaddafy (the Libyan leader visiting a hospital) and substituting a picture of Rome airport after a terrorist attack (which would re-demonize the Libyan leader). After much debate I managed to save the positive humanizing hospital scene, but surrendered to the addition of a negative scene of Rome airport after a terrorist attack. My agreement was on condition that neither I nor the written caption implied that Libya was responsible for the bomb. But ideally WETA would have preferred to delete the sequence about Libya altogether. Two years later I was invited to Libya after the Arabic version of my television series was shown there. It turned out that WETA had more in common with the censors in Libya than either realized. Although the Libyans seemed pleased with my television series as a whole, the three-minute sequence about Muammar Qaddafy had been deleted from the version shown in Tripoli. If WETA had regarded the sequences as too sympathetic to Qaddafy, perhaps the Libyans decided they were not sympathetic

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enough. And since the Libyans were not in a position to negotiate with me about whether to change the commentary or add to the pictures, they decided to delete the sequence altogether. In the United States the sequence about Qaddafy had also offended Lynne Cheney, who was at the time chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The sequence was a major reason why she demanded the removal of the name of the Endowment from the television credits at the end of the series. Much later, after she stepped down as chair, she demanded the abolition of the National Endowment for the Humanities itself altogether. She cited as one of her reasons my own television series, The Africans: A Triple Heritage, using it as an example of the type of objectionable liberal projects which the Endowment had tended to fund (Cheney 1995). Another illustration of decentralized censorship and empirical relativism that has affected my own work involved my book Cultural Forces in World Politics. Originally it was to be published by Westview Press in Colorado. They were about to go to press when they declared that they wanted to delete three chapters. One chapter discussed The Satanic Verses as a case of cultural treason; another chapter compared the Palestinian intifadah with the Chinese students’ rebellion in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, in 1989; and the third objectionable chapter compared the apartheid doctrine of separate homelands for Blacks and Whites in South Africa with the Zionist doctrine of separate States for Jews and Arabs. Clearly the Westview Press wanted to censor those three chapters because they were the most politically sensitive in the American context. I suspected that I would have similar problems with most other major U.S. publishers with regard to those three chapters. I therefore relied more exclusively on my British publishers in London, James Currey, and on the American offshoot of another British publisher, Heinemann Educational Books. My book was published by those two in 1990. This is the positive side of decentralized censorship in the West. At least with regard to books, what is under the threat of censorship by one publisher may be acceptable by another. Or what is almost unpublishable in the United States may be easily publishable in Britain or the Netherlands. With national television the choices are more restricted even in the West. Many points of view are condemned to national silence on the television screen. The West does not meet its own democratic standards. What conclusion do we draw from all this? The essential point being made is that strictly on the issue of free speech, the cultural difference between Western culture and Islamic culture may not be as wide as often assumed. In both civilizations only a few points of view have national access to the media and the publishing world. In both civilizations only a few points of view have national access to the media and the publishing world. In both civilizations there is marginalization by exclusion from the center. But there is one big difference. Censorship in Muslim societies tends to be more centralized, often done by the state, though there are also restrictions on free speech imposed by Mullahs and Imams and militant religious movements.

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In the United States, on the other hand, there is no centralized political censorship by governmental or judicial institutions. Censorship is far more decentralized and is exercised by non-governmental social forces and institutions. The Relativity of History Let us now return to the issue of historical relativism between the West and the world of Islam. Popular images of Islamic values in the West tend to regard those values as “medieval” and hopelessly anachronistic. In reality most Muslim societies are at worst decades rather than centuries behind the West—and in some respects Islamic culture is more humane than Western culture. The gender question in Muslim countries is still rather troubling. But again the historical distance between the West and Islam may be in terms of decades rather than centuries. In almost all Western countries apart from New Zealand women did not get the vote until the twentieth century. Great Britain extended the vote to women in two stages—1918 and 1928. The United States enfranchised women with a constitutional amendment in 1920. Switzerland did not give women the vote at the national level until 1971—long after Muslim women had been voting in Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria and Indonesia.31 British wives earned the right to own independent property in 1870. Muslim wives had always done so. Indeed, Islam is probably the only major religion that was founded by a businessman who was in commercial partnership with his wife, Khadija. What we are dealing with here is the practical implementation of values. Even if Western values were universal, is Western practice compatible with the values? Is the West the best embodiment of its own values? Empirical relativism reveals glaring Western contradictions. The United States, the largest and most inf luential Western nation, has never had a female president or head of government. France has never had a woman president either, or Italy a woman prime minister. On the other hand, both the second and third Muslim societies in population (Pakistan and Bangladesh) have had women prime ministers more than once each. Pakistan has had Benazir Bhutto twice as prime minister and Bangladesh has had Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina Rahman Wajed consecutively in power. Indonesia has had a female vice president—Megawati Sukarnoputri. Benazir Bhutto was killed when she was campaigning for a third term to head a government. Turkey, another Muslim country, has also had a woman prime minister—Tansu Ciller. Turkey is a Muslim society that inaugurated a secular state as recently as the 1920s, but has already produced a woman chief executive. The United States has been a secular state for 200—and has still not produced a woman president, in spite of Hillary Clinton’s impressive campaign against Barack Obama.

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In this essay we started from the premise that “THE SINS OF THE POWERFUL ACQUIRE SOME OF THE PRESTIGE OF POWER.” The West has become powerful over the past five to six centuries. Western culture and civilization became inf luential, and attracted widespread imitation and emulation. Western hegemony precipitated widespread homogenization of values, styles and institutions. Much of the world became westernized, first in the image of Europe (Eurocentrism) and later in the image of the United States (Americocentrism). The Westernization of the world has been part and parcel of the phenomenon which we have come to refer to as “GLOBALIZATION.” The economic meaning of “globalization” refers to the expansion of world economic interdependence under Western control. The informational meaning of “globalization” refers to the triumph of the computer, the Internet and Information Superhighway. The United States has led the war in the information revolution. The comprehensive meaning of “globalization” refers to all the forces which have been leading the world toward a global village. Globalization in this third sense has meant the villagization of the world. In the economic and informational meaning of globalization, the West has been the primary engine of global change. Since World War II the United States especially has led the way. However, in the comprehensive meaning of globalization (leading toward the global village) some other civilizations have been equally crucial at other stages of history. The West’s triumph in the last two or three centuries has led to the claim that Western civilization has universal validity. Such a claim faces three challenges—the challenge of historical relativism (what was valid in the West a hundred years ago is not necessarily valid today), the challenge of cultural relativism (what is valid in the West may not be valid in other cultures and civilizations) and the challenge of empirical relativism (not only does the West fail to meet its own ethical standards, but those standards are sometimes better fulfilled by other cultures than by the West). In comparison with the West this essay has used mainly illustrations from Islam and Africa (two overlapping civilizations), with some important lessons from India’s Mahatma Gandhi. We can conclude that, in distribution, Western civilization is the most globalized in history. It was triggered by Europe [Eurocentrism] and expanded by America [Americo-centrism]. No other civilization in the annals of the human race has touched so many individual members of that race, or so many societies in the world. But global distribution is not the same thing as universal validity. After all, Marxism was once globally distributed to almost a third of the population of the world. That did not give Marxism “a third of universal validity.” Indeed, we now know that Marxism and communism have shrunk in distribution almost overnight.

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If there is a universal ethical standard in the world, we have not yet discovered it. It is certainly not the Western ethical standard—otherwise the United States would not be wondering whether the death penalty is moral or not. Nor would racism still be prevalent in the Western world. This essay continues to assume that human history is a search for the Universal. The United States and Europe have not found it—but the West as a whole has certainly taken us a step or two toward it. The West has also helped to create the conditions not only for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but also conditions for the pursuit of the Universal for generations to come. If the vices of the powerful acquire some of the prestige of power, what about the virtues of the mighty? The United States is the first Western country to elect a Black person to supreme political power. Will this American virtue be imitated by the British to produce a Black prime minister, or by the French to produce a Black president, or by the Germans to produce a Black chancellor? Let us hope the virtues of the mighty will this time command as much imitation as the old vices. Appendix

I. II. III.

EUROPEAN EMPIRES Territorial Occupation (e.g., Pax Britannica) Polycentric Imperialism (London, Paris, Brussels, Lisbon, etc.) Imperial Competition (e.g., The scramble for Africa)

IV.

Multilingual Expansion (English, French, Portuguese, etc.)

V.

Language Transfer through Formal Schools (state and missionary schools)

VI.

Governance with Economy of Force Imperialism as a Monopoly-stage of Warfare (Pax Britannica)

VII.

AMERICAN IMPERIUM Hegemonic Control (e.g., Pax Americana) Unicentric Imperialism (Washington, DC) Imperial Monopoly (single superpower) U.S. worries about China’s countervailing potential Monolingual Spread (American English on the rise) Language Transfer through Informal Impact: (a) Demonstration effect (b) Foreign aid and trade (c) The media (d) Cinema, song, and entertainment Governance through Massive Military Force Imperialism as a Monopolystage of Weapons of Mass Destruction (Pax Americana)

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VIII.

Southern Vulnerability alongside Northern Security (London and Paris were militarily safe from anticolonial wars)

IX.

Imperial Legitimation by the Yardstick of Comparative Standards of “Civilization” European Sovereignty in the Colonies Carried Accountability for Colonial Welfare Eurocentric International Economy Engine of the Forces of Westernization (political, economic, technological, and cultural) At their worst European empires were empires of racism

X. XI. XII.

XIII.

North-South Reciprocal Vulnerability (Washington and New York are no longer safe from Southern terroristic retaliation) Imperial Legitimation by the Yardstick of Comparative Standards of “Democracy” American Power in the Dependencies Carries Legal Impunity Americocentric World Economy Engine of the Forces of Globalization (political, economic, electronic, and informational) At its worst the American Imperium is an empire of cultural aggression

Notes This paper draws from the author’s previous writings about the Western world’s cultural hegemony in modern history. It has an appendix brief ly comparing Western European colonialism with the new American Imperium. 1. A collection of essays by some former students of Plamenatz that may be consulted is Miller and Siedentop (1983). Significant works by Plamenatz include Plamenatz (1938, 1958, 1960). 2. Per capita consumption of meat in the developing world has doubled from 1987 to 2007, with an impact on the environment; see Bittman (2007). 3. Brief overviews of globalization may be found in Scholte (2005); Osterhammel and Petersson (2005); and Steger (2003). 4. For a discussion of the impact of Constantine on Christianity, see Coleman (1914). 5. A comprehensive analysis of the slave trade may be found in Inikori and Engerman (1992). 6. For a history of the British Empire, see Marshall (2001). 7. For treatments of the cold war, consult, for instance, Bogle (2001) and Gavin (2001). 8. This was a real possibility during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962; for some updated accounts of the crisis, see, for example, Eubank (2000), Blight and Welch (1989). 9. For a discussion of the relationship between power and Pax Americana, consult, for example, Fakiolas, Efstathios, and Tassos (2007). 10. Jeans are even worn by youth in places such as Pakistan that are rife with anti-Americanism, as pointed out by Ahmad (2007). Iranians have resisted wearing neckties, even if they wear coat jackets or suits. 11. A report in The Economist (December 20, 1986) entitled “The New English Empire,” pp. 127–131, describes the dominance of the English language. For a fascinating history of the world’s languages, see Ostler (2005), and for a comparative study of English and French, also see Wardhaugh (1987). 12. This has more recently become a disputed issue; see Drissel (2006). 13. Indeed, the Bush administration encouraged collaboration between the Christian Right and the Islamic bloc at the UN on social issues; see Lynch (2002). Prior to 9/11, many Muslims supported the Republican Party; see Rose (2001).

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14. For details on the Islamic contribution to scientific knowledge, consult Stanton (1990), pp. 103–119. 15. Relatedly, see Shayegan (1997). 16. Islam in Europe has attracted a lot of scholarly and journalistic attention; see, for example, Kepel (2004); Goody (2004); Pauly (2004); and Ramadan (2004). Shorter portraits, including statistics, may be found in Douthat (2005) and Leiken (2005). For two comparative studies on Muslims in the US and Europe, consult, for example, Malik (2004) and Cesari (2004). 17. Mosques and other symbols of Islam in Europe have caused friction; see reports such as Perlez (2007) on a mosque in London; Lander (2006) on a mosque in Germany; and Malik (2005) for a general report. 18. Numbers of Muslims in the United States vary. According to one study conducted by Professor Ihsan Bagby of Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina (as part of a larger study of American congregations called “Faith Communities Today,” coordinated by Hartford Seminary’s Hartford Institute for Religious Research), there are approximately 6 million Muslims in the United States with over 2 million of these being regularly participating adult attendees at the more than 1,209 mosques/masjids in the United States. (The full report is available at http://www.cair-net.org/mosquereport/, accessed April 19, 2004.) The television program Frontline points out that, “The estimated 5–7 million Muslims in the U.S. include both immigrants and those born in America (three-quarters of whom are African Americans).” “Portraits of Ordinary Muslims: United States” Frontline. Aired on PBS Television on May 9, 2002. Retrieved on May 1, 2004, from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/ muslims/portraits/us.html. 19. According to a National Jewish Population Survey in 2000–2001, 5.2 million Jews live in the United States, a drop of 300,000 from 1990; see Luo (2006). 20. Related analyses may be found in Moniz (1996) and Ellsberg (1991). 21. This was the appellation given to Kenyatta by British Governor Sir Patrick Renison, according to the Kenyan Ministry of External Affairs. Retrieved December 28, 2005 from http:// www.mfa.go.ke/kenyatta.html. 22. Relatedly, see Parsons (1988); also see De Waal (1981). 23. On the Biafra War, consult Ekwe-Ekwe (1990); Schwab (1971); and Cervenka (1971). 24. On Mandela’s meeting with Mrs. Verwoerd, see Sampson (1999), p. 514. 25. For an article recommending the African experience of forgiveness for the Middle East, see the op-ed piece by Mathabene (2002), p. 21. 26. Changing attitudes to sex in the United States can be seen in, for example, D’Emilio and Freedman (1988); Allyn (2000); and White (2000). 27. Leading human rights publications now routinely survey the state of laws against gays and lesbians. See, for example, Human Rights Watch, World Report 2002, pp. 602–608. Inglehart and Norris (2003) have argued that a country’s treatment of homosexuals is indicative of its level of tolerance, and that the differences between the Islamic world and the West on this issue and gender rights mark the dividing line between Islam and the West. 28. South Africa’s constitution is the first in the world to protect the rights of homosexuals, as Massoud (2003, p. 301) points out. 29. This case is discussed in detail in Mazrui (1990). 30. On the reaction, see the report by Sachs (2000). 31. For a chronology of female suffrage, consult Hannan, Auchterloine, and Holden (2000), pp. 339–340.

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Buhr, Renee. “A Supranational Cordon Sanitaire, or State-Level Instrumentalism? Insights from the EU Response to the 2000 Austrian Coalition,” Conference Papers, International Studies Association, 2007. Caravajal, Doreen. “St. Martin’s Cancels Book on Goebbels.” New York Times, April 5, 1996. Cervenka, Zdenek. The Nigerian War, 1967–1970. History of the War; Selected Bibliography and Documents. Frankfurt: Bernard & Graefe, 1971. Cesari, Jocelyne. When Islam and Democracy Meet: Muslims in Europe and in the United States. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Cheney, Lynne V. “Kill my Old Agency Please.” Wall Street Journal, January 24, 1995. Coffey, Thomas M. The Long Thirst: Prohibition in America 1920–1933. New York: W. W. Norton, 1975. Coleman, Christopher B. Constantine the Great and Christianity; Three Phases: The Historical, The Legendary, and the Spurious. New York: Columbia University Press, 1914. De Waal, Victor. The Politics of Reconciliation: Zimbabwe’s First Decade. London and Cape Town: Hurst and David Philip, 1981. D’Emilio, Jon and Estelle Freedman. Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America. New York: Harper & Row, 1988. Douthat, Ross. “A Muslim Europe.” The Atlantic Monthly, vol. 295, no. 1, January/February 2005, pp. 58–59. Drissel, David. “Internet Governance in a Multipolar World: Challenging American Hegemony.” Cambridge Review of International Affair, vol. 19, no. 1, March 2006, pp. 105–120. Ekwe-Ekwe, Herbert. The Biafra War: Nigeria and the Aftermath. Lewiston, NY: E. Mellen Press, 1990. Ellsberg, Robert, ed. Gandhi on Christianity. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1991. Eubank, Keith. The Missile Crisis in Cuba. Florida: Krieger, 2000. Fakiolas, Efstathios and Tassos. “Pax Americana or Multilateralism? Ref lecting on the United States’ Grand Strategic Vision of Hegemony in the Wake of the 11 September Attacks.” Mediterranean Quarterly, vol. 18, no. 4, Fall 2007, pp. 53–86. Gavin, Francis J., ed., The Cold War. Chicago, IL: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 2001. Goody, Jack. Islam in Europe. Cambridge: Polity; Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004. Hannan, Jane, Mitzi Auchterloine, and Katharine Holden, International Encyclopedia of Women’s Suffrage. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio, 2000, pp. 339–340. Human Rights Watch, World Report 2002. New York, Washington, DC, Brussels: Human Rights Watch, 2002, pp. 602–608. Inglehart, Ronald and Pippa Norris. “The True Clash of Civilizations.” Foreign Policy, no. 135, pp. 62–70, March/April 2003. Inikori, Joseph E. and Stanley L. Engerman, eds. The Atlantic Slave Trade: Effects on Economies and Peoples in Africa, the Americas, and Europe. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1992. Kapur, Sudarshan. Raising Up a Prophet: The African-American Encounter with Gandhi. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1992, pp. 89–90. Kenyatta, Jomo. Suffering without Bitterness. Nairobi and Chicago: East African Publishing House and Northwestern University Press, 1968. Kepel, Gilles. The War for Muslim Minds: Islam and the West. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2004. Kerr, K. Austin. Organizing for Prohibition: A New History of the Anti-Saloon League. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1985. Lander, Mark. “In Munich, Provocation in a Symbol of Foreign Faith.” New York Times, December 8, 2006. Leiken, Robert S. “Europe’s Angry Muslims,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 84, no. 4, July/August 2005, pp. 120–135. Luo, Michael. “With Yoga, Comedy and Parties, Synagogues Entice Newcomers.” New York Times, April 4, 2006. Lyall, Sarah. “Fearing Reprisal, Publisher Drops Book on Greece.” New York Times. February 17, 1996. Lynch, Colum. “Islamic Bloc, Christian Right Team Up to Lobby U.N.” The Washington Post, June 17, 2002.

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Malik, Iftikhar H. Islam and Modernity: Muslims in Europe and the United States. London and Sterling, VA: Pluto Press, 2004. Malik, Mustafa. “A Woman’s Head Scarf, a Continent’s Discomfort.” The Washington Post. March 13, 2005. Marshall, P. J., ed. The Cambridge Illustrated History of the British Empire. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Massoud, Mark F. “The Evolution of Gay Rights in South Africa.” Peace Review, vol. 15, no. 3, September 2003, p. 301. Mathabene, Mark. “The Cycle of Revenge Can be Broken.” New York Times, July 5, 2002, p. 21. Mazrui, Ali A. “The Satanic Verses or a Satanic Novel?: Moral Dilemmas of the Rushdie Affair.” Third World Quarterly, vol. 12, no. 1, 1990, pp. 116–139. Miller, D. and L. Siedentop, eds. The Nature of Political Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983. Moniz, John. Liberated Societies: Gandhian and Christian Vision: Comparative Study. Rome: Editrice Pontificia Universita Gregoriana, 1996. National Jewish Population Survey in 2000–2001. 5.2 Million Jews Live in the United States, a Drop of 300,000 from 1990. Osterhammel, Jürgen and Niels P. Petersson Globalization: A Short History; trans. by Dona Geyer. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005. Ostler, Nicholas. Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World. New York: HarperCollins, 2005. Parsons, Anthony. “From Southern Rhodesia to Zimbabwe, 1965–1985.” International Affairs, vol. 9, no. 4, November 1988, pp. 353–361. Pauly, Robert J. Islam in Europe: Integration or Marginalization? Aldershot, Hants, England and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2004. Pelinka, Anton. “Austria Puts Out Its Firebrand.” Foreign Policy, no. 149, July/August 2005, pp. 80–82. Perlez, Jane. “A Battle Rages in London Over a Mega-Mosque Plan,” New York Times, November 7, 2007. Plamenatz, John. On Alien Rule and Self-Government. London: Longman, 1960. ———. The English Utilitarians. Oxford: Blackwell, 1958. ———. Consent, Freedom, and Political Obligation. London: Oxford University Press, 1938. Ramadan, Tariq. Western Muslims and the Future of Islam. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Renison, Sir Patrick, British Governor. According to the Kenyan Ministry of External Affairs. . Accessed December 28, 2005. Rose, Alexander. “How Did Muslims Vote in 2000?” Middle East Quarterly, vol. 8, no. 3, Summer 2001, pp. 13–27. Sachs, Susan. “Calling Novel an Insult to Islam, Students in Cairo Battle Police.” New York Times, May 9, 2000. Sampson, Anthony. Mandela: The Authorized Biography. New York: Knopf, distributed by Random House, 1999. Sardar, Ziauddin. The Future of Muslim Civilization. London and New York: Mansell, 1987 Scholte, Jan Aart. Globalization: A Critical Introduction, 2nd ed. Basingstoke, UK, and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Schwab, Peter, ed. Biafra. New York: Facts on File, 1971. Shayegan, Daryush. Cultural Schizophrenia : Islamic Societies Confronting the West, trans. by John Howe. New York: Syracuse University Press, 1997. Stanton, C. M. Higher Learning in Islam: The Classical Period, A. D. 700 to 1300. Savage, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1990, pp. 103–119. Steger, Manfred B. Globalization: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Stowasser, Barbara F. “The Turks in Germany: From Sojourners to Citizens,” in Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, ed., Muslims in the West: From Sojourners to Citizen. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2002, pp. 52–71.

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CH A P T E R

N I N E

American Exceptionalism and the Myth of the Frontiers R aj i v M a l ho t r a

The Myth of the Frontier is our oldest and most characteristic myth, expressed in a body of literature, folklore, ritual, historiography, and polemics produced over a period of three centuries. According to this mythic-historiography, the conquest of the wilderness and the subjugation or displacement of the Native Americans who originally inhabited it have been the means to our achievement of a national identity, a democratic polity, an ever-expanding economy, and a phenomenally dynamic and “progressive” civilization. The original ideological task of the Myth was to explain and justify the establishment of the American colonies; but as the colonies expanded and developed, the Myth was called on to account for our rapid economic growth, our emergence as a powerful nation-state, and our distinctively American approach to the socially and culturally disruptive processes of modernization. Slotkin 1998, p. 10 The Making of a Supernation A popular misconception, even among many intellectuals, is that Americans have no deep history or any particular culture. It is thought that Americans are a “young country” with no historical or cultural baggage. A consequence of this is that American thought may sometimes present itself as culturally neutral, without a Eurocentric or Americacentric bias. Hence it is seen as being free from the historical and cultural contexts with which other nations’ thinking gets interpreted. The American voice has thus seemed more universal than others because of this perceived freedom from past contexts.

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Indeed, American public leaders emphatically insist on the uniqueness of America based on its historical trajectory. But this view betrays a lack of understanding about the very intense and prolonged traumas that shaped the United States. The United States is the result of a special combination of history and geography. Its founding cultural capital, with race and Christianity as the strongest components, was brought from Europe, and this sense of various European pasts provided a starting point for identity building. But the factor that made the critical departure from European culture was America’s geography, inhabited by natives who were very different from Europeans. It was the geographical disconnect from Europe, and hence separation from the European historical identities, that helped form American character amidst clashes with various non-European civilizations. On the one hand Americans brought and retained their historical identities of European pasts, which were amplified by mythmakers. On the other hand, the vulnerability and geographical isolation across the ocean was intensified by encounters with the radically different cultures of Native Americans. This tension between historical continuity and geographical discontinuity mutated the various European identities. Over time these coalesced into something uniquely American. White settlers believed that their destiny and authority to expand their land occupation was God’s will and grand plan for Earth. From the early 1600s until the late-1800s, the entire land mass of what is now called the United States was occupied under such a presumed mandate from God. Blacks were brought over from Africa and made into slaves in order to till the land—and to fuel the huge agrarian economy that created early America’s wealth. God’s civilizing teleology was used as justification for horrendous acts. Against this unique background, Americans produced a system of values in order to perceive themselves as an extraordinary people. Many American historians have referred to this as “American exceptionalism”: America’s self-ordained right to step out of the restrictions of morality, ethics and even law that bound everyone else, and apply its own rules to deal with others. This exceptionalism was developed in the context of the Frontier, and depended on the characterization of Native American “others.” The land mass that was the target of takeover at a given time became known as the Frontier; hence the Frontier was always expanding and shifting to new opportunities for takeover. All sorts of stories were reported and fabricated about what existed in this frontier. Courageous men, called frontiersmen, who ventured forth brought back bounty along with exotic and heroic tales of the inhabitants there. Many frontiersmen saw the native inhabitants of America as savages. Defined in this way, savages were dangerous and had to be captured and controlled. Even as the frontiersmen were violently subduing the natives, intellectuals and policymakers debated whether the Native Americans could. Many believed that by converting them to Christianity they could accomplish this task, while others asserted that the Native Americans could not achieve social parity with the new settlers even if they became Christians.

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Once the land mass had been taken over, the Frontier was declared “closed” by the Census Bureau after 1890 because there was no further land left. In 1893 historian Fredrick Jackson Turner advanced what would become known as “The Turner Thesis,” which said that every generation of Americans was more individualistic and democratic than the last because of its interaction with the Frontier. Then president Teddy Roosevelt, who was well aware of Turner’s thesis, successfully convinced Americans that the Frontier had to expand overseas. Roosevelt oversaw a huge buildup in the U.S. Navy, which led to the invasions of the Philippines and Central America. Manifest Destiny had gone global—as it continues to do to this day. Thus the geopolitical events we are witnessing today are not an anomaly but are the continuation of a very old American trajectory. The metaphor of the Frontier has sustained itself in the national culture and is invoked in popular entertainment, advertising, political rhetoric and in Americans’ sense of being a uniquely exceptional people. This collectivity of thought has been referred to in academic literature as the “American Myth of the Frontier.” However, Turner and his followers (including politicians, academics, and artists) focused only on the positive aspects of the Frontier in forming the American character and setting the United States on the road to becoming a superpower. Looking at America from a different perspective, we can also identify the darker aspects of the Myth of the Frontier. We can see how the descriptions and justifications that first developed for dealing with Native American tribes have become so deeply entwined in the national Myth that they shape American policies to this day. Although “the other” has changed his location, his race, and his cultural identity, he may find his role in the American Myth to be not so different from the role played by Native Americans. Besides being a physical place that shifted and expanded over time, the Frontier is also a mythic space. It represents that which is to be conquered/controlled, including such things as the Space Frontier, the Science Frontier, and the New Age Spiritual Frontier. Each of these has its specialized frontiersmen who venture out as opportunistic adventurers in unchartered territory, to become hardcore experts at understanding the mysterious “wilderness” waiting to be captured, and to return home as heroes of American Civilization. This is the quintessential American entrepreneurial spirit that fuels its enormous creativity as a nation. The Frontier is not only external but also internal, that is, located physically inside the space controlled by Civilization. These internal frontiers are the threats from within that must be vigorously suppressed in order to prevent chaos. In the early days the American Pilgrims were very tough and unforgiving on policing discipline internally within their settlements. Subsequently the Black slaves became the internal threats. Later on the internal frontiers consisted of Chinese laborers within America, the freed Blacks in the Jim Crow era, Asian immigrants, and Japanese interned during World War II. Today’s internal threats include gays, polygamists, Muslim Americans, illegal immigrants, among others.

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While the frontiersmen represent American Civilization, the others (uncivilized/savages) consist of both those who are deemed harmlessly exotic and others who are dangerous. These two kinds have been seen as “noble savages” and “dangerous savages,” respectively. While the polygamists in Texas today might be benign and exotic “noble savages,” the outspoken American Muslims are monitored as “dangerous.” Many institutional mechanisms have evolved to support the frontiersmen in dealing with various kinds of savages—ranging from co-opting the savages to serve as functionaries of civilization, taming them into “civilized” American citizens, and containing them in prisons and shelters. America evolves as these threats get assimilated and domesticated, or controlled and suppressed, or obliterated by genocide. Each such encounter produces a new and upgraded version of American civilization. Thus the early settlers called themselves “English” and referred to the “savages” as Indians. But once the settlements also had non-English Europeans (i.e., Germans, etc.) the “us” became known as Christians and the other side was called Heathens. Then came the era in which many Native Americans got converted to Christianity, so this Christian/Heathen discourse was replaced by the notion of White/Non-White people. At first only Protestants were considered White, and the Irish had to resort to violence to be allowed to join White labor unions. The book, How the Irish Became White, by Noel Ignatiev describes this process (Ignatiev 1996). Once the civic religion had expanded from Protestantism to include Catholics as well, Jews were still left out, and they had to fight their way into Whiteness—as described in the book, How Jews Became White Folks and what that says about Race in America, by Karen Brodkin (Brodkin 1999). Each frontier encounter has thus expanded not only the physical territory but also amended the Myth to include more people as insiders. This article, however, shall focus primarily on the early formation of the Frontier Myth in encounters with Native Americans, and then summarize at the end the implications as the Frontier continued to expand further. Myth of Savages and Heroic Frontiersmen Americans not only have a deep and positive sense of history but are particularly invested in their own special place in the world. There is no need for the national myth to be explicitly stated as such and, in fact, leaving it implicit or denying its very existence in everyday discourse gives it greater efficacy. America’s core myth is embedded in its deep culture and enshrined in its institutions of power. The American Myth is a collection of stories and cherished presuppositions living in the collective memory that has been filtered and edited by various mythmakers since the early 1600s. Because of its persistent usage, it has acquired the power of shaping an important part of American character. Embedded within the Myth are ideological concepts, along

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with values and beliefs that can be found in its literature, film and art. Collectively, they shape America’s public policy. Much of the Myth has been distilled into symbols, icons, clichés, customs, rituals, parades, f lags, ceremonies, museums, codified language, and mythic symbolism that Americans assume implicitly and understand subconsciously. For a myth to be robust it must subsume or whitewash over hard facts that are disturbing, that would demystify many beliefs, and that would lead to sociopolitical disorder. There have been serious crises of Myth in American history when a combination of forces undermined the Myth’s legitimacy in the popular mind. But in all such cases the Myth was restored, after being refurbished for a new era into a more powerful myth than before. Myths such as the Frontier myth we are about to explore have given America a tremendous sense of purpose and have channeled its energies for a long time. Myths play a vital role in intercivilizational encounters. The people the Americans encountered did not often have powerful, world-altering, grand myths of their own. Even in the early decades when the Native Americans had a relative parity of fighting capability, they had no grand narrative of their own that could give them unity and a grand purpose to fight the settlers. Their counter-myths lacked the organizing power of the American myths. Their existence thus became fitted into the American narrative rather than having legitimacy as a separate counterforce. Founding of America, the City upon a Hill Key among the myths brought by Puritans from Europe was the notion of being a “chosen people” with special backing from God. This was adapted in America and shaped the common identities of Americans. The City upon a Hill and Garden of Eden were two primary images with which Americans identified themselves early on (Dunn 1997).1 Later these evolved into more robust myths of the Frontier and Manifest Destiny. The idea of America as the unique and hence privileged City upon a Hill has become “interwoven throughout our history and our foreign policy,” writes Duke University professor Gerald Wilson. The City upon a Hill image surfaces frequently in speeches by many presidents including John Adams, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan. Reagan found it an instant crowd pleaser. “I’ve spoken of the Shining City all my political life,” he said in his farewell address. In the early colonial period the “unsettled” parts of America (i.e., the areas not yet conquered from the natives) were seen as satanic wilderness, and this wilderness represented temptation, threat and adversity. This space outside the White territories was called the Frontier. John Mather (in 1693) suggested that going through this wilderness was a necessary stage that God expected them to pass through in order to reach

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the Promised Land. This meant that America was destined to become the Paradise but that it required their effort. This included the sacred mission to “capture” the wilderness and “tame” its natives. Only then would it be the Garden of Eden. The pragmatic and enterprising spirit that is the hallmark of America’s achievements is linked to this belief. The wilderness was both a threat and an opportunity. Henry Nash Smith’s seminal book, titled Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth, is one of the most thoughtful and detailed studies of America’s deep cultural history. One of the very important ideas of America, he explains, has been the tremendous opportunity offered by a “vacant” continent— an unspoiled Eden for God’s chosen people. The American Myth has consisted of the Eden/Frontier pair. Eden is the space belonging to “us,” and the Frontier represents the satanic wilderness inhabited by “others.” The mission entrusted to Americans is to constantly expand Eden (or its secular equivalent, Civilization) by taking over the Frontier. This Myth helped to generate cohesiveness among the settlers by projecting varying degrees of “otherness” onto the Native Americans, who were seen as a part and parcel of the wilderness. The Eden myth gradually evolved in the popular American mind so that it projected all evil externally. Henry Nash Smith writes that even after the American land mass was taken over by Europeans, they continued to blame “outsiders” for evil inf luences. Americans had a sense of self-righteousness about their actions: Neither American [White] man nor the American continent contained, under this interpretation, any radical defect or principle of evil. But other men and other continents . . . were by implication unfortunate or wicked. This suggestion was strengthened by the tendency to account for any evil which threatened the garden empire by ascribing it to alien intrusion. Since evil could not conceivably originate within the walls of the garden, it must by logical necessity come from without . (Smith 1950, p. 187) At each stage of the evolution of this national Myth there has been the notion of “progress” through “savage wars” which are required to redeem the American spirit, and to reinforce the struggle. And every man— provided he was White—was equally fit for this struggle, and a true representative of civilization. This made Americans the exceptional people and different from Europeans. The landscape of the Frontier Myth is partitioned by a moral demarcation separating civilization and wilderness. The Frontier has been both a geographical place and a mythic space populated by various fantasies. Its myths were about Native American Indians as savages, Blacks as inferior, White men as heroes, White women in need of being rescued from savages (and non-White women to be similarly rescued from their savage males), the Frontier as Americans’ right and responsibility to conquer, Manifest Destiny as their destiny to defeat others. The story of America

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thus became mythologized as the struggle of the “civilized” dwellers of Eden against the “savages” of the wild Frontier. Mutations of the Myth The Myth mutated from its Christian base to include an Enlightenment base over time. Between 1795 and 1830 the agrarian expansion was very successfully accomplished, and the Christian-eschatological substructure of the original Frontier Myth was overlaid with a more secular ideology. This and the subsequent rapid industrialization of America by 1870 fueled American mythmaking about the success of an exceptional people (Slotkin 1998, p. 17). In each stage the basic blocks of America’s core Myth have been the same: 1. We are the foremost among good and righteous people. 2. There is danger and darkness on the other side. 3. A frontier exists that has to be won and captured for the sake of civilization. 4. Any cost would be acceptable and all methods are okay including “savage wars.” The myth of regenerating civilization through violence is a key organizing principle. 5. Civilization’s innocence is represented as White women in the captivity of savages. The rescue of these women is the hallmark of masculine heroism, especially if it is done violently. 6. Ultimately, Good always prevails over Evil and this happy ending reinforces the Myth. The Frontier Myth has served as a principle for nation-building. And its building blocks have been powerfully reinforced by popular history writing. Once a genre of historical writing (and later movies) gained currency and became entrenched, it supplied the conventions that popular writers and others have followed in order to have their works accepted easily. So powerful is this Myth that it has captured the imaginations of Americans for the past few centuries, and it continues to serve progressives and conservatives, politicians across the spectrum, popular culture scriptwriters, historians, military strategists, and designers of children’s games. Thus the cycle of mythmaking has perpetuated itself (Slotkin 1998, p. 4). Americans are proud and nostalgic when they are constantly reminded of their history in terms of this Frontier Myth. It idolizes the national hero who is tough, capable, a team player and confrontational. Ronald Reagan evoked the images of John Wayne and Clint Eastwood to explain his aggressive “cowboy” foreign policies to the American public. Many intellectuals may have thought him shallow, but he resonated with Americans, and they loved him.

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The term Manifest Destiny was coined in 1845 both to rationalize America’s thirst for expansion in the prior several decades and to defend America’s claim to new territories that were further west of the original colonies: . . . the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federated self government entrusted to us. It is a right such as that of the tree to the space or air and the earth, suitable for the full expansion of its principle and destiny of growth. (O’Sullivan 1845) This was an imaginative metaphor that validated an already existing and violent aspect of America’s history and Americans’ self-image as the world’s extraordinary people. The term Manifest Destiny was quickly adopted by U.S. congressmen in their debates to justify three territorial conquests: the forced annexation of Texas from Mexico in 1845, the negotiated annexation of Oregon from England in 1846 and the war with Mexico which resulted in the annexation of much of the southwest in 1848. Although this was initially a Democratic Party ideal, the Whigs (who later became the Republicans) also supported it. The idea of acting on God’s behalf naturally included the importance of fighting evil. Henry Nash Smith writes that the Manifest Destiny myth helps Americans understand “the image of themselves which many—perhaps most—Americans of the present day cherish, an image that defines what Americans think of their past, and therefore what they propose to make of themselves in the future” (Smith 1950, Preface). By 1849, Manifest Destiny became synonymous with seizing land from the natives, and this greed fed the frontier mentality. The settlers’ attempts to forcibly occupy Native American lands by brutal means were commonly explained by prominent leaders as acts that were necessary against “savages.” This theorizing was done by elitist intellectuals but it also had broad support from the lower classes of European settlers because more land became available for them to share. Accounts of the native tribes’ counter attacks and atrocities were highlighted, and such accounts are still used in history textbooks and national monuments to remove guilt about White expansion.2 The City upon a Hill and Manifest Destiny were powerful narratives that provided the logic for expansion by marking the natives as the barbarous and expendable. The expansion westward also became a popular theme of American literature, infecting both liberals and conservatives. Walt Whitman, a liberal who is seen by many Americans as their national poet, was fascinated by America’s Manifest Destiny and his poems often glamorized the westward expansion.3 In the preface to the first edition of Leaves of Grass (1855), Whitman explained that “United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem.” He fantasized

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a nation that was expanding endlessly to include Central America and the Caribbean, and wrote in a newspaper article that “ ‘manifest destiny’ certainly points to the speedy annexation of Cuba by the United States.” Encounter with Native Americans Christianity, Enlightenment ideas, and greed often colluded to produce a result that annihilated the natives and built up America into a supernation. These three forces are summarized below: Biblical Myths ●

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Lieven explains that the biblical myths were a driving force for settlers from the very beginning: “The Old Testament gave the settlers . . . both a language and a theological framework in which to describe and justify their dispossession of the land’s native inhabitants” (Lieven 2004, p. 101). Long before the term Manifest Destiny was explicitly proposed, the English Protestant reinterpretation of millennium theology was brought over to America and it claimed America as having a special place in God’s plan.4 The United States became seen as the key agent in bringing the millennial prophecy to fruition. Protestant ministers of the nineteenth century used it to fire up nationalism leading to the notion that was later named Manifest Destiny. America’s special status in the Divine Plan was also accepted among many Christian experts in Europe.5 The Puritans initially had high hopes of converting the Indians, and their zealotry made them assume that Indians would happily abandon their own customs and religion to accept Christianity and White “civilized” life. (This is analogous to the American certainty that Iraqis would welcome the U.S. military as liberators and would enthusiastically embrace American ways.) Disillusion followed when the Native Americans rejected religious and cultural conversions, and fought wars to protect their traditions and lands. When they rejected the “true” religion of Christianity, they began to be seen with venom and hatred as agents of the devil, and at the very least as a stumbling block to civilizational progress (Slotkin 2000, pp. 18, 66 and 522). Horsman explains that “the Indians by the latter years of the seventeenth century were despised because they have tried to remain Indian and had shown little desire to become Christian gentlemen. The Indians could therefore be thrown off the land, mistreated, or slaughtered, because in rejecting the opportunities offered to them they had shown that they were sunk deep in irredeemable savagery” (Horsman 1981, p. 105). See also Roy Harvey Pearce, Savagism and Civilization: A Study of the Indian in the American Mind (Pearce 1967),

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Rajiv Malhotra Robert Berkhofer, The White Man’s Indian: Images of the American Indian from Columbus to the Present (Berkhofer 1978), and Richard Drinnon, Facing West: The metaphysics of Indian hating and Empire Building (Drinnon 1997). Nevertheless many die-hard missionaries argued in a more nuanced way that the Native Americans could be redeemed, and they continued to be hopeful of saving them from their own cultures and religions. This process was only made easier when accompanied by the stresses of defeat and displacement from native lands (Deloria 1988, pp. 101–124). Enlightenment Thought

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Just as the early leaders of the seventeenth century had seen the natives as targets for religious conversion, the leaders of revolutionary America in the 1770s and later saw them as targets for their notion of civilization. They believed that if the Native Americans could be civilized by accepting the White settlers’ way of life then they could be accommodated in the vast country being “explored.” Enlightenment ideas from Europe brought the notion that man could progress infinitely, and that all mankind belonged to the same species6 and hence every race was capable of improvement. Thus the “savagery” of Native Americans was a temporary stage in their “evolution” and they could be eventually improved through European civilization. Enlightened and liberal Americans such as Jefferson formulated arguments and policies regarding the natives in which they tried to “civilize” and “settle” them. While seemingly benign, this argument provided a convenient rhetoric to later justify “savage war” against the Native Americans— involving their ethnic cleansing from state after state of the union while simultaneously claiming that this was in their best interests. Greed

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Individual and corporate greed to seize lands was especially prevalent in the frontier. Ambitious White settlers looking for “empty” land to settle and farm kept encountering different native tribes who were already the owners and users of the land. The frontier was a “safety-valve” for the economic needs of the White population, providing endless vistas of “unsettled” land presumed to be waiting there to be taken. Thus poor White immigrants (like the Irish, etc.) could find opportunities away from cities and hence not cause social unrest. After the Civil War, the Native American tribes were in the way of coast-to-coast railroad building, which was undertaken partly to open up lucrative trade with China and India.

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It was profitable to see the Native Americans as merciless savages, both by Christian and Enlightenment standards. A whole host of “news” accounts, popular literature, and illustrations and images constantly reinforced this point by emphasizing atrocities by natives. When there was no immediate goal to capture lands, the east coast metropolitan attitudes toward Native Americans (as “noble savages”) were often positive or at least neutral. Some urban intellectuals decried the violence of the White settlers in the frontier and even acknowledged that the Native Americans were fighting to protect their lands and people. One sees many examples of interest in the native way of life and praises for their culture. In the end this sympathy proved transitory and ineffective in preventing their extinction.

Such was the conf lict between the selfish need to expand westward and various positive ideologies that expounded America’s mission to build a new and just civilization. I suggest a four-phase framework to explain the development of policies toward Native Americans—a framework which may be useful in exploring later examples of American policy, up to the present day. These phases were not strictly chronological, but this framework helps understand the process by which the “dangerous savage” Native Americans were exterminated, the benign “noble savages” were domesticated in reservations to be raised as children, and eventually the native peoples were turned into an ornament glorified in museums. This framework traces the role played by the discourse among the intellectuals, the political leadership, and public opinion. I will also examine how institutional power was systematically deployed in a legalistic manner as per the rhetoric of “due process,” but cleverly designed to exclude the Native Americans and preserve White privilege. The four phases were as follows: I. Theorizing about “noble savages” and “merciless savages” during early expansion. II. Guilt management while committing genocide. III. Indians as children to be “raised” in reservations. IV. Academic research to support museumizing and digestion. Phase I: Theorizing the Savage in Early Expansion In early America, Christianity played a key role in forming the identity of the settlers and in justifying the brutalities against Native Americans once they refused to convert. But upon Independence, the generation known as the Founding Fathers of America was very much inf luenced by the Enlightenment.

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The Protestant Ethic that became the American ethos included a strong streak of Puritan hatred of many aspects of Native life such as their religions, mysticism, dancing, singing, and reveling. While it is easy to point out differences between Christianity and the Enlightenment, the Enlightenment can be seen as a child and a product of Puritanism. Indeed according to Max Weber himself, “Both Puritanism and Enlightenment made contributions to ‘the specific and peculiar rationalism of Western culture’ . . . with Enlightenment being the surprising but true child, ‘the laughing heir’ of Puritanism” (Drinnon 1997, p. 102). The Enlightenment supposedly freed Europeans from the constraints imposed by Christianity and claimed to have achieved an innate sense of human equality and dignity. However, while removing explicit dependency on God, many biblical assumptions remained a core part of its framework.7 There were important and nuanced differences. For the Puritans, the Native Americans who refused to become Christian were servants of the Devil. For the Founding Fathers, the native was the face of irrationality and unreason: “Like the Puritan, Jefferson regarded the Indian culture as a form of evil or folly.” If he chose not to become Christian and “civilized” then he was “a madman or a fool who refused to enter the encompassing world of reason and order” (Drinnon 1997, p. 102). This would justify removing him from the civilized space. From either point of view the conclusion was that the native was a savage whose culture and religion made him merciless, cruel, irrational and incorrigible. “. . . From the Indian point of view the end result was pretty much the same: death, f light, or cultural castration . . .” (Drinnon 1997, p. 102). Thus while Jefferson was no Puritan, and openly rejected Christian superstitions,8 his attempt to “rationalize” the world in an Enlightenment mode was just as fanatical. For the enlightened leaders of American independence as well as for the Puritans among them, the Native American was chief ly important “not for what he was in and of himself, but rather for what he showed civilized men they were not and must not become” (Drinnon 1997, p. 102). The Native American was “the other” against whom America’s self hood was constructed. Similarly for Nathaniel Hawthorne in the 1800s, native rituals like the dance were associated with devilish ritual, and with dark thoughts of the mind. In this suspicion of native religion this great post-enlightenment American writer was in agreement with puritanical demonization of it (Slotkin 2000, p. 476). Enlightenment rhetoric was based on the “rights of man” and even this limited egalitarianism conf licted with the pragmatic demands of land grabbing. This was resolved in the minds of many American intellectuals including Jefferson by classifying White farmers as more evolved than the Native Americans who were mapped as “hunter gatherers.” Jefferson wrote in the 1780s that “proofs of genius given by the Indians of North America place them on a level with the Whites in the same uncultivated

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state” (Horsman 1981, p. 108). The prescription for “cultivating” the Native Americans to make them “civilized” included forcing them to adopt private property which men farmed (whereas Native American men traditionally hunted and women did the farming); teaching native women spinning and weaving; and adopting Christian education. This social engineering devastated Indian communities. The aspects of native achievements that met White norms—such as agricultural settlements, commercial activity and sophisticated social organizations—were conveniently ignored when passing judgment on whether they were civilized. This was to justify denying them the human rights enjoyed by Whites by showing that they still needed to become civilized. Indeed there is extensive but rarely aired evidence of manipulation and hypocritical “double-speak” by Jefferson and other enlightened thinkers—constantly urging the Indian tribes to “civilize” and “settle down” while maneuvering to usurp their lands through engineered debts and force (Horsman 1981, p. 106; see also Fairchild 1928). The “Noble Savage” The Enlightenment also included a romantic urge to look beyond Europe for utopian and “unspoiled” regions. In the debate about the nature of the Native American not all saw him as a merciless savage. There was even the idea of the native as a noble savage who could be used to contrast against the vices of a decadent Europe. This became a popular stereotype. When certain European writers portrayed life in America as degenerate and associated this with natives, Americans such as Jefferson vigorously defended the native character as a part of defending the country. Native Americans had become “our” Indians for many patriotic and patronizing Americans (see Gerbi 1973 and Horsman 1981, p. 106). Some Americans clearly realized that the prevailing genocide and destruction of native tribes would be judged harshly by history. George Washington’s secretary of war, Henry Knox, wrote in 1793 that, “if our modes of population and war destroy the tribes,” American conduct would be matched with the Spaniard atrocities in Mexico and Peru, and this would undermine the American claim to moral superiority over Spaniards (Knopf 1960, p. 165). The general White population who were rapidly expanding their lands by encountering the Native Americans on a day-to-day basis rejected such Enlightenment thought of civilizing them. Natives were regarded as heathen and violent savages. But East Coast intellectuals wrote idealistically and with detachment, because there were no Native Americans left for them to “deal with,” most eastern tribes having been displaced and disbanded by the 1800s. But Whites on the frontier were fighting Native Americans for their lands and this fueled hatred toward them (Horsman 1981, p. 111). Even though there were multiple voices, the Whites controlled the ultimate outcome of such debates and hence the fate of the natives, because the Native Americans were simply not self-represented.

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The phrase “merciless Indian Savages” is used to describe the Native Americans in the American Declaration of Independence in 1776. Drinnon notes that this was consistent with earlier Christian explicit condemnations of the Native Americans as heathen, animalistic and sub-human (Drinnon 1997, p. 99). Even though every other phrase in this vital American document—literally the country’s birth certificate—was debated and repeatedly revised before signing, this one phrase was not debated or changed from the first draft to the final version. Everyone simply agreed with it! To this day there is reluctance and ambiguity about admitting the role of top Enlightenment intellectuals as well as Christianity in denigrating native cultures and religions, and thus paving the pathway for their genocide. In studies of the Declaration of Independence the exclusion of Blacks from the process is often noted, because Black scholars have now become a strong and independent voice. But Drinnon points out that the demonization of Native Americans is even today rarely discussed in scholarly or popular studies of that famous document (Drinnon 1997, p. 102). Phase II: Guilt Management while Committing Genocide The greatest episodes of ethnic cleansing and genocide of Native Americans occurred in the period following independence that was dominated by Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson. Before Andrew Jackson’s presidency (and the massive “removal,” i.e., ethnic cleansing, of Native Americans) there was some debate between the Enlightenment view of the native as an innately equal human being who could be improved (if only he wanted to be), and the opposing side which considered him inherently a savage beast. But by Jackson’s time the debate was faltering: Even those who considered Native Americans as equal human beings had completely internalized the portrayals of their culture and religions as debasing and cruel and in need of Christianizing and/or civilizing. This new consensus about Native American culture/character provided considerable leverage to those who considered the Native Americans an expendable obstruction in the path of America’s destined expansion. These arguments were reinforced by a variety of scientific and intellectual arguments, from phrenology to Hegel’s philosophy of History. This intellectual construction about Native Americans paved the way for their subsequent removal with President Andrew Jackson’s enthusiastic support. It culminated as a major victory for supremacist ideas which had long been part of America’s deep culture. There were several levels at which the “Indian Removal,” that is, ethnic cleansing and the resulting genocide, was justified and carried out: 1. Biblical and Enlightenment based intellectual justifications 2. Anecdotal data of atrocities committed by the Natives 3. Good Cops and Bad Cops

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4. Institutional and legalistic manipulations 5. Displacement for their own good In each of these levels, the Native Americans were outsiders, non-players in the intellectual-political-moral game that sealed their fate. They could fight tactical battles bravely, but they were not even participants in the discourse. 1. Biblical and Enlightenment-based Intellectual Justifications Besides personal success and wealth, the Americans of the 1700s and 1800s also wanted a clean religious conscience. To resolve this dilemma, the Myth blamed the “savages” for the violence even when it was committed by White Americans (Horsman 1981, p. 210). Slotkin and many others explain that this charge is “better understood as an act of psychological projection that made the Indians scapegoats for the morally troubling side of American expansion: the myth of ‘savage war’ became a basic ideological convention of a culture that was itself incredibly devoted to the extermination or expropriation of the Indians and the kidnapping and enslavement of black Africans” (Slotkin 2000, p. 12). Stephenson sees the inf luence of two important authorities that shaped the sustained genocidal attack on the Native Americans in a manner that absolved White Americans of their personal sense of guilt: one is biblical authority and the other is Common Law based on European and Enlightenment underpinnings (Stephanson 1995, p. 25). In Genesis, God promises Isaac that he will make his children multiply and give the countries of the earth to them, and in Psalms God offers his people “the heathen for the inheritance, and uttermost parts of the earth for their possession,” in order that the faithful biblical people should crush the heathen into “pieces like a potter’s vessel.” This message was understood by many deeply religious Americans to be a sanction “to possess, multiply and fructify at the expense of the heathens” (ibid.). Indeed, there is little doubt that Jackson and others often saw themselves in Old Testament terms as an instrument of an avenging God (Drinnon 1997, p. 108). According to earlier Christian missionaries, “Whites were God’s means for the salvation or destruction of the Indians” (Slotkin 2000, p. 99). This mindset persisted in the American deep culture two centuries after the Puritans arrived. The inf luential eastern newspaper editor Sullivan coined the phrase “Manifest Destiny” in 1845, and also wrote: “History was a providential plan whose end was to be played out in the especially designed space of America. . . . The Cause of Humanity was identical with that of the United States, and that cause was destined to cease only when every man in the world should be finally and triumphantly redeemed” (Stephanson 1995, p. 40). Advocates of common law believed that there was an obligation to cultivate the earth because it is man’s nature to improve nature, where

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“improving” meant subduing the wilderness. And Native American culture clearly failed to do that, hence their possession of the land did not amount to proper use of it. Thus they could have no legal title to the land, at least not title that American law would have to respect and protect: “In vulgar form this argument boiled down to the dual proposition that Indians were hunters and gatherers and that the land was therefore empty, a ‘waste’ there for the taking.” Plentiful evidence that they were preexisting settlers was completely ignored (Stephanson 1995, p. 25). As the Governor of Georgia said blatantly in the 1830s, treaties with Native Americans “were expedients by which the ignorant, intractable, and savage people were induced to yielded up what civilized people had a right to possess” (p. 26). The land was far too precious to remain “undeveloped” with the Native Americans. A factor that worked against their chances of survival was the difficulty in Christianizing and assimilating Native tribes as appendages to the White settlements. Native ways of life were too closely linked with their ancestral lands, and with their religions and belief systems. Another factor was that various “scientific” theories circulating from the 1830s onward indicated that Native Americans were doomed because of innate inferiority, that they were succumbing to the superior White race, and that this was for the larger good of humanity. Indian removal and massacres were not seen as such but as the result of the Laws of God, destiny, and nature (Horsman 1981, pp. 189–206). 2. Anecdotal Data of Atrocities Urging “Savage Wars” There was an overabundant supply of popularly accepted stories and images on the savagery and brutality of the Native Americans that justified harsh treatment toward them (similar to many of today’s ethnographies and reports about India and Africa). These atrocity stories served as “anecdotal data” that reinforced the theories about Native American savagery. Their repetition by popular as well as scholarly writers was sufficient to block debate on substantive issues of the Indian’s own rights, as we shall see. It is crucial to note that both in the theoretical set up as well as in the anecdotal data-gathering, no effort was made to cross-examine the American point of view. The Enlightenment and biblical theories were never challenged nor declared problematic to the same extent as native culture and religion were questioned. (This bias survives in the form of today’s privileged position given to Western social theories in the academy.) Furthermore, the brutalities of settlers and missionaries were never highlighted on par with Indian actions. There were no reverse gazing native scholars looking at White culture to counterbalance the discourse. The earlier romantic image of the Native American as a “noble savage” lingered on in the 1800s. Even as their White brethren were eradicating the Native Americans, important American writers, such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, Herman Melville, and James Fennimore Cooper, continued to portray the native as a tragic

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and somewhat noble figure although with some rough and savage edges. These writings had a sense of tragedy based on a sense of inevitability— nature had predestined the Indian for destruction in the face of “progress” (Fussel 1965). This was a more humane portrayal than the beastly savage image, but it did not prevent their extermination, nor did it attempt to fix blame on Manifest Destiny or Enlightenment thought. Offsetting this high literary image of the native as a complex, tragic figure, there were a much larger number of cheaper books and pamphlets that were popular among White readers. This best-selling “Indian atrocity literature” chronicled the captivity of various Whites, especially women and children, at the hand of Native Americans on the frontier. Today, we would say that they portrayed the Native Americans as egregious human rights violators and stereotyped their religion and culture as being the culprits. Many of these sensationalized stories were one-sided exaggerations of actual incidents and many others were outright lies. Their main application was to provide an excuse for usurping Indian lands (Brands 2005, p. 170 and Slotkin 2000, p. 97). Popular stories and theater productions in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries commonly showed “pure” White maidens and peaceful White men being captured by fierce and atrocious Native American raiders, and heroic White men rescuing the beautiful women from the ugly men. Richard Slotkin explains that “The great and continued popularity of these narratives, the uses to which they were put, and the nature of the symbolism employed in them, are evidence that the captivity narratives constitute the first coherent myth-literature developed in America for American audiences” (Slotkin 2000, p. 95). The “captivity narrative” was among the most popular form of American adventure story in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century America. “The hero of the captivity narrative is typically a White woman or a Christian minister who is captured by Natives during a ‘savage war.’ The captive symbolizes the values of Christianity and civilization that are imperiled in the wilderness by the non-Christian savage. This is the ‘Myth of the Frontier in which the triumph of civilization over savagery is symbolized by the hunter/warrior’s rescue of the White woman held captives by savages’ ” (Slotkin 2000, p. 15). The native religions were regarded as witchcraft. Sometimes, women who were captured and rescued, if they showed any strange behavior, were tried as witches. The idea conveyed was that close association with the non-Christian and their evil, devilish religion had turned a good Christian into a witch, i.e.[,] a pagan. Such a person was given sympathy and de-programmed by a Pastor, unlike other witches who were tried and punished. (This is eerily similar to the de-programming of Christians who join eastern religions and cults today.) But more importantly, the reputation of the Native Americans and their “evil religion” was reinforced because of the narratives of these psychologically ill women who in a sense “converted” to native religion and then came back to Christianity to tell the tale. “Confessions” were often obtained to show that the woman in

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question had taken up a Native American god for worship. In the 1700s, this thinking about the corrupting nature of native religion and captivity became a great cause for brutality and savagery against the natives (Slotkin 2000, pp. 138–140, 142 and 144–145). 3. Good Cops and Bad Cops The landscape of the Frontier Myth is partitioned by a moral demarcation separating civilization from the wilderness, a civilizational euphemism derived in order to distinguish civilized Whites as distinct from uncivilized non-Whites. The real issue of course was greed for land and the need to dominate others, but these had to be justified in order to quiet the grumblings of the conscience. Although the white Americans . . . wanted personal success and wealth, they also wanted a clear conscience. If the United States was to remain in the minds of its people a nation divinely ordained for great deeds, then the fault for the suffering inf licted in the rise to power and prosperity had to lie elsewhere. White Americans could rest easier and the sufferings of other races could be blamed on the racial weakness rather than on whites’ relentless search for wealth and power. (Horsman 1981, p. 210) Right from the beginning of an independent America, a paradox existed between the Enlightenment view of natives—as innately equal humans beings who, given proper training, could be civilized—and the opposing view, that considered them subhuman “beasts.” Thomas Jefferson lauded Indians as noble and unspoiled, yet was ambivalent about their position and fate. He saw their extinction as tragic, yet during both terms of his presidency tens of thousands of Indians were forcibly relocated from their native habitats to reservations west of the Mississippi River. This doublefaced strategy played out consistently throughout the early era of America’s nationhood. The historian Richard Drinnon gives several graphic illustrations of how American literature of the period provided justifications for ignoring the natives’ rights.9 The literature often acknowledged that the other side had a case in its favor, but the debate never got serious and simply served to assuage the American conscience. In many of these tales, there was a sympathetic figure who tried to make the case for the Indians. This is a historical version of the urban, “liberal” White “good cop” who feels “pity” and objects to the unfair demonology and the killings of natives by an unsophisticated but courageous frontiersman, the “bad cop.” This fictional spokesman for the Enlightenment may express shock; he may suggest that humane values and fairness in battle should not be forgotten; he may also raise uncomfortable questions about the natives’ inherent right to control their own

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lands. Thus both meta-level issues and issues about the specific methods used by the frontiersman could potentially be raised in the storyline. The classic device in these stories to end the debate with a clear conscience now comes to the forefront. The frontiersman (often the hero of the tale) shows the liberal reader extensive evidence of the personal threats and danger he lives with every day. He may show the graves of family members and tell tales of natives’ atrocities against Whites, especially women and children, and also, if possible, against other natives. At this point the “good cop” in the Frontier Myth backs off and reluctantly concedes that he, like other educated White consumers of these stories, “should not be so quick to judge” the frontiersmen, who seem to have ample justification for their violent behavior. After all, these frontiersmen know the native culture best. Moreover they are clearly victims of the savages’ threats and actions.10 (We can see a modern parallel when this assumption of objectivity and “expertise” about native cultures is attributed to today’s Area Studies experts in the American academy.) Once the savagery of the native is proved in this manner, the discussion is closed. The substantive issues of White greed and aggression, and the natives’ inherent human rights to defend their sacred sites and families, and the huge imbalance between White and native atrocities, are never discussed. Drinnon writes, “Yes, the reader was asked to ref lect, is it not too easy to be virtuous at a distance?” The White liberal conscience was thus convinced not to “forgive merciless savages when we ourselves have not suffered . . . at their hands” (Drinnon 1997, p. 127). There was often a very interesting good cop/bad cop partnership between the government and frontiersmen (Drinnon 1997, 483n). Andrew Jackson’s excesses against the natives (as “bad cop”) were greeted with public criticism by other top officials (the “good cop”). John Quincy Adams was asked to investigate Jackson’s actions. He produced a white paper in which he avoided dealing with substantive issues, such as gathering data on White militias’ atrocities and the White communities’ thirst for land. The debate was easily shifted by simply raising the bogey of “civilization in danger” from savage attacks by natives. This approach eliminated any serious analysis and soul-searching. Adams was not acting in isolation but relying on the writing of important Enlightenment thinkers. This “switch the debate” approach has always had support from the American establishment, sometimes fairly explicitly. All former American presidents alive at the time endorsed Adams. Thomas Jefferson felt that by linking the usurpation and ethnic-cleansing of native lands by the United States to their inherent savagery, the white paper was a triumph of logic, and would help “maintain in Europe a correct opinion of our political morality” (Drinnon 1997, p. 111). The good cops conceded the debate and violence was justified and approbated by powerful government officials. Even those who did not indulge directly in this sort of atrocity literature were heavily inf luenced by the projected attitudes. Most Americans simply assumed that the “uncivilized” Native American was doomed for

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extinction, given the relentless march of civilization. This idea had permeated literature about the natives for over 200 years (Horsman 1981, p. 191). The framework created by Christian theology and Enlightenment notions of progress and history became the assumed truth about the natives’ inevitable fate. It is in the context of such high theory formulation by leading intellectuals of the day that the lower-level atrocity literature served as “field data” gathered by other Whites and had its real impact. The control of theory, institutions and publication mechanisms by Whites also defined what kind of data never got collected, documented, and highlighted. It is essential to note that both in the theoretical set up as well as in the anecdotal data-gathering, no effort was made to interrogate and problematize the White point of view. Enlightenment and biblical theories, in which non-White inferiority and native savagery were framed, were never challenged or seen as problematic, while native culture and religion were criticized and demonized. Further, the brutalities of settlers and missionaries were never highlighted as data points on par with Indians’ actions even in cases where the Indians’ actions were in direct retaliation against Whites’ brutalities. There was, historically, no reverse gazing, no Native scholars looking at White culture to counterbalance the discourse.11 4. Institutional and Legalistic Manipulations Dispossessing Native Americans of their land would not be easy because the U.S. government had written treaties with the tribes granting them rights to their own lands. The desired goal of taking over lands was accomplished in a systematic and legalistic way. Powerful institutions at the state and federal levels, in which the Native Americans themselves had little or no say, were involved. Over many decades several legal means were adopted: ●

Doctrine of Discovery—the legal basis for capturing land: The original legal justification for the occupation of the American continent was affirmed in the landmark court case of 1823, Johnson v. McIntosh (Kades 2001). Chief Justice John Marshall confirmed that Christian European nations had assumed “ultimate dominion” over the lands of America during the “Age of Discovery.” After having been “discovered,” the Indians had lost “their rights to complete sovereignty, as independent nations,” and only retained a right of “occupancy” in their lands.” Steve Newcombe remarks, “In other words, Indian nations were subject to the ultimate authority of the first nation of Christendom to claim possession of a given region of Indian lands” (Newcomb n. d.). This has been called the Doctrine of Discovery. The origins of this doctrine go back to the Pope, who in the fifteenth century directed Portugal’s King to “to invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue” all those who the King’s men saw as “pagans . . . and other enemies of Christ.” The Pope’s directive was to “reduce their persons

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to perpetual slavery, and to apply and appropriate . . . their possessions, and goods, and to convert them to . . . [Christian] use and profit . . . ” This Doctrine was later reinforced by a later Pope to legitimize Christopher Columbus’ conquests. European nations upheld and implemented this Doctrine as the legal and moral basis for colonialism (Brands 2005, p. 310). Marshall’s 1823 decision reestablished that principle in American law. Contesting “Who speaks for the Indians”: When the land belonging to the various tribes was to be demarked, Whites raised disputes about the fitness of various Native American spokespersons. They claimed that those who were savvy about Western ways, who thought strategically and had leadership skills, who were literate, and who laid claim to territorial boundaries were not the “real” Indians. They were too “Westernized” and hence illegitimate. In other words, Whites wanted the benign or incompetent or unconfident Indian to represent the tribes. Thus Jackson claimed that issues of territorial boundaries were not “real” Indian issues because: “In this matter the Indians—I mean the real Indians, the natives of the forest— are little concerned. It is a stratagem only acted upon by the designing half-breeds and renegade white men who have taken refuge in their country” (Brands 2005, p. 310). These issues were especially raised in the context of potential disputes between tribes to further weaken the legitimacy of hard-bargaining spokespersons. Thus only the claims of the naïve and the pliable were considered legitimate. Quite often, since the tribes were devastated, uprooted and disoriented, their cohesiveness and leadership was under duress. In this vulnerability, one leader or splinter group could be induced to sign a treaty giving up an entire tribe’s land. Once signed, there was no appeal (e.g., the Treaty of New Echota made it possible to remove the entire Cherokee tribe—even though historians agree that it was signed by a splinter group within the tribe). Federal treaties with native tribes attacked by states: This convenient f lexibility of the law meant that treaties made when the Native Americans were strong and prepared to fight could later be abandoned when they were weakened. Those treaties signed by the U.S. Federal government that did not suit could be nullified using complex arguments about States rights and Federal rights. Even where the Native Americans had “civilized” themselves, the Whites started legal fights by arguing that states rights were being compromised by federal treaties with the tribes. Thus, this became a legal tussle about the rights of Whites argued between competing White institutions, while ignoring Native American rights. Tribal identity attacked by substituting individual property for tribal rights: State governments sought to remove collective tribal rights by substitut ing individual rights for Native Americans. Besides voiding the effect of the federal treaties with tribes, this also had the

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Rajiv Malhotra effect of breaking up group cohesion among the natives, because tribal identities and social capital was the fabric of their societies.12 Moreover, before the Civil War these individual rights were framed as belonging to “free citizens of color,” a status better than Black slaves but below that of Whites. Enlightenment thinkers in President John Quincy Adams’ 1825 Cabinet hoped that the “civilized” natives (i.e., those who gave up their traditional ways and adopted Western ways) could be given individual lots of land and live along with Whites in the states where they already lived. But privately, even a Cabinet member who publicly attacked the ruthlessness involved in White Americans’ expansion expressed the view that “it was impossible to civilize Indians . . . it was not in their nature. He believed they would be destined to extinction . . . he did not think them as a race, worth preserving. He considered them as essentially inferior to the Anglo-Saxon raise which were now taking their place on this continent . . . and their disappearance from the human family will be no great loss the world” (Horsman 1981, p. 198). Elimination of natives’ individual land ownership: But after taking away their group rights and substituting some form of individual property, Whites squeezed further. Some states like Georgia successfully pressured Congress to help eliminate not only tribal land but also individual land ownership by Native Americans within their state (Horsman 1981, p. 196). Merging tribes into one big tribe under the Union: Under pressure from rebellious states on this serious matter, the federal government’s Cabinet was divided and ended up promoting unrealistic options, such as that Native Americans should be “removed” but that they should be “brought into civilization and incorporated into the Union” by combining the various tribes into one big tribe and moved to a separate territory far away. Fair exchange of eastern land for western land: The federal government endorsed the policy of taking native lands in the east in exchange for lands in the west, but insisted that this could be done only by voluntary consent of the tribes. These ideas about re-engineering and moving the tribes were proposed as a sop to the conscience of the Whites, with little regard to the trauma and human suffering of such a huge move. It also ignored the fact that the new lands were almost always of lesser value. Even the Native Americans lucky enough to be relocated to petroleum-rich land in Oklahoma would later have a hard time holding on to it when the value of the land under their feet became known. As Horsman notes, Indian Removal was not an effort to civilize them under more favorable circumstances even though that was how the Jacksonians justified the measure afterward. It was a blatant act to enable the Whites to occupy all the lands they wanted east of the Mississippi River (Horsman 1981, p. 199). Confusing debates to seem fair-minded: All through this, White Americans debated with each other over what to do with the natives and what

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rationale to use to make sure the process was (or would at least appeared to be) righteous, fair-minded and based on the rule of law. Brands and other historians have noted that this was a characteristic approach: using a series of confusing and contradictory manipulations to impose conditions of despair and then using these adversities as excuses for further damage (Brands 2005). Even those voices in government who opposed the forcible removal of Native Americans tended to ultimately go along with political and legal choices that enabled Whites to have more rights. Pessimism about the natives’ ability to survive as a race and as cultures became self-fulfilling. 5. Displacement for Their Own Good Policies to grab Indian lands would often be couched in language that seemed to indicate humanitarian concern for the well-being of the Native Americans and a condescending spirit of compromise. For instance, the initial argument for Indian removal was positioned as a way for them to retain their “wild life” by moving further away from White settlements. The wide open spaces on the other side of the Mississippi were believed to be more “conducive to the Indian way of life” even though it meant forcibly uprooting entire tribes and communities from their ancestral lands and transplanting them to regions where their old farming technology didn’t always work. Upon Andrew Jackson’s election as president in 1828, the debates ended, and forced removal of the native tribes became a hard reality. Excerpts from several of Jackson’s annual speeches to Congress over the years tell a remarkable story of the dulling of the collective conscience through the use of the hypocritical claim that whatever was being done was in the best interests of the Native Americans. Here are some highlights: ●

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In his first annual address in 1829, President Jackson laid out his policy for relocating Native Americans to territories hundreds of miles away from their lands, calling this an act of “sympathy” to save them from catastrophe.13 To avert “this calamity,” and to protect America’s sense of “national honor” and “humanity,” Jackson’s policy became the law known as the U.S. Indian Removal Act. In his second annual message to Congress, President Jackson blatantly supported further actions in the name of civilization defeating the uncivilized.14 He used the inexorable march of destiny to provide philosophical consolation to those whose conscience was troubled.15 Yet another important argument he gave was that the Native Americans had themselves invaded America in the distant past and had exterminated (mythical) older civilizations that had once f lourished there.16 In his fourth annual message to Congress, President Jackson described how native uprisings were put down by heroic White soldiers, but omitted mentioning that he had refused to implement the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of the Native Americans, thereby

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The prevailing hypocrisy in dealing with Native Americans was not lost on Alexis De Tocqueville, the famous European observer of nineteenthcentury America. While de Tocqueville admired many things about America, he could not help saying sarcastically about the treatment of natives: “It is impossible to destroy men with more respect to the laws of humanity” (de Tocqueville 1966, p. 30). Phase III: Indians as Children “Protected” in Reservations Once the “merciless savage” had been uprooted to a contained area away from his land, laws and customs, he could then be “managed” and raised as a child. His savage religion could be replaced with superior Christianity. This was the culmination of an Enlightenment idea that saw non-Whites as racial and cultural children. Jefferson, who did not seem to consider Native Americans as racially inferior (unlike Blacks), nevertheless believed that their backward religion and culture made them incapable of decisionmaking in the same autonomous way that White adults could.19 In 1831, the Supreme Court had already declared that all Native American tribes were a dependent nation, thereby allowing them to be categorized as “subjects or wards.” Thus, the long prevalent Enlightenment view of non-Whites as backward “children” needing to be tutored by Whites was given a new legal basis, “thus nullifying the supposedly universal right to consent to one’s own government” (Stephanson 1995, p. 26). Several notable Americans who admitted that Native Americans had been harmed by White expansion now openly proposed that the only option to enable the natives to flourish was to put them under the direct protection of “the Anglo-Saxons.” The self-congratulatory argument was that enslavement and protection had allowed Blacks to grow their population in America while the Indians had declined in number (Horsman 1981, p. 203)! A few isolated voices challenged the notion of the Native Americans being inferior especially if they were educated and Christianized. In other words, their backward condition was not permanent, but like children, given time and a chance to learn “true religion” they could be redeemed. Congressmen testified that “there were many individuals of several tribes . . . who were as intelligent as nine tenths of the members of [Congress]” (Horsman 1981, p. 204). Others pointed out that it was “preposterous to conclude that a whole nation of people were destitute of the ability to improve themselves” (ibid.). But while defending some specific Native Americans as individuals, even such liberal Americans were

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unwilling to stand up for Native American cultures or for their collective identities. One Congressman was brutally honest and insightful in his rare assessment that “it was natural that Americans should look for the causes of Indian disappearance among the Indians rather than among the whites, but this was a false search” (ibid.). Ultimately, the very few true friends the Native Americans had in positions of power and public inf luence were simply overwhelmed and exhausted by the pervasive demonizing of the Native Americans in news reports and popular literature. Any rare episode of natives’ defensive resistance against the taking of their lands was exaggerated over and over again to condemn them as savages. Attempts by non-Whites to unite were particularly targeted as evil. One watershed event in this regard took place in the early 1840s when escaping Black slaves joined hands with Indian tribes in Florida to attack Whites settled on captured lands. The conf lict was especially threatening as an alliance of the colored races versus the Whites: Wilderness threatening Eden. The well-popularized image of the native as a brutal savage was revived by a Congressman who dramatically held up a spear-point that he claimed was removed from the body of a child, and who then called for the extermination of the Native Americans because they had proved once again that “they are demons, not men. They have the human form but not the human heart.” Public figures who expressed sympathy for the Native Americans were silenced by telling them that this sympathy was misplaced because the colored races were attacking White Christians. Senator Thomas Hart Benton used atrocity literature testimonies in Congress and campaigned to overrule the land rights of natives and build a railroad corridor to the Pacific coast for the purpose of trade with India (Horsman 1981, p. 204). Because of the popular demonology of Native Americans and pseudoscientific research to show their innate inferiority, ironically enough, the only defenders remaining were missionaries claiming that although Native Americans were presently savages they could be rescued by converting them to Christianity. Further physical genocide could be prevented by completing the cultural genocide. Sadly, freedom loving Americans explained away their genocide of Native Americans as the natives’ inability to adapt to civilization: “As American hopes of creating a policy based on Enlightenment ideas of human equality failed, and as it relentlessly drove the Indians from all areas desired by the whites, Americans transferred their own failure to the Indians and condemned the Indians racially” (Horsman 1981, p. 207). Phase IV: Academic Research and the Museumizing of Indian Culture Even as the Native Americans were being killed, relocated, and systematically subjected to conditions of genocide, there was considerable interest in

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governmental and private circles for documenting and preserving important aspects of the culture in museums and books. This was sometimes fired by the quest for knowledge or reputation via authorship. Often the motivation was money through “ownership” of soft and hard knowledge in the form of traveling exhibits. Former frontiersmen who had made their mark as “Indian fighters,” along with missionaries and officials who ruled over the defeated natives, jumped on the latest bandwagon to document, paint and later photograph various aspects of Native American life, including languages. Thus a famous Indian-fighting general wrote to a famous Indian Office administrator, urging him to collect such materials for the sake of history, before the tribes entirely disappeared. Often there were only one or two surviving members left of the great tribes (Drinnon 1997, p. 194). Field agents and missionaries who were collecting data on Native American languages and vocabularies were urged to be especially attentive to any “last man of his tribe—to get from him the words [of his language]. Such a man may be looked upon as a connecting link between time and eternity, as to all that regards his people; and which, if it be lost all that relates to his tribe is gone forever” (Drinnon 1997, p. 192). Writers, painters, Indian fighters, administrators, philanthropists, and missionaries all got into this act. They knew that lining up the right partnerships with the right “Indian experts” to produce these books, illustrations, and traveling exhibits could be immensely profitable, and would make reputations as sought after “experts.” One such famous author teamed up with an Indian fighter/administrator and urged a well-known painter of scenes from Native American life, urging him to join up in illustrating a forthcoming work on native history: “(If you) . . . join us, we shall have in our hands a complete monopoly; no other work can compete with that which we could make.” And this could lead to “immense profit” (Drinnon 1997, pp. 194–195). This book went on to become the definitive nineteenth-century history of the Native Americans, the multivolume McKenney and Hall’s History of the Indian Tribes of North America, bringing the authors money and glory. This is an important lesson to draw as it remains quite true today: Interest shown in any ethnic group by well-paid American academics is not necessarily due to genuine altruism and deep sympathy with that group. Ultimately the goal in many cases is to gain approval and validation in the form of job appointments, research grants, promotions and an ego-boosting collection of students—that is, validation not from the humans being studied, but from one’s own peer group and from the prevailing establishment. The deep culture has created institutional mechanisms of peer-review, funding, tenure, censure and promotions that all scholars must live with. Independent scholarly research, especially on cultures of non-Whites, is unlikely to happen unless American scholars’ work is scrutinized and the framework seriously challenged from outside, that is, by scholars of the “other” culture being studied or American intellectuals outside the academy.

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Scholarly histories of the Native Americans also portrayed their barbarity and savagery to the fullest extent possible. They were depicted as “fierce, rapacious and untamable” (Hall 1978, p. 104); also “we find the Indian, when seeking revenge . . . becomes processed of an insatiate and insane thirst for blood, which impels him to feed his passion, not only to the carnage of the helpless of the human race, but even by slaughter of domestic animals” (Hall 1978, p. 112). It was also common in scholarly works, as well as in the popular literature, to dehumanize Native Americans by comparing them physically and culturally with animals— wolves, snakes and vultures were the tropes used, explicitly or implicitly (Drinnon 1997, p. 197). Sometimes an individual’s criminal acts were not blamed on the individual’s character—as would be the case for a White person committing the same crime—but rather his culture and religion were blamed as “savage.” Thus we have this scholarly expression of sympathy for the Indian’s low moral development: “. . . he has never been taught those lessons of humanity which have, under the guidance of civilization and Christianity, stripped war of its more appalling horrors, and without which we should be no less savage than the Indians” (Hall 1978, pp. 201–202). The end result was that he must be “cured” of his religion and culture or else be destroyed. A crucially important factor in reinforcing this message was the lack of balance in gathering and presenting opposing data or having voices from the other side that would evaluate the values and power structures linked to Whiteness or Christianity as important factors in the conf lict. The atrocity literature did not document the greater savagery and the many unprovoked attacks and systematic massacres committed by White Christians against the Native Americans. Drinnon notes dryly that it is unclear what the Native Americans themselves thought of this great interest that was being shown in the dying tribes, cultures, religions and languages by many of the same people who were directly and indirectly responsible for their extinction. However the data collectors were powerful and the native informants, translators and interpreters had little choice and provided whatever the various scholars sought. It is likely that this scholarly “recording” and “museumizing” of the Native American, while simultaneously carrying out popular denigration, missionary conversions and gradual genocide among them, helped assuage the American conscience. By showing that Americans were appreciating and memorializing the Native Americans—albeit as objects of the “dead past” to be gazed at—it legitimized the sense of the historical “inevitability” and destined “melting-away” of the Native American, absolving the predator culture of any culpability. Another method to shield the self-image from these unsavory aspects of America’s past is to not talk about it. Popular works on American history often block negatives—both of the Western intellectual tradition’s “soft power” attacks on others as well as of America’s hard power actions. James Loewen explains: “Most historians were males from privileged White families. They wrote with blinders on. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.,

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found himself able to write an entire book on the presidency of Andrew Jackson without ever mentioning perhaps the foremost issue Jackson dealt with as president: the removal of Indians from the Southeast. What’s more, Schlesinger’s book won the Pulitzer prize” (Loewen 1996, p. 273)!20 While many of today’s best American historians (including those quoted in this chapter) are more forthright and do critique the Christian and Enlightenment lapses of the past, this knowledge of the dark side is still debated mainly in closed academic circles, and does not loom large in the public understanding of America. Indeed Americans are understandably uncomfortable when this dark history is presented. This mythic self-righteousness hides the extended genocide of Native Americans in the basement of America’s collective memory in order to prevent guilt. This helps to preserve the deep culture, whose many benign and truly admirable characteristics get highlighted. But unfortunately, it also prevents Americans from learning from this experience and examining the particular strains in their collective mythology and national character that caused these tragedies and that continue to manifest in their dealings with non-European, non-Christian cultures. Native Americans, as living and vibrant cultures, religions and peoples, are almost extinct. But their memories are preserved in museums, and their names live on as automobile models, team names, commercial brands, place names, and so on. Individuals and groups among them appear to prosper as “civilized” and “exotic” casino operators, who are part and parcel of the American landscape rather than a challenge to it. In sharp contrast there is a large White guilt toward Blacks, primarily because, unlike Native Americans, Blacks live in the mainstream in large numbers, have a group identity, and have become mobilized as a voice that will not go away. Very importantly, Black scholars have also developed a sterling intellectual tradition that reverses the gaze on White culture, and have tried to challenge White frameworks by adopting Afro-centric frameworks. The Failure of Discourse American attitudes toward the Native Americans were complex. Internal conf licts among inf luential Americans remained and pro-native voices definitely existed throughout this long saga. BUT NATIVE AMERICANS WERE NEVER IN CONTROL OVER THE DISCOURSE CONCERNING THEM, AND BOTH SIDES TO THESE DEBATES WERE WHITES. Whites for one plan would argue against Whites for another plan concerning the plight of the Native Americans. There is an important lesson here when “area studies” disciplines about non-Western nations are being controlled by American institutions and driven by its deep culture’s worldview. There were many periods in which the Native Americans, represented by their White supporters, seemed to be well protected and temporarily secure. The pendulum swings back and forth many times during this

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300 year encounter, but Native Americans continually slip in their share of the land, their rights, and ultimately their very survival. Along the way, there were important stories of their defense by Whites as well as betrayals and dishonesty. While the Whites always had a clear Manifest Destiny, the Native Americans did not have a comparable myth of their own destiny to take over the earth. This meant that even those Whites who supported the Native Americans did so in the context of their own (superior) place in Manifest Destiny. Native Americans did not control the discourse because of a lack of their own grand narrative in which to theorize about the Whites collectively (i.e., a deep cultural strategic advantage for the White Americans). They also lost control over the discourse because White institutions, intellectuals, media and writers ran the show. Since Whites controlled all three layers—deep culture, institutions of power, and pop culture—this made Native Americans vulnerable to cultural genocide that was followed by their physical ethnic cleansing. It is indeed a sad ending. The Native Americans have slowly been repositioned with great sympathy. The ideological stance and iconography about them has turned into a positive image of the “cult of the Indian,” now that he was only present in museums and ceased to be a threat. The old Frontier has been captured already and the boundaries have moved to new frontiers. Native American culture is now a trophy to adorn mainstream America. From its original positioning as grotesque and savage it is now beautiful and “American.” Hypocrisy as National Character Importantly, throughout the debates on what to do about the “savage,” there took place an intellectual game the purpose of which was to show that a fair and equitable due process was being carried out. The best academic minds in America produced (and continue to produce) devastating negative knowledge about others while seeming to be liberal and to engage in honest academic discussions. In light of this pattern, Marimba Ani, a Black scholar of White culture, provides a provocative but cogent framework to interpret White culture, suggesting that hypocrisy is an essential element of its success. She explains European/American culture includes moral statements whose primary purpose is image projection and political benefits. This is the same competence that is found in American advertising, public relations and salesmanship: Within the nature of European/American culture there exists a statement of value or of “moral” behavior that has no meaning for the members of that culture. I call this the “rhetorical ethic”; . . . The European mind is a political one and for this reason constantly aware of the political effect of words and images as they are used for the

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purposes of manipulation. By “political” I mean to indicate an ego that consistently experiences people as others; as representatives of interests defined differently and, therefore, as conf licting with this “ego.” The individual is concerned, therefore, with the way in which his verbal expression and the image he projects can inf luence the behavior of those to whom he relates . . . This is what is “deeply rooted” in the American mind—the psychology of “public relations,” “salesmanship,” and political strategy. (Ani n. d.) According to Ani, Americans have a deep talent to project moral values in a manner that appears altruistic and thereby hides their own vested interests: Because they exported (“sold”) this altruistic image so successfully, they have had to project themselves as adhering to this “ideal”; similarly, the projection of themselves or their motives in this way has been essential to the successful imposition of this “ethic” on others. The basic principle . . . . is that the major contributing factor to the success of American nationalism has been its projection as disinterested internationalism. (Ani n. d.) Americans honestly believe that their actions are intended for others’ good. In this way, they have fallen victim to their own myth. Lessons from the Native American Experience The wars against the Native Americans were concluded in the 1890s, but deep patterns remain in the American culture which distinguish it from other Eurocentric cultures. We have examined seventeenth-, eighteenth-, and nineteenth-century ways of dealing with the native “other,” which began with European roots in biblical and Enlightenment thinking. We have traced how both these sources were used to frame the idea of the “other” as savage or noble, dangerous or childlike, depending on which model best suited the requirements of personal greed or national expansion. We have seen how well-meaning people who spoke up for the natives were marginalized, and we have noted that the Native Americans were the losers in part because they lacked a grand unifying myth that could help them participate in the discourse that justified their destruction. In the following section, we will apply the same insights to an examination of the period of American domination on a global scale, which still continues in spite of recent setbacks. Civilization’s Aesthetics, Morality, and Reason Myths are the organizing principles shared by a people to give meaning to their collective memories and to bring coherence to their present

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experiences and future expectations. Myths are not necessarily false, and the functional power and effect of a myth is determined by people’s belief in it and not the extent to which it is “true.” Myths are built by selectively picking and choosing parts of the truth that fit and help empower the myth while ignoring or whitewashing parts that don’t. A myth contextualizes the motifs it borrows into a coherent picture for the intended audience. Biblical myths are filled with motifs that show the chaotic wilderness as Satanic, and Eden as the realm of Order. The struggle between Good and Evil is a battle between Order and Chaos. Centuries later, the Enlightenment movement in Europe removed the dependency on explicit theological references to God and Satan, but the underlying implicit premises have remained the same. Eden was replaced by the secular notion of Civilization. The Enlightenment considered Civilization to be orderly and standing in opposition to uncivilized societies that were characterized by Chaos. Cultural ambiguity and uncertainty are markers of Chaos whereas Order is characterized with normative, decisive, canonized rules and predictability. The West, as Hegel pronounced, was uniquely endowed to lead the rest toward Civilization. Those who were not following the West on this caravan were destined to perish—the Native Americans, Hegel wrote, were thus meant to suffer genocide, just as the Africans were suited for slavery. A variety of stereotypes were constructed and associated with depicting these “savages” revolving around the biblical idea of chaos—such as incoherence, evil, socially irresponsibility, irrationality, and sometimes sexual promiscuity. All these attributes are power-laden images. They serve as code words that can devastate when applied, because they bring forth powerful knots of energy hidden in the collective subconscious. A key approach to evaluating other cultures was based on White Americans’ criteria of beauty and aesthetics. The “savage” others were depicted as ugly and their deities and symbols were considered grotesque. The other’s aesthetics was also seen as a barometer of his morality. God made good people beautiful, and conversely, beautiful people must be good. Ideas of aesthetics are controlled by the dominant culture of the time, and this culture likes to project itself as the image of goodness. While images of Jesus in art in the early centuries showed him to be darkskinned, since the Italian Renaissance he acquired White phenotypes. Only in the early twentieth century was he first painted as blonde with blue eyes. Besides aesthetics and morality, the third dimension of this framework was about truth. The “savages” lacked rationality. Civilized people—who were good in looks and morals—had Reason. The triad of beauty-goodness-truth became commonly applied in the discourse about non-White peoples (figure 9.1). Once any one or two out of the triad of attributes could be asserted concerning a given “savage,” then all three evaluations automatically applied: Grotesque deities and filth in the society signified immoral people who lacked reason. Poverty implied lack of rationality because

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Savage

Beautiful

Moral

Ugly

Truthful

Immoral

Irrational

Figure 9.1 Stereotypes of civilized and savage peoples

rationality results in progress; hence poverty was correlated with lack of morality, and thus the poor need to be “saved” from their immoral native culture. Kantian Eurocentrism The three ideas—aesthetics, morality and truth—have been inter-linked in Western thought. One finds numerous instances where a judgment about one is superimposed to implicate another aspect of that culture. That this was an “enlightened” view held by some of the greatest liberal thinkers of the West is illustrated by Kant’s writings about Asians and Africans in this regard. Kant, like many other European Enlightenment thinkers, exerted considerable inf luence upon American intellectuals and leaders. Although Kant had little or nothing to say about Native Americans, he was offended by the non-European aesthetics of the Chinese: What trif ling grotesqueries the courtesies and studied complements of the Chinese contain! Even their paintings are grotesque and portray strange and unnatural figures such as are encountered nowhere in the world. (Eze 1997, p. 55) He also attacked Asian Indians based on their art and aesthetics, which he found to be grotesque: The Indians have a dominating taste for the grotesque, of the sort that falls into the adventurous. Their religion consists of grotesqueries. Idols of monstrous form, the priceless tooth of the mighty monkey Hanuman, the unnatural atonements of the fakirs (heathen mendicant friars) and so forth are in this taste. (ibid.) Because of such a horrible state of aesthetics in their religion it was natural to find them oppressing their women, he explained. While the European had transformed relations between the sexes to go beyond the physical

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animal drive and toward higher levels of morality, charm and decorousness, the same was not true of Orientals: Kant wrote: Since he has no concept of the morally beautiful which can be united with this impulse [of sex], he loses even the worth of the sensuous enjoyment, and his harem is a constant source of unrest. He thrives on all sorts of amorous grotesqueries . . . he makes use of very unjust and often loathsome means. Hence there a woman is always in a prison, whether she may be (unmarried) or have a barbaric, goodfor-nothing and always suspicious husband. (p. 57) To strengthen his case that Indians were aesthetically and morally deprived savages, he used whatever he had heard or read of sati to his full advantage. He made sati seem like a normative practice that could be used as the basis for making sweeping conclusions: “The despotic sacrifice of the wives in the very same funeral pyre that consumes the corpse of husband is a hideous excess” (p. 55). While sharing prevailing views about Black “ugliness” and White “beauty,” Kant again extended aesthetics into moral judgments of Africa, and wrote: “The Negroes of Africa have by nature no feeling that rises above the trifling” (Eze 1997, p. 55). Kant believed, along with a number of other Enlightenment scholars, that “all Negroes stink” (Eze 1997, p. 46). “Immoral Potatoes” and Other Savages Similarly, aesthetics were applied by the “enlightened” continent of Europe to make many irrational judgments. For instance, the potato had been first developed by Native Americans in South America but was rejected by Europeans for its bad aesthetics and for its association as a product of the “savages.” Many European thinkers argued that its odd geometry lacked symmetry, thereby suggesting that it was linked to evil, because God made the “good” food symmetrically shaped. The threat of a massive famine across Europe that could have killed as much as half its entire population finally forced farmers in Europe to grow potatoes as a highyielding source of nutrition. The European sense of aesthetics considered beauty to be symmetry and an odd shaped potato to be ugly, and then linked this ugliness to evil and immorality, because God would not intend for us to eat ugly food, and hence they declared it a “dangerous” food. Potato’s reputation was also associated with the Native Americans from whom Europeans had obtained it, and who had by then been declared evil and uncivilized people—so the potato was also guilty by association. In its deep layers of myth, the Inquisition in Europe was about Order (usually imagined as masculine) becoming threatened by the feminine aesthetics of the pagan faiths, which were seen as chaotic and hence linked to evil. All sorts of stories were made up about their evil practices

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which, naturally, had to be seen as inspired by Satan. Rule books were written and officially sanctioned to provide the normative, orderly mechanisms for proving the guilt of those accused of such practices. This lasted several for centuries and spread to virtually every corner of Europe, killing tens of millions of women accused of witchcraft. Contrary to their claims of respect for individuality, Europeans were most intolerant of the women priests of native religions because they were declared a threat to Order. When I first arrived in the U.S. corporate scene in the 1970s, management training seminars emphasized certain normative body language: A strong handshake makes you seem confident and reliable; a limp handshake is seen by White culture as a sign of weakness and lack of moral certainty. Eye contact with confidence (almost to the point of aggressiveness but just the right level), yet balanced with a smile, shows being nice but in control. And so on. The notion of “power lunch” and “power breakfast” entered corporate culture, along with a series of bestseller books with titles explaining what “real men” do and don’t. Soon women followed with titles like “real women” do X and not Y. Cultural biases in aesthetics are important to understand. Lawyers advise their clients appearing in court to dress formally and wear their hair in a clean “orderly” appearance, because that is the aesthetics correlated with being moral and truthful. Images of the “savage” look, on the other hand, are routinely used by media and by opponents to depict someone as a crook or immoral or dangerous. This is ironic when one considers that many of the crooks and criminals—such as the leaders of Enron, WorldCom, among others—have the perfectly orderly aesthetics. Neither aesthetics nor their superb intellects (i.e., Reason) kept them from being immoral! Frontier Encounters with Other Civilizations Black scholars have explained how racist ideas about Blacks’ aesthetics were linked to being evil and irrational, and hence in need to be controlled by the forces of goodness and truth which were identifiable by good (White) looks. In the 1930s, when Adorno criticized Whites for defining jazz as Black music, the prevailing White dominated discourse did view jazz as “primitive and perhaps even dangerous, its refinement best left to whites. . . .” (Steinman 2005, pp. 115–137). Record companies forced Black groups to adopt Frontier names like “The Jungle Band” and “Chocolate Dandies,” and were given labels like “Ethiopian Nightmare.” Mainstream critics described jazz as degenerate and something to be wary of. Later, in the 1950s, when Elvis crossed the line and appropriated Black music for White audiences, on the one hand it was seen as White (and thus civilized) by his fans, and on the other hand the orthodoxy declared it an invasion by the forces of Chaos. The Frontier threatened to take

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over Civilization. Elvis’ records were publicly destroyed and burnt and many governmental inquiries were ordered to find out ways of stopping this menace from attacking the realm of Order. Eventually, the threat of Chaos disappeared when jazz, rock, and other Black genres got captured and turned into an “orderly” product of the music industry. Adorno explained capitalism’s appropriation of Black music into “commodities” and “confusing parodies” that were “manufactured by the fashion industry” (Steinman 2005, pp. 115–137). When Americans decided to capture territories from Mexico, the Mexicans were depicted as “savages” lacking aesthetics not only in their looks but also in their grotesque symbols and art. These images were seen as a sign of their immorality and wickedness. Hence, there emerged the images of dangerous “banditos” which were further extrapolated as proof of their lack of reason. Naturally, White civilization had to conquer such devilish peoples. Today’s debates against Mexican immigration and America’s domestic policies that prejudice against Hispanic Americans are not explicitly racist. But scholars of race point out the underlying images and myths present in the discourse that involve one or more of the trio: lack of aesthetics, moral deficiency, and inferior reasoning. Thus there is implicit racism that is subtly codified. For instance, while cigarettes have become “civilized” as Wall Street capitalism, drugs belong to the darker races— marijuana to Mexicans, heroin to Blacks, peyote to Native Americans, and so we see the “War on Drugs” is a mythic war between Order and Chaos. It is interesting to see how consistently the logic of these myths has been used time and time again in dealing with non-Western civilizations since first contact. The chronology of encounters that helped shape America’s deep culture is shown in figure 9.2. The three boxes in figure 9.2 represent three eras, which are roughly as follows: ●

●

●

In the first era, the early settlers were on the defensive in an isolated strange land, and the myth was for a positive build up for hope and ethical actions. In the second era, expansion over the land mass became important. This entailed violent encounters with Native Americans and Mexicans for land. Slavery of Blacks was required to make the agricultural land productive and hence valuable. The Myth was constantly adapted to justify all this in the name of civilization. The corpus of frontier literature about the “savages” was vastly expanded and constantly fed by missionaries, fiction writers, theatrical productions, journalists, academic scholars, and political rhetoric. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the Manifest Destiny idea was again adapted to take America across the oceans because the land mass had been taken over already. This overseas expansion involved violence against Filipinos, Caribbean peoples, Hispanics, Chinese (as laborers), Japanese (interned) and Vietnamese, among others.

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Rajiv Malhotra [4] Caribbean

Isolation & Frontier

[1] Native Americans

[3] Mexican

[5] Philippines

[7] Vietnam

(External Frontiers) City on a Hill

Manifest Destiny (Overseas)

Manifest Destiny (Land)

Europe [2] Black Slavery (Internal Frontier)

[6] Chinese Workers

[8] Japanese Internment

[9] Jim Crow Racism

(Internal)

Figure 9.2

Encounters that shaped national character

Atrocity Literature as a Genre21 In each instance there was extensive literature developed and disseminated about the atrocities committed by the “savage” cultures. More generally, the literature showed them to have frontier-like attributes of chaos, lack of morality, lack of aesthetics, and certainly the lack of rationality that was required to be civilized. In each case such literature got deployed to argue in favor of invasions and containment of those people, often with claims that it would be in their own best interests. One cannot help being reminded of the way Iraq was instantly demonized by the media, including CNN and other liberal media, the moment the U.S. authorities started to debate the merits of waging war.22 Pop media images served as the fifth column to support the case for invasion. A little later, the noble and oppressed Iraqi people, yearning to breathe free, were demonized when they failed to greet the American invaders with enough enthusiasm. Current debates about the future course of the United States in Iraq make heavy use of both sets of myth. Each of these historical encounters was prolonged, intense and exceptionally violent. What is particularly relevant to note is the critical role of popular and academic literature as weaponry in the form of denigration and demonology of the other culture in every single encounter. Once a given people could be deemed “dangerous savages” then it was considered okay and even mandatory to wage “savage war” against them, because this war was for Order against Chaos. Both the academy and media dished out images of “savagery” about the non-White cultures that America encountered. The systematic approach was repeated and the process became more sophisticated each time. As a result of America’s superiority complex, there has developed a genre of American literature that is known as “atrocity literature.” Over the past four centuries a corpus of academic and fictional writings that

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have been adapted into Broadway plays and Hollywood movies have portrayed American encounters with other cultures—such as Native Americans, Blacks, Mexicans, Filipinos, Japanese, Chinese, Haitians, Cubans, Vietnamese, and now Muslims—reinforcing the idea that the rest of the world is inferior to America and must be won over to its ways for their own good, no less. Only then can John Wayne fade peaceably into the sunset on his horse. “Atrocity literature” was integral to portraying other cultures’ strangeness and exotica by emphasizing the dangers it posed. The phenomenon may be brief ly stated as follows: ●

●

●

●

●

●

The mythmaking consisted of painting a vivid picture of the “other” as being “dangerously savage”—a people who were a threat to innocent God-fearing Christian folks. The imagery sometimes suggested that the biblical Eden (now home to Americans) was being violated and threatened by evil savages from the Frontier—the collective rest of the non-Christian, uncivilized world. Often this image of the “savage” was created by making associations. They were typically depicted in scenes of “idol worshipping” replete with grotesque and sundry divinities, as opposed to the one true God of the Christian Americans. These “others” were packaged to appear “primitive”—lacking in morals and ethics, “prone to violence,” whatever it would take to make them appear monstrous and threatening. This trio—lack of aesthetics, lack of morality, and lack of rationality—became a fixture that is found over and over again in “atrocity literature.” Historians have described how narratives about dangerous nonwesterners were formulated to incite support for violence against anyone who could be portrayed as “savages.” When conf licts erupted, the good Americans were depicted as responding legitimately and dutifully to the actions of “savages.” Thus American brutalities were depicted as pre-emptive strikes against potentially threatening “savages” and seen as justified and reasonable measures. The “savage” cultures were also shown to victimize their own women and children hence making the violent civilizing mission of the Americans seem to be in the best interest of the “savage” societies at large. This kind of “atrocity literature” became a major genre that gave intellectual sustenance to the doctrine of America’s Manifest Destiny. In turn, Manifest Destiny fed even more of such literature. This genre thrives on half-truths, on selecting items from here and there, and stitching themes together into a narrative that then plays on the readers’ psyche with pre-conceived stereotypes. The literature seeks to create a sense of heightened urgency in dealing with “savagery.” The other cultures portrayed in this way may or may not have committed the alleged atrocities attributed to them. The truth, in all probability, is not one-sided. Typically, the bad behavior on the other

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Rajiv Malhotra side is exaggerated and sensationalized in order to make an ideological point, not to unveil the truth. Americans are spared blame for their violent actions which are portrayed as being just and unavoidable—a “necessary evil” when dealing with an uncivilized and threatening world. Once established in the popular mind, “atrocity literature” was often used to justify the harsh subjugation of the people in the Frontier because they did not deserve to be treated like “civilized” people. In many instances this led to genocide (Native Americans) or large-scale violence (the Vietnam War). These mechanisms are important to study because they are not only in the past.

Many scholars have naively participated in producing such “atrocity literature” either without realizing it, or without taking into consideration how the material would eventually be used. For example, Professor Dunning at Columbia University produced a large quantity of such “atrocity literature” aimed at Blacks in the early twentieth century. His writings helped justify the Ku Klux Klan’s ideology and buttressed White racial attitudes toward Blacks as inferior. These depictions would not get corrected until the civil rights movement and social reforms of the 1960s. Once a target culture was branded and marked in this way, it became the recipient of all sorts of untoward allegations. It became impossible for the leaders of any such branded culture to try to defend themselves against the false charges and depictions. Anyone engaged in this criticism of America would be immediately put on to the list of suspected “dangerous savages” and stigmatized. The normal rules of providing evidence and the right to fair representation would be superseded by the swarm of negative allegations. The means justified the ends: Civilization had to be saved at any cost, and the applications of increasing amounts of violence proved effective; in fact, the more the better. Evolution of Myth Table 9.1 summarizes how the Myth evolved in each stage of American history. It shows how the “us” was defined and evolved over time— from Puritans to Englishmen to Christians to White, and so forth. The Frontier was both a geographical location in any given period and also a set of alien cultures to combat, including both those located outside the Frontier and various “internal others” such as slaves, former slaves, defeated Native Americans, non-White populations acquired by annexation, and immigrants. In the following diagram, the two columns on the rationalization show both kinds: the overtly selfish reasons cited such as expanding commerce or bringing “security” from dangerous savages; and the pretence of

Definition of Who Is “Us”

a) Fellow countrymen from a European nation b) Christians c) Whites

White American citizens of a newly invented nation

Whitened American citizens of a massive continent and economy

Multiethnic power pyramid

Stage of the Myth

Colonial Period

North American Expansion and European Immigration

Overseas Expansion and Non-European Immigration

Current Frontiers

Table 9.1 History of the Frontiers

Geographic: China, India, Pan-Islam Cultural: Non-European externally and Immigrants internally

Geographic: Central America, Philippines, Vietnam, etc. Cultural: Heathens overseas; Immigrant labor internally

Geographic: Westward and southward Cultural: Indigenous people and Spanish speaking Whites outside; African slaves inside

Geographic: East coast occupied by Native Americans Cultural: Native Americans outside and African slaves inside

Geographic and Cultural Frontiers

Global superpower

MilitaryIndustrial superpower

Commercial and military expansion across North America

Commercial expansion and security of the colonies

Selfish Rationales

“Flat World” meritocracy

Globalizing freedom, commerce, democracy

Manifest Destiny: American exceptionalism spreading Civilization

Manifesting Christianity on Earth via “City on a Hill” imagery

Self-Righteous Myth

Rationales Used for Expansion

Postmodern pop culture

Transcendentalism; Black pop culture and music; drugs; Asian inspired counterculture; civil rights and antiwar movements

Enlightenment, anti-slavery, and “Progress” theories

Romanticism of Native Americans as “noble savages”; seeing free Blacks as exemplars

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altruism to “save” humanity, or make “progress” or “civilize” others in the name of God or Providence or History. The final column shows that there has always existed a counterculture of protest within America, similar to the hippies of the 1960s. But these served as Good Cops who would get overruled by the Bad Cops or get convinced by them and join them, or would simply die out and fade away in defeat. This is sobering evidence of the challenges facing the small intellectual voice today that is truly attempting sweeping changes. The Power of Myth Salman Rushdie calls a myth “the family album or storehouse of a culture’s childhood, containing [its] . . . future, codified as tales that are both poems and oracles” (Rushdie 2000, p. 83). Culture is an enactment of myth, and the two support and nourish each other. In order to understand a specific culture one must know the myths which serve as the implied context for experience. Naturally, myths are not static but evolve and compete with other myths in a mythic space. They must be adaptable to new imperatives. Hence the plasticity and elasticity of competing myths will determine which ones dominate by providing greater coherence and thereby surviving as the most viable and robust. Bruce Lincoln explains how myths are constantly reshaped by narrators and audiences: Myths are not snapshot representations of stable taxonomies and hierarchies . . . Rather, the relation between social order and the stories told about it is much looser and—as a result—considerably more dynamic, for this loose fit creates possibilities for rival narrators, who modify aspects of the established order as depicted in prior variants, with consequences that can be far-reaching if and when audiences come to perceive these innovative representations as reality. (Lincoln 1999, p. 150) In intercivilizational competitive situations, understanding the other side’s myths become a critical factor in one’s ability to negotiate for domination or collaboration. The mythic representation of the other side drives one’s ability to engage that side, and this can become a powerful weapon or a cataclysmic liability. For instance, the Aztec ruler, Montezuma, lost his entire kingdom to the Spanish conquistador, Cortez, because Montezuma’s own myth made him imagine Cortez to be a mythic god. Cortez’s Eurocentric myth did not bestow a similar prestige and glory upon Montezuma. On the contrary, the cunning Cortez played his role as per Montezuma’s mythic expectations. A very tiny and vastly outnumbered ragtag army of Cortez killed Montezuma in the cruelest manner, in the watershed event that led Europeans to conquer the vast South American kingdoms. One might say that Europe had the more effective myth in this clash of civilizational myths.

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Similarly, the British in India mastered the study of India’s myths for the purpose of colonial manipulation, and this was the explicit motive for starting Indology in British universities—and now a major reason for U.S.-based South Asian Studies. The British spun myths of their own superiority that were installed in the minds of ambitious Indians. But Indians had no representation system of the British in Indian epistemic and mythic terms. The mythic battle was won by the British. Given the mythic and functional power of modern science, a myth may masquerade as historical fact with reinforcement from major scholars, institutions and media. Levi-Strauss remarked that “in our own societies history has replaced mythology and fulfils the same function . . .” (Levi-Strauss n. d., pp. 42–43). Often the strategy to be credible involves approximating the truth sufficiently to be seen as truth. The lie that is closest to the truth is the most dangerous lie. For instance, J. M. Blaut explains that moderate racism is, today, a more serious problem in the world of scholars than is classical racism, because it is mainly an implicit theory (Blaut 1993, p. 65). Thus a myth may remain partly submerged in the subconscious in order to stay below the radar of critical inquiry. The West does not want to recognize its own narratives as myths, but as logos/reason, while depicting worldviews of all others as myths. Derrida wrote, “The white man takes his own mythology . . . for the universal form of that he must still wish to call Reason” (Derrida 1982, p. 213). J. M. Blaut wrote that American mythic superiority “seems to be rooted in an implicit theory that combines a belief that Christian peoples make history with a belief that White peoples make history, the whole becoming a theory that it is natural for Europeans to innovate and progress and for non-Europeans to remain stagnant and unchanging (‘traditional’), until, like Sleeping Beauty, they are awakened by the Prince. This view still, in the main, prevails, although racism has been discarded and nonEurope is no longer considered to have been absolutely stagnant and traditional” (Blaut 1993, p. 6). He goes on to write: Eurocentrism is the colonizer’s model of the world in a very literal sense: it is not merely a set of beliefs, a bundle of beliefs. It has evolved, through time, into a very finely sculpted model, a structured whole; in fact a single theory; in fact a super theory, a general framework for many smaller theories, historical, geographical, psychological, sociological, and philosophical. (Blaut 1993, pp. 10–11) Besides helping to defeat the other cultures, the dominant culture’s myths also serve as master-narratives into which others can be appropriated, often in ways that make it seem very attractive to the others. The captured “others” get mapped into mythic roles assigned to them in inferior positions, their knowledge gets mapped as belonging to the dominant culture, and their symbols become ornaments, as Native American symbolism has

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been used. Robert Young explains the Enlightenment support for such mythic appropriation: Hegel articulates a philosophical structure of the appropriation of the other as a form of knowledge which uncannily simulates the project of nineteenth-century imperialism; the construction of knowledge which all operate through forms of expropriation and incorporation of the other mimics at a conceptual level the geographical and economic absorption of the non-European world by the West. Marxism’s standing Hegel on his head may have reversed his idealism, but it did not change the mode of operation of a conceptual system which remains collusively Eurocentric . . . The appropriation of the other as a form of knowledge within a totalizing system can thus be set alongside the history (if not the project) of European imperialism, and the constitution of the other as “other” alongside racism and sexism. (Young 1990, pp. 3–4) Notes 1. John Winthrop made his famous sermon, “A Model of Christian Charity,” while on a ship to America in which he said the famous line, “wee must consider that wee shall be as a Citty upon a Hill . . .” 2. This trend started much earlier. Colony officials and opinion makers portrayed the Indians as barbarous, and adopted a policy of genocide and deceit. 1n 1624, for example, more than 200 Indians who had signed a peace treaty with the Colony were served poisoned wine and killed. 3. “In his earliest notebooks, Whitman was already piecing together a vision of the United States as a live organism, stretching from one coast to another . . . He was particularly interested in learning about the parts of the country he had never seen, and compiled notes on the f lora, fauna, and natural features of each state. See “The Global Imaginary in Whitman’s Writing” at http:// humwww.ucsc.edu/gruesz/global.htm, accessed April 8, 2006. 4. There were at least three precursors to this notion from earlier Christian history: (1) The Book of Revelations, written in the first century after Jesus had mapped the Jewish apocalypse onto Christian history, good/evil becoming Christ/Antichrist, etc. (2) St. Augustine (fourth century) replaced this with a more sophisticated philosophy of the fight between City of God (i.e., the Christian Church) and City of Man (i.e., all non-Christians who were declared to be ruled by Satan), and this ruled mainstream Christianity until the seventeenth century. (3) By 1600 European science had become very confident of explaining nature through empiricism and hence undermined Augustine’s notion of nature as the evil domain of the Devil which had to be avoided with the new notion that nature could be captured by man. The seventeenthcentury Anglican theologian, Joseph Mead, reinterpreted the Book of Revelation and developed what spread as a revived and reinterpreted apocalyptic millenarianism. This was also exported to America. 5. For instance, Samuel H. Cox, a leading Presbyterian minister of the 1840s, told an audience in England that, “in America, the state of society is without parallel in universal history . . . I really believe that God has got America within anchorage, and that upon that arena, He intends to display his prodigies for the millennium.” [Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th edition (1993), volume 17, p. 408.] 6. However, Voltaire and major intellectual works of the enlightenment doubted this, and thought that Africans were a new species. See Eze (1997, p. 91). 7. Secularism’s link to Christianity has been widely described. See: “Eschatology,” in “The New Encyclopedia Britannica,” Vol. 17. pp. 401–408. Eliade’s deconstruction of modern Marxism as a Judeo-Christian myth is also very interesting. (Eliade 1957, pp. 196–207)

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8. Even going so far as to edit and truncate the Bible to among other things, remove references to the Divinity of Jesus and his miracles. 9. Based on the stories found in works of famous American writers like James Paulding author of “Westward Ho” which became a rallying cry for frontier America in the 1800s. Other writers using this device include Timothy Flint. 10. See Drinnon (1997, pp. 126–127 and 156–157) for examples of such changes of heart in White conscience keepers confronted with atrocity data. 11. Indeed to this day all over America there are many memorials and annual commemorations for Whites killed in “battle” with the Indians, but few indeed for countless the Native American patriots who were killed fighting for their lands and way of life. 12. “In 1816 Governor McMinn of Tennessee indicated . . . [that] the federal government should eliminate all general Indian claims within his State by ending tribal ownership. Individual Indians should be able to retain land and pass it on to their heirs” (Horsman 1981, p. 193). 13. “Our conduct toward these people is deeply interesting to our national character. Their present condition, contrasted with what they once were, makes a most powerful appeal to our sympathies. Our ancestors found them the uncontrolled possessors of these vast regions. By persuasion and force they have been made to retire from river to river and from mountain to mountain, until some of the tribes have become extinct and others have left but remnants to preserve for awhile their once terrible names. Surrounded by the whites with their arts of civilization, which by destroying the resources of the savage doom him to weakness and decay, the fate of the Mohegan, the Narragansett, and the Delaware [tribes on the east coast who were already ‘assimilated’ and destroyed] is fast overtaking the Choctaw, the Cherokee, and the Creek. That this fate surely awaits them if they remain within the limits of the states does not admit of a doubt. Humanity and national honor demand that every effort should be made to avert so great a calamity” (Horsman 1981). 14. “What good man would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages to our extensive Republic, studded with cities, towns, and prosperous farms, embellished with all the improvements which art can devise or industry execute, occupied by more than 12,000,000 happy people, and filled with all the blessings of liberty, civilization, and religion?” (Horsman 1981). 15. “Humanity has often wept over the fate of the aborigines of this country, and philanthropy has been long busily employed in devising means to avert it, but its progress has never for a moment been arrested, and one by one have many powerful tribes disappeared from the earth . . . . But true philanthropy reconciles the mind to these vicissitudes as it does to the extinction of one generation to make room for another” (Horsman 1981). 16. “In the monuments and fortifications of an unknown people, spread over the extensive regions of the West, we behold the memorials of a once powerful race, which was exterminated and has disappeared to make room for the existing savage tribes. . . . Philanthropy could not wish to see this continent restored to the condition in which it was found by our forefathers” (Horsman 1981). 17. “After a harassing warfare, prolonged by the nature of the country and by the difficulty of procuring subsistence, the Indians were entirely defeated, and the disaffected band dispersed or destroyed. The result has been creditable to the troops engaged in the service. Severe as is the lesson to the Indians, it was rendered necessary by their unprovoked aggressions, and it is to be hoped that its impression will be permanent and salutary” (Horsman 1981). 18. “That those tribes cannot exist surrounded by our settlements and in continual contact with our citizens is certain. They have neither the intelligence, the industry, the moral habits, nor the desire of improvement which are essential to any favorable change in their condition. Established in the midst of another and a superior race, and without appreciating the causes of their inferiority or seeking to control them, they must necessarily yield to the force of circumstances and ere long disappear” (Horsman 1981). 19. See Drinnon (1997, pp. 95–98) on Jefferson’s often hypocritical stance on this issue. 20. Loewen is referring to Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., The Age of Jackson, Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1945. 21. Gatlung (1990, pp. 291–305) defines cultural violence as “any aspect of a culture that can be used to legitimize violence in its direct or structural forms.” Atrocity literature has been used by Americans to justify violence in a “guilt-free” manner. 22. In the ethics of Mahabharata, by contrast, war is to be conducted in accordance with its own dharma. Often the warring parties feasted together at night when war was ceased temporarily.

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This was a different ethos than American “savage war” where the end justifies the means once the other party has been demonized as a “savage.” U.S. arguments in the Iraq/Afghanistan War that the prisoners captured are not entitled to treatment under the Geneva Convention is a logic based on “savage war,” i.e., these combatants are “savages” and hence conventions of war are not applicable.

Bibliography Ani, Marimba. Excerpts from the book, “Yurugu.” http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/60/001. html. Last accessed January 2006. Berkhofer, Robert. The White Man’s Indian: Images of the American Indian from Columbus to the Present. New York: Knopf, 1978. Blaut, J. M. The Colonizer’s Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism and Eurocentric History. New York: Guilford Press, 1993. Brands, H. W. Andrew Jackson: His Life and Times. Westminister, MD: Doubleday, 2005. Brodkin, Karen. How Jews Became White Folks and What that Says about Race in America. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1999. de Tocqueville, Alexis. Democracy in America. New York: Harper & Row, 1835; reprinted 1966. Deloria, Vine, Jr. Custer Died for Your Sins. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1988. Derrida, Jacques. “White Mythology (1971).” In Margins of Philosophy trans. by Alan Bass. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982. Drinnon, Richard. Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian-Hating and Empire-building. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997. Dunn, Richard and Laetitia Yaendle. The Journal of John Withrop, 1630–1649 (Abridged Edition). Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1997. Eliade, Mercea. The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1957. Eze, Emmanuel Chukwudi. Race and the Enlightenment: A Reader. Cambridge, MA: WileyBlackwell, 1997. Fairchild, H. N. The Noble Savage: A Study in Romantic Naturalism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1928. Fussel, Edwin. Frontier: American Literature and the American West. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965. Galtung, Johan. “Cultural Violence.” Journal of Peace Research, vol. 27, no. 3, 1990, pp. 291–305. Gerbi, Antonello. The Dispute of the New World: The History of a Polemic, 1750–1900, trans. by Jeremy Moyle. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1973. Hall, McKenney. History of the Indian Tribes of North America with Biographical Sketches and Anecdotes of the Principal Chiefs Embellished with 120 Portraits 2 Volume Set. Volair Limited, 1978. Horsman, Reginald. Race and Manifest Destiny. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981. Ignatiev, Noel. How the Irish Became White. New York: Routledge, 1996. Kades, Eric. “History and Interpretation of the Great Case of Johnson v. M’Intosh.” Law and History Review, Spring 2001: Accessed June 21, 2008. Knopf, Richard, ed. Anthony Wayne: A Name in Arms. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1960. Levi-Strauss, Claude. Myth and Meaning: Cracking the Code of Culture. New York: Schockten Books, n. d. Lieven, Anatole. America Right or Wrong. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Lincoln, Bruce. Theorizing Myth: Narrative, Ideology and Scholarship. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999. Loewen, James W. Lies My Teacher Told Me. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996. Newcomb, Steve. Five Hundred Years of Injustice: The Legacy of Fifteenth Century Religious Prejudice. Indigenous Law Institute. http://ili.nativeweb.org/sdrm_art.html. Last accessed January 2006.

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O’Sullivan, John L. O. “Annexation.” The United States Magazine and Democratic Review, 1845, pp. 5–10. Pearce, Roy Harvey. Savagism and Civilization: A Study of the Indian in the American Mind. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967. Rushdie, Salman. The Ground Beneath Her Feet. Picador, 2000. Slotkin, Richard. Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth Century America. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998. ———. Regeneration through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600–1860. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000. Smith, Henry Nash. Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950. Steinman, Clay. “Beyond Eurocentrism: The Frankfurt School and Whiteness Theory.” In Max Pensky, ed., Globalizing Critical Theory. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2005, pp. 115–137. Stephanson, Anders. Manifest Destiny. New York: Hill and Wang, 1995. Young, Robert. White Mythologies: Writing History and the West. London: Routledge, 1990.

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CH A P T E R

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What Have the Muslims Ever Done for Us? Islamic Origins of Western Civilization Joh n M . Hob son

Introduction In Monty Python’s famous film “The Life of Brian,” Reg, the “inspirational” leader of the revolutionary party—the PFJ (Peoples’ Front of Judea)—convenes a secret meeting to rally his comrades to overthrow the “oppressive and much reviled” Roman Empire. Having pointed out that the Romans have taken everything from us and our fathers’ and our fathers’ fathers . . . his speech rises to its climax with the words, “And what have they ever given us in return?” After a long pause someone utters, “the aqueduct.” This then leads to a series of similar interventions as the f loodgates were now truly open. “Public order” someone shouts out, which is then followed up by another comrade’s ringing endorsement, “Yeah, you’ve got to admit Reg, it’s been a lot safer around here since the Romans came along” (which is then met with rousing cheers of approval from the whole audience). And after a whole series of similarly awkward and increasingly rowdy interventions, Reg finishes his rallying speech with the words, “Alright, but apart from sanitation, the aqueduct, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?” More recently, the British talk show host Robert Kilroy Silk created a storm in Britain when he asked the rhetorical question, “what have the Arabs ever done for us?” (which he confusingly conf lates with all Middle Eastern Muslims). He replied by suggesting that they have given us very little bar trouble and terrorism. That Kilroy Silk is no longer on air and that many have dismissed his claims is in some respects beside the point. For the fact is that a rising tide of Islamophobia is sweeping across Britain; something that Kilroy Silk’s words feed readily into. Indeed in November 2006 the leader of the British National Party (the far-right quasi-fascist

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party), Nick Griffin, successfully defended himself in court against the prosecution’s claim that his recent words on Islam as an “evil religion” was not, in fact, racist. And right now, we find that Turkey is facing ongoing difficulties in joining the European Union with the suspicious whiff of Islamophobia seeping out from just below the surface. But to return to Kilroy Silk, his depiction of the “Arabs” dovetails neatly with the assumptions that lie behind the rhetoric on the war on terror. When President George W. Bush justifies the “war on terror” as necessary to protect the “free world,” which he conf lates with Western “civilization,” the key implication is that the “non-Western” world is a realm of unfreedom and un-civilization or barbarism. And it presumes that while the West has given much to the East the latter has given nothing positive to the former. A little further behind this civilizational rhetoric are a series of unstated assumptions, which amount to the twin claims that the West single-handedly created the modern capitalist world, and that only the West has the power and goodwill to bequeath its own creation to the East. These twin claims underpin Bush’s “civilizing mission” that was imposed in the “barbaric” Middle East since 2003. This widely held view of “us” and “them” is in fact but Eurocentric hubris because what has not been recognized at the popular level is that directly and indirectly the East in general and the Muslims in particular have bequeathed a great deal that enabled the West to make the final breakthrough to modern capitalism (Hobson 2004; and see the important pieces by Bala [chapter one], Joseph [chapter two], as well as Demir and Kaboub [chapter four], this volume). Throughout the long period of European development—from roughly 650 CE to the completion of European industrialization by 1900—perhaps the majority of the major ideas, technologies and institutions that underpinned this slow leap forward emanated from the East. Particularly important is that between 500–1000 CE a nascent global commercial system (incorporating all parts of the world bar Australia and the Americas) was created by the Easterners—especially the Arabs and Persians, but also the Jews, Black Africans, Indians, Javanese, and Chinese. While this directly fuelled the rise of European commerce, nevertheless the Eastern-led global economy’s ultimate significance lay in the fact that it was along its sinews that Eastern ideas, technologies and institutions f lowed, to be eventually copied or assimilated by the backward Europeans between 650 and 1900. So, when considering the question, “what have the Muslims ever done for us?” I shall take each of the major turning points in the rise of the West in the last fourteen hundred years and show how Islamic inf luences played a vital role in stimulating them. But before embarking on this journey of rediscovery one caveat is noteworthy. For it is not my intention to create a kind of Occidentalism where the West is portrayed as a passive beneficiary of Islam’s many achievements. Nor would I claim that Islam made the West per se. Rather, I seek merely to show that the West was not the sole repository of the necessary inventive and creative genius that made its breakthrough to modernity an

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inevitability. Rajani Kaneppalli Kanth put it rather more eloquently than I when addressing this problem in his book, Against Eurocentrism: To state the crux of the matter: the rejection of Eurocentrism . . . is not intended to supplant it with an equally strident Asia-centrism . . . but with the larger, and more accurate, vision of the collective, if unevenly distributed, wisdom of the human race, within which latter-day European knowledge occupies a distinct, if not always a primary, space. (Kanth 2005, p. 9) Added to this is the important point made recently by the late-great Edward Said: The worst thing ethically and politically is to let [Eurocentric] separatism simply go on, without understanding the opposite of separatism, which is connectedness. . . . What I am interested in is how all these things work together. That seems to me to be the great task— to connect them all together—to understand wholes rather than bits of wholes. . . . In a wonderful phrase, Disraeli asks, “Arabs, what are they?” and answers: “they’re just Jews on horseback.” So underlying this separation is also an amalgamation of some kind. (Said 2004, pp. 260–261, 424) At the very least, then, I seek here to reveal the important Islamic-Western connections. And at most, I would suggest, without these connections to the Muslim world it is debateable whether the Europeans would have ended up by tripping the modernistic light fantastic. Islamic Origins of the Medieval European Energy Revolution In the early phase of European development the Muslims pioneered all manner of energy forms that were subsequently passed on to the Europeans. These included the noria (an ingenious water-raising machine), the windmill, the water-mill and various irrigation techniques. And in turn, these enabled the medieval European energy revolution. However, the Eurocentric historian, Carlo Cipolla, asserts that the water-mill is a strictly European invention, the proof of which is that it was entirely absent in the East (Cipolla 1993, pp. 210). But as Arnold Pacey notes: It used to be thought that [the water-mill] was a distinctively European development. But it is now known that there were numerous water mills in the vicinity of Baghdad, and that water power was applied to paper-making in that region for two or more centuries earlier than in Europe. (Pacey 1991, p. 43)

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Actually, Pacey understates the case. A fuller picture is provided by alHassan and Hill: Muslims were obviously very keen to exploit every possible water supply as a potential source of power for milling. They even gauged the f low of a stream by the number of mills it would turn—the stream was, as it were, so many “mill-power”. . . . There were mills in every province of the Muslim world from Spain and North Africa to Transoxiana. (al-Hassan and Hill 1986, p. 53) Strikingly, throughout the Middle East waterwheels and watermills proliferated along the rivers, being deployed for irrigation, grinding grain, and crushing materials for industrial processes. Indeed there were massive norias on the Orontes River at Hama in Syria (wooden water-raising machines that stood over sixty feet tall). Crucially, the norias and watermills were also built in Islamic Spain from where they subsequently diffused across “Europe.” Nevertheless, various Eurocentric replies are often marshalled at this point though I shall deal only with the issue of the windmill by way of example. Eurocentric historians often reply by claiming that the windmill was a uniquely European invention that was founded in the thirteenth century. And the proof lies in the point that Persian windmills were horizontal whereas in Europe they were vertically mounted (i.e., the familiar “tower mill”). But claims for an independent European invention are rendered problematic by the point that the earliest reference to the windmill is in Persia in 644. “More certain perhaps, is the mention of windmills in the works of the Banuˉ Muˉsaˉ brothers (850 to 870), while a century later several reliable authors are speaking of the remarkable windmills of Seistan (e.g., Abuˉ Ishaˉq al-Istakhrıˉ and Abuˉ al-Qaˉsim ibn Hauqal)” (Needham and Ling 1965, pp. 556–557). The Persian windmill subsequently diffused not only to Europe but also to Afghanistan and China (Forbes 1956, pp. 614–617). That the actual design did not diffuse across to Europe seems fair; that there was no Persian input at all seems unfair. For it is clear that the idea of the windmill diffused. And it is surely no coincidence that the European Crusaders, who would undoubtedly have come across the Persian windmill during their “adventures”—particularly given that many stayed on and settled in the Middle East—deployed it in Europe not long afterwards. Islamic Origins of the “Italian” Financial Revolution A second major contribution that the Muslims bequeathed to the backward Europeans was the institutional infrastructure that enabled or promoted the celebrated Italian financial revolution of the post-1000 period. Thus while Europeans celebrate the financial wizardry of the Italians of

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the twelfth to fourteenth centuries, this obscures the point that all of their financial practices came directly from the Middle East. These included the commenda or collegantzia partnership. And while it is the case that the roots of this institution stem back to pre-Islamic times, it was developed furthest by the early Islamic merchants (Kister 1965, p. 117; Goody 1996, p. 58). Indeed as Abraham Udovitch notes, “it is the Islamic form of this contract (qiraˉd, muqaˉrada, mudaˉraba) which is the earliest example of a commercial arrangement identical with that economic and legal institution which [much later] became known in Europe as the commenda” (Udovitch 1970a, p. 48). Nevertheless this should hardly be a “revelation” given that Muhammad himself had been a commenda merchant. Nor should it be altogether surprising that the Italians came to use this institution given that Italy was linked directly into the Arabic trading system. It is also noteworthy that from the eighth century the qiraˉd was applied in Islam to credit and manufacturing, and not just to trade (Udovitch 1970b; Goitein 1967, pp. 362–367). The Italians are also wrongly accredited the discovery of a range of other financial institutions including the bill of exchange and checks/ cheques, credit institutions, insurance, and banking. For the fact is that all these institutions were derived from either the Islamic Middle East, or the pre-Islamic Middle East given that “many of the business techniques had been firmly established before the Qu’raˉ n had codified them” (AbuLughod 1989, p. 216). The Sumerians and Sassanids were using banks, bills of exchange and checks before the advent of Islam. Nevertheless it was the Muslims who took these early beginnings furthest. Ironically one reason for this lay with the need for Middle Eastern capitalists to circumvent the Islamic ban on usury. For example, payment was often delayed by up to two months or more so as to conceal usury by paying a higher price (thereby requiring such institutions) (Goitein 1967, pp. 197–199; Udovitch 1970a, pp. 61–62). Islamic bankers were common, as were international currency changers, and the banks themselves entered into commenda agreements for advancing money or credit in return for profits. The banks were a vital conduit for international trade, transferring funds from one place to another. The bankers issued notes—the “demand note” or bill of exchange at a distant location (suftaja) and the “order to pay” (hawaˉ la) which was identical to a modern check. As Abu-Lughod (1989, pp. 223) notes of the hawaˉ la: “At the upper left corner was the amount to be paid (in numbers), and in the lower left corner was the date and then the name of the payer.” And as she points out on the same page, the demand note was in fact of Persian origin and preceded its use in Europe by many centuries. Islamic Origins of the European Renaissance Many Eurocentric scholars trace the origins of the “modern European dynamic” to the Renaissance, which allegedly furnished the Europeans

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with the necessary “scientific rationality” and “individualism” upon which modernity is based. In the conventional historiography, the Renaissance was supposedly a rediscovery of pure ancient Greek science: “Europe took nothing from the east without which modern science could not have been created; on the other hand, what it borrowed was valuable only because it was incorporated in the European intellectual tradition. And this, of course, was founded in [ancient] Greece” (Hall 1962, p. 6). But this obscures the point that many of the crucial ideas that underpinned the European Renaissance and the subsequent Scientific Revolution were in fact derived from the Middle East, and diffused across the Islamic Bridge of the World through what I call Oriental globalization (on which more later). Occasionally, however, Eurocentric writers concede that some of the Renaissance ideas came from the Middle East. But in this version, the Muslims are portrayed simply as holders or translators of the ancient Greek texts, and that all the Muslims did was simply return them whence they originated—what one scholar calls the “warehouse model of transmission” (Ghazanfar 2006). Thus we are typically told that “[u]ltimately the mantle of the Greeks passed to the Islamic world, where in the bosom of Allah, the Hellenic heritage was kept in custody until Western interest rekindled” (Wertheim 1996, p. 35). In short, the Muslims are portrayed as but mere librarians rather than original thinkers. Though a neat story, it fails to square with the considerable evidence which points to the many independent Eastern ideas that permeated the European Renaissance. Interestingly, the backdrop to all this reveals a truly multicivilizational network of ideas that were crafted together in the Middle East. How did this occur? In the early ninth century CE the seventh Abbasid caliph, al-Ma’muˉn, founded the “House of Wisdom” (Bayt al-Hikmah) in Baghdad where inter alia Greek works—especially those of Ptolemy, Archimedes and Euclid— were translated into Arabic. But Arab scholars also drew heavily on Persian, Indian and Chinese texts on medicine, mathematics, phi losophy, theology, literature and poetry. They then crafted a new corpus of knowledge— sometimes with the help of Jewish scientists and translators—that was not only more than simply an amalgam of Greek thought but one that was often critical of Greek ideas and took them much further, if not in new directions. This process was aided by the fact that Baghdad stood at the centre of the global economy and not only received new Asian ideas but, having reworked them, transmitted them across to Islamic Spain. Increasingly after 1000, Europeans rushed to translate the Islamic scientific texts into Latin. The fall of Spanish Toledo in 1085 was especially significant, for it was here where many European intellectuals gained access to Islamic technical books. Learning from Islam was continued on by the Spanish King Alfonso X (1252–1284), largely through Jewish intermediaries (as did the Portuguese kings). Of the many examples on offer, notable here is that in 1266 Ibn Khalaf al-Muraˉdıˉ’s important

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text, The Book of Secrets about the Results of Thoughts, was translated at the Toledan Court. This text and many others have furnished the Iberians with a great deal of Islam’s innovations. Finally, the Italians also directly learned of these ideas both through their trading links with the Middle East and during the Crusades. This claim, of course, is immediately counter-intuitive given the traditional Eurocentric assumption that the Renaissance thinkers themselves were anxious to forge a new European identity that was independent of the Islamic world. Indeed “the return to the classical [Greek] world was seen as the answer to the [perceived] threat from Islam to European culture” (Goody 2004, p. 48). And so we come to the first of the four paradoxes of the Renaissance: that it was in part created to differentiate Europe from Islam and yet it was from Islam that the Renaissance scholars drew so many of their new ideas. How then did Islamic thinkers help shape the Renaissance and the subsequent Scientific Revolution? A rapid sketch looks as follows (for a fuller discussion see: Hobson 2004, pp. 173–183; Goody 2004, pp. 56–83; Joseph 1992, Chapter 10, and this volume [chapter two]; Bala 2006, and this volume [chapter one]; Ghazanfar 2006; Raju 2007). Mainly after the eighth century CE, Islamic breakthroughs in mathematics were particularly important. These included the development of algebra and trigonometry. The former term was taken from the translation of the title of one of al-Khwaˉrizmıˉ’s mathematical texts. And by the beginning of the tenth century all six of the classical trigonometric functions had been defined and tabulated by Muslim mathematicians. Developments in public health, hygiene and medicine were also notable. Al-Raˉzıˉ’s medical works were translated and reprinted in Europe some forty times between 1498 and 1866. And Ibn Sıˉnaˉ’s Canon of Medicine became the founding text for European medical schools between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries. The Muslims developed numerous medicines and anaesthetics and pioneered the study of anatomy. They were also keen astrologers and astronomers, and their ideas were avidly borrowed by the Europeans. Ibn al-Shaˉtir’s mathematical models bore a remarkable resemblance to those used by Copernicus 150 years later. And as early as the ninth century, al-Khwaˉrizmıˉ calculated the circumference of the Earth to within 41 metres. Last but not least, the Baconian idea that science should be based on the experimental method had already been discovered by the Muslims. It was the Muslims, and not the Ancient Greeks nor the modern Europeans who made this pioneering breakthrough (upon which all subsequent Western science has been based). It is generally assumed that one of the vital aspects of the Renaissance was a key development in art: the invention of single-point perspective. Previously artists painted an object or person from a variety of different angles rather than from a singular point perspective. Moreover, the size or scale of the subject was based on the importance of the person being depicted, rather than being a ref lection of his or her actual size. Generally, the inventor of this perspective is thought to be the Italian Renaissance

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painter, Filippo Bruneschelli, around 1425. But this approach was already developed some 400 years earlier by the famous Muslim scholar, Ibn alHaytham (Alhazen), in his optical theory. Indeed “to represent the world as it is or as it appeared to the eye of the observer—without the interposition of idealizations or spiritual projections—became a real possibility and excited Renaissance artists. . . . The world now could be considered to have become transparent to the human visual gaze” (Bala 2006, p. 91). In addition, al-Haytham’s other major contribution was in helping promote the turn to mathematical realism—a formulation that broke fundamentally with Greek thinking (Bala 2006: Chapter 7). And, no less significantly, the Baconian idea that science should be based on the experimental method was one that had been pioneered by the Muslims and the likes of al-Haytham (and not the Greeks). Of course, one possible Eurocentric reply would be to say that this might well have been merely coincidence in order to allow for the possibility of independent European invention. But apart from the fact that we now know that numerous Europeans translated the Islamic texts and used them for many centuries thereafter, nevertheless it is worth returning to the initial point made above. That is, there were numerous channels by which Islamic knowledge reached Europe, including via Islamic Spain or Italy (which was in direct trading contact with Egypt) or through Portugal, where the Portuguese monarchs employed Jewish scientists and scholars who translated many Islamic texts, or even via the Crusades. But in the light of all this there were three further cruel paradoxes in addition to the one already discussed that immediately come to light. The second paradox lay in the point that at the very time when the Muslims were supplying all these crucial ideas to the Europeans, the latter demonized Islam and waged war on the Muslims through the first wave of the Crusades (1095–1291) and subsequently through the second wave that was initiated by Columbus and da Gama (post-1492/1498). Third, the Europeans subsequently claimed disingenuously that they had independently come up with all the ideas themselves. Here Rajani Kanth’s words are relevant: “Only slowly are the astonishing . . . scientific achievements of non-European societies coming to light; and they give the dispositive lie to European primacy, let alone supremacy” (Kanth 2005, p. 38). Fourth, and finally, having denounced Islam as regressive and intellectually irrational, the Europeans used this constructed view to justify waging war on the “backward and irrational” Muslims. And no less cruel is that in the light of the current war on terror, it would seem that little has changed in the last millennium. Islamic Origins of the European “Voyages of Discovery” Eurocentric historians celebrate the post-1492 European Age of Discovery (think of Columbus and da Gama) as a sign of the Europeans’ superior scientific, military and nautical/navigational prowess as well as their precocious

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geographical curiosity. More specifically, Westerners pride themselves that it was a European—Vasco da Gama—who first sailed round the Cape of Good Hope in 1497 and “discovered” a hitherto isolated and primitive Indian race. And in linking up the backward and isolated East with the advanced and progressive West, so he supposedly broke down the Eastern walls or barriers to civilization and thereby inadvertently laid the foundations for what later came to be known as globalization. This parochial story is undermined in the first instance by the fact that about fifty years earlier the famous Islamic navigator, Ahmad ibn-Maˉ jid, sailed round the Cape from the Middle East, up the west coast of Africa and into the Mediterranean via the Strait of Gibraltar (Tibbetts 1971, pp. 206–208). Noteworthy too is that da Gama only made it across to India with the invaluable help provided by a Gujarati-Muslim pilot (known as Kanha), whom he fortuitously picked up at Malindi on the east coast of Africa. Moreover, it is possible though not certain that Kanha also showed da Gama a remarkably detailed map of India before he set sail to cross the Arabian Sea. But most irksome of all is the point that virtually all of the navigational and nautical technologies used by da Gama—the square hull and stern post rudder, the lateen sail and triple mast system, the astrolabe and compass, as well lunar cycles charts, solar calendars, and latitude/longitude tables—were borrowed from either China or the Middle East. Accordingly, without the help from the Muslims, it is debateable as to whether there would ever have been an era that is, in all likelihood, disingenuously called the European “Age of Discovery” (on which more below). Oceanic sailing provided new challenges to the Iberians both in terms of shipping design and navigation. But as Patricia Seed points out, they turned to the Easterners—especially the Muslims via the Jews—to solve these numerous challenges (Seed 1995, pp. 107–128). The first challenge was the need to tack into the strong head-winds that blew up south of Cape Bojador on the west coast of Africa. This was solved in the 1440s by the construction of caravels that had a stern-post rudder and were rigged with three masts, one of which bore a lateen sail. Nevertheless the origins of the caravel date back to the thirteenth century when the Portuguese built small fishing boats that were based on the Islamic qaˉ rib (Elbl 1994, p. 91). The lateen sail was a crucial invention because without it the Iberians would have been unable to sail past the Cape Bojador (on the western tip of Africa) owing to the fact that the square sail is unable to tack into oncoming winds that prevail there. It is noteworthy, however, that Lynn White (1978, pp. 255–260), drawing on Lionel Casson (1971, pp. 243–245), insists that the lateen sail was a Roman invention and offers up five main justifications for this. First of all, he claims that two separate pictures of Roman boats are rigged with a lateen sail (one found on a second century tombstone and the other on a fourth century mosaic). But this is questioned by Joseph Needham who suggests that the picture of a Roman ship with a lateen sail depicted on a tombstone of the second century could have been a square sail (Needham,

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Ling and Gwei-Djen 1971, p. 609, note g.). And the other picture (dated to the fourth century) does not provide conclusive evidence of a Roman invention given that the Persians would have been using lateen sail-rigged dhows at that time. Second, White claims, following Jules Sottas, that a lateen sail was deployed on three large Eastern Roman ships in 533 (Sottas 1939, pp. 229–230). But as Richard Bowen points out, it seems more logical . . . that the triangular sails refer to triangular top sails, which were standard gear on Roman square-rigged ships after 50 AD” (Bowen 1949, p. 7, note 9). Note that the triangular top sails were horizontally, not vertically, mounted and did not function as a lateen. Third, White points to the famous sketch, made around 880, of a European ship sporting a lateen sail in the Mediterranean. But it turns out that this sketch, which was originally revealed by Jal in 1848 is, according to Brindley, “so finished that its accuracy is doubtful; it is too unlike ninth century work in this respect” (Brindley 1926, p. 9). More importantly, though unsurprisingly, Brindley proves that the date is wrong (given that the original reference displayed in the Bibliothèque Nationale, though of the ninth century, is in fact to an ancient king rather than a ship bearing a lateen sail). Fourth and finally, White concludes that it was the Portuguese caravel that was the vehicle which relayed the invention to the Muslims (who in turn used it first only in the sixteenth century). But as we noted above, the origins of the caravel date back to the thirteenth century when the Portuguese built small fishing boats that were based on the Islamic qaˉ rib. Moreover, we know that the Sassanid Persians were sailing to India and beyond via the Persian Gulf from the third and fourth centuries. And by the mid-seventh century the Muslims were sailing the length of the Indian Ocean and beyond. The critical point here is that it would have been impossible for the Persian and Arab ships to have returned home with a square-sail because of the Gulf ’s prevailing northerly winds. For without the lateen sail there would have been no Middle Eastern ships plying the Indian Ocean that we actually observe. In sum, it is not possible to conclude that the Persians or Arabs definitively invented the lateen sail—though equally it is not possible to dismiss its possibility. Nevertheless it is highly probable that it was the Muslims, and not the Europeans, who, having refined it over a long period of time, passed it on to the latter thereby enabling Vasco da Gama to set sail in 1497. In turn, the lateen sail threw up a major navigational challenge. Because the lateen sail led to a zigzagging (or triangular) sailing path, this necessarily made it much harder to calculate the linear distance travelled. This was solved by the use of geometry and trigonometry, which had been developed by, and was borrowed from, the Muslim mathematicians (as we noted earlier). A further challenge to oceanic navigation was posed by the strong tides south of Cape Bojador, which could beach a ship or simply destroy it. To solve this required knowledge of the lunar cycles (since the moon governs the tides). At the end of the fourteenth century this knowledge was developed by the Jewish cartographer resident in

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Portugal—Jacob ben Abraham Cresques. Yet another challenge was the need for more accurate navigational charts than those already available (ie., the Portolan). This was solved by turning to Islamic astronomy, which enabled them to calculate the size of the earth and thereby calculate the distance traveled by using degrees. The astrolabe was especially important. But while it first emerged in Ancient Greece, nevertheless its details were never clear and the references to it are few and far between. It was, however, the Muslims who undertook all the major innovations that can be traced back probably to al-Fazaˉrıˉ in the mid-eighth century (and not Maˉshaˉ’allaˉh as has been sometimes claimed). By the ninth century the astrolabe was in regular production and had diffused into Europe via Islamic Spain by the mid-tenth century (Kunitzsch 1989: Chapters 8, 10). Interestingly, the apparently oldest Latin text on the astrolabe, Sententie astrolabi (from late tenth-century Northern Spain) is heavily reliant on various Islamic texts including al-Khwaˉ rıˉzmi’s treatise on the astrolabe (Kunitzsch 1989: Chapter 9). But equally as impressive were the many refinements that were pioneered by various Islamic astronomers, which enabled the regular use of the astrolabe by later Europeans. The Portuguese also needed to establish precise location in daytime hours. Here they relied on the suggestions made by the prominent Córdovan Muslim astronomer, Ibn al-Saff aˉ r (whose treatise had been translated into Latin). They no less borrowed Islamic innovations in mathematics in order to work out latitude and longitude, relying on the Islamic tables developed by an eleventh-century Muslim astronomer. Moreover, calculating latitude also required knowledge of the solar year (since the sun’s declination was pivotal to such calculations). Once again, they turned to the sophisticated Islamic and Jewish solar calendars that had already been developed in the eleventh century. All in all, the contemporary, Pedro Nunes, boasted in 1537 that: “it is evident that the discoveries of coasts, islands, continents has not occurred by chance, but to the contrary, our sailors have departed very well informed, provided with instruments and rules of astronomy and geometry” (Nunes cited in Seed 1995, p. 126). Indeed they were very well informed. But they only were so because of the breakthroughs in Jewish, though mainly Islamic, science upon which the so-called Portuguese Voyages of Discovery were based. To close this discussion, it is worth returning to the point made at the beginning of this section, where we noted that without the help of the unnamed Muslim-Gujarati pilot da Gama might never have arrived in India. That the influence of the Islamic navigator had indeed been extremely important was revealed by the fact that on the return journey his absence meant that da Gama was extremely lucky to have made it back at all. As the record in the Journal of the First Voyage of Vasco da Gama explains: Owing to frequent calms and foul winds it took us three months less three days to cross this gulf [i.e., the Arabian Sea], and all our

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people . . . suffered from their gums, which grew over their teeth, so that they could not eat. Their legs also swelled, and other parts of the body, and these swellings spread until the sufferer died. . . . Thirty of our men died in this manner . . . and those able to navigate each ship were only seven or eight, and even these were not as well as they ought to have been. I assure you that if this state of affairs had continued for another fortnight, there would have been no men at all to navigate the ships. (cited in Ravenstein n.d., p. 87) Later on they were forced to burn one of the ships owing to the fact that there were simply not enough sailors to man them all. This contrasts with the Middle Eastern seafaring tradition that stems back over 2,000 years before da Gama set sail. And the irony here was that while da Gama sought a Crusade against Islam, it was the passing of Eastern—especially Islamic—“resource portfolios” via the Islamic Bridge of the World that had enabled him to undertake his journey in the first place. But despite all of this, perhaps the most significant point is the one alluded to earlier: that da Gama’s celebrated voyages might better be relabelled “voyages of rediscovery.” For the fact is that the Portuguese discovered nothing that had already not been well known to many of the Eastern peoples. Put differently, the Eurocentric discourse obscures the “Eastern age of discovery” that began as far back as about 500 CE, a discussion of which I now turn to. Middle Eastern Origins of the Global Economy and Oriental Globalization, c.500–1800 The emergence of Oriental globalization owed its origins to the Eastern Age of Discovery after 500 CE. An important backdrop to this was the formation of a series of interlinked regions or “empires.” These comprised T’ang China (618–907), the Islamic Ummayad/Abbasid Empire in West Asia (661–1258), the Islamic Ummayad polity in Spain (756–1031), and the Fatimids in North Africa (909–1171). Moreover the kingdom of S´rıˉvijaya in Sumatra was important in that it constituted the vital entrepôt that connected China to the Indian Ocean between the seventh and thirteenth centuries. These inter-linked regions were vital in promoting an extensively pacified space that fostered considerable trade and enabled the transmission of the more advanced Eastern “resource portfolios” (ideas, institutions and technologies) across to Europe. While a number of capitalist agents were important here—including Africans, Jews, Indians, Chinese, and Javanese—the prime role in setting up the global economy was performed by the Muslims. The global economy comprised three prime routes, though the two most important ones were the Middle and Southern routes, both of which were presided over by the Muslims (Abu-Lughod 1989). The Middle route had a land

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component that linked the Eastern Mediterranean with China and India, and a sea route that passed through the Persian Gulf. The Southern route linked the Alexandria-Cairo–Red Sea complex with the Arabian Sea and then, as with the Middle sea route, the Indian Ocean and beyond to Southeast Asia, China and Japan. These routes ensured that Europe was fundamentally connected to the Afro-Asian-led global economy after about the eighth century, albeit mainly in an indirect way down to 1498. And even during the period of so-called Western hegemons from Venice onwards, all such powers were dependent upon Eastern trade for their survival. Thus with the “Fall of Acre” in 1291, the Venetians came to rely on the dominant Southern route that was presided over by the Islamic Egyptians. As Abu-Lughod claims, “Whoever controlled the sea-route to Asia could set the terms of trade for a Europe now in retreat. From the thirteenth century and upto the sixteenth that power was Egypt” (Abu-Lughod 1989, p. 149). Moreover, Venetian trade did not dry up after 1291 but continued on, especially given that the Venetians managed to circumvent the Papal ban and secured new treaties with the Sultan in 1355 and 1361. And right down to 1517, Venice survived because Egypt played such an important role within the global economy. Moreover, after 1517 Venice continued its trading connection through the Ottomans. Nevertheless, Eurocentrism claims that after 1492/1498 the Portuguese and Spanish initiated the process of proto-globalization, before the global baton of power was passed on to the Dutch and then the English. But in fact European trading connections intensified thanks largely to the role played by the Muslims and Indians but, above all, the Chinese who sat at or near the centre of the global economy between c. 1450 and c. 1800. With respect to the Muslims it is important to recognize the important roles played by the Ottoman and Safavid empires. Thus while Eurocentric historians claim that the mainstream of global trade was presided over by the Portuguese after 1498, all that was really happening was that the Portuguese were joining the mainstream trade that was presided over by the Ottomans and, albeit to a lesser extent, the Persians. For despite all the talk of the superiority of the Cape route, the fact is that far more trade passed from the East to Europe via the Levant, which had arrived from the Red Sea (Southern) route, the Persian Gulf (the Middle route) and via the overland caravan routes. Noteworthy here is that with respect to the items that the Portuguese supposedly held a trading monopoly in—pepper and spices—the fact is that three times more came across via the Red Sea route and the overland caravan routes than via the Cape route (Steensgaard 1974, pp. 155–169). Moreover, a good deal more silver and bullion passed across these Muslim empires than via the Cape route (Haider 1996; Subrahmanyam 1994, pp. 197–201). Of course, the equation of Islam with capitalist activity immediately stands at odds with the traditional Eurocentric assumption that the two are antithetical. This dovetails with the Eurocentric assumption that

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empires are economically regressive (which feeds into the Oriental despotism thesis). Apart from the fact that Muhammad had been a commenda (qiraˉd) trader who had married a rich Quarayshi woman whose family had made its fortune through banking, it is instructive to brief ly consider some of the linkages between Islam and capitalism, some of which can be found in the Qu’raˉn. According to Maxime Rodinson’s detailed examination he asserts that the Qu’raˉn, “Does not merely say that one must not forget one’s portion of the world, it also says that it is proper to combine the practice of religion and material life, carrying on trade even during pilgrimages and goes so far as to maintain commercial profit under the name of ‘God’s Bounty’ ” (Rodinson 1974, p. 14). Islam prescribed that businessmen could more effectively conduct a pilgrimage than those who did only physical labour. Indeed the Qu’raˉn states that: If thou profit by doing what is permitted, thy deed is a djihaˉd. . . . And if thou invest it for thy family and kindred, this will be a Sadaqa [that is, a pious work of charity]; and truly, a dhiram [drachma, silver coin] lawfully gained from trade is worth more than ten dhirams gained in any other way. (Rodinson 1974, pp. 16–17) And Muhammad’s saying that “Poverty is almost like an apostasy,” implies that the true servant of God should be aff luent or at least economically independent. The booths of the money-changers in the great mosque of the camp-town Kufa possibly illustrate the fact that there was no necessary conf lict between business and religion in Islam. (Goitein 1968, pp. 228–229) It is also significant that the Qu’raˉn stipulates the importance of investment. And while we usually consider the Sharıˉa (the Islamic sacred law) as the root of despotism and economic backwardness, it was in fact created as a means to prevent the abuse of the rulers’ or caliphs’ power and moreover, it set out clear provisions for contract law. Not surprisingly there was a rational reason why the Islamic merchants were strong supporters of the Sharıˉa. Furthermore, there were clear signs of greater personal freedom within Islam than in medieval Europe. Offices were determined on the basis of “egalitarian contractual responsibilities.” And these entailed notions of rationality that were, according to Hodgson, closer to the modern notion of geselleschaft than to traditional notions of gemeinschaft (Hodgson 1993, pp. 111–116, 141). Ultimately Islam’s comparative advantage lay in its considerable “extensive” power. That is, Islam was able to conquer horizontal space, realized most fully in its ability to spread and diffuse across large parts of the globe, as well as in its ability to spread capitalism. The centre of Islam, Mecca, was in turn one of the centres of the global trading network. Islam’s power spread rapidly after the seventh century so that the Mediterranean

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became in effect a Muslim Lake, and “Western Europe” a promontory within the Afro-Asian global economy. Islam spread not only westwards to Christendom but also eastwards right across to India, Southeast Asia, and China, as well as southwards into Africa through either religious or commercial inf luence (and often both). Its economic reach was extraordinary for the time. So much so that one scholar has aptly stated that, “the self-evident fact must be accepted that they [the Arabs] were among the pioneers of commerce in those far-away countries and that perhaps, as Tibbets suggests, they acted as middlemen in the trade between China and South-east Asia” (Di Meglio 1970, p. 126). Certainly by the ninth century—as various contemporary documents confirm—there was one long, continuous line of transcontinental trade pioneered by Islamic merchants, reaching from China to the Mediterranean (Abu-Lughod 1989, p. 199; Hourani 1963, p. 62). Islam rapidly became an urban society that was nourished by longdistance trade. Indeed the picture of a dense urban trading network counters the traditional Eurocentric vision of Islam as a desert populated by nomads. As Marshall Hodgson put it, Islam was “no ‘monotheism of the desert,’ born of the Bedouins’ awed wonder at the vast openness of sky and land . . . Islam grew out of a long tradition of urban religion and it was as city-oriented as any variant of that tradition” (Hodgson 1993, p. 133). Maxime Rodinson reinforces the general claim being made here: the density of commercial relations within the Muslim world constituted a sort of world market . . . of unprecedented dimensions. The development of exchange had made possible regional specialisation in industry and agriculture. . . . Not only did the Muslim world know a capitalistic sector, but this sector was apparently the most extensive and highly developed in history before the [modern period]. (Rodinson 1970, p. 56) As noted earlier, the Middle Eastern Ummayads (661–750), Abbasids (750–1258) and North African Fatimids (909–1171) were especially important, serving to unite various arteries of long-distance trade known in antiquity between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean. These included the Red Sea (the Southern route) and the Persian Gulf (the Middle route). The Abbasid capital, Baghdad, was linked to the Persian Gulf route, which in turn fanned out through the Indian Ocean and beyond into the South China Sea as well as the East China Sea. The contemporary, al-Ya’quˉbi (c. 875), described Baghdad as the “water-front to the world,” while al-Mansuˉr proclaimed that “there is no obstacle to us and China; everything on the sea can come to us on it” (cited in Hourani 1963, p. 64). Other Islamic ports were also important, especially Sıˉraˉf on the Persian Gulf (on the coast of Iran south of Shıˉraˉz), which was the major terminus for goods from China and Southeast Asia. In addition to the sea routes, perhaps the most famous was the overland route to China, along

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which caravans passed through the Iranian cities of Tabriz, Hamadan and Nishapur to Bukhara and Samarkand in Transoxiana, and then on to either China or India. Marco Polo (the “Ibn Battuˉta of Europe”) was particularly impressed by Tabriz: The people of Tabriz live by trade and industry. . . . The city is so favorably situated that it is a market for merchandise from India and Baghdad, from Mosul and Hormuz, and from many other places; and many Latin merchants come here to buy the merchandise imported from foreign lands. It is also a market for precious stones, which are found here in great abundance. It is a city where good profits are made by travelling merchants. (cited in Bloom and Blair 2001, p. 164) Finally, between about 650 and 1000 the Islamic Middle East and North Africa occupied the leading edge of global productive power. Eric Jones claims that the Abbasid Caliphate was the first region to achieve per capita economic growth (supposedly the leitmotif of modern capitalism) ( Jones 1988: Chapter 3). Fernand Braudel described the economic activity of Islam after 800 in the following terms: “Capitalist” is not too anachronistic a word. From one end of Islam’s world connections to the other, speculators unstintingly gambled on trade. One Arab author, Hariri had a merchant declare: “I want to send Persian saffron to China, where I hear that it fetches a high price, and then ship Chinese porcelain to Greece, Greek brocade to India, Indian iron to Aleppo, Aleppo glass to the Yemen and Yemeni striped material to Persia.” In Basra, settlements between merchants were made by what we would now call a clearing system. (Braudel 1995, p. 71) A string of Islamic intensive (productive) innovations and technological/ ideational refinements was crucial here. These comprised, inter alia, paper manufacturing, which began after 751, and textile-manufacturing with both Syria and Iraq being famous for their silk manufactures, while Egypt led the way in linen and woolen fabrics. Moreover, Islamic production extended to sugar-refinement, construction, furniture manufacture, glass, leather tanning, pottery, and stone cutting (Goitein 1961). Interestingly, Egyptian sugarcane production was a leading global industry and extensively exported its refined “sukkar” across much of the world (hence the term “sugar”). Muslims also used impressive dyes. Added to this list of Islamic gifts that were bequeathed to Europe were the Gothic arch and other architectural developments, developments in music, agriculture, and foods such as oranges, lemons, apricots, bananas, courgettes, artichokes and, last but not least, coffee. Islamic inf luence is revealed by the many Arabic (and Persian) terms that were imported into European languages. Chemicals known as mordants were needed to make dyes

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colorfast, especially Alkali (from the Arabic word al-kali, “ashes”). Saffron comes from the Arabic zafaran. The word damask derives from Damascus, muslin from the city of Mosul, and organdy from the city of Urgench in Central Asia. Mohair comes from the Arabic word mukhayyir (meaning the best), and taffeta from taftan (the Persian verb, “to spin”), paper (hence the English word “ream” from the Arabic term “rismah”) (Bloom and Blair 2001, pp. 110–111). All in all, then, it seems more reasonable to talk of the European “voyages of rediscovery” given that the Muslims and other Easterners had linked up much of the Afro-Eurasian region through a relatively dense network of trading arteries. Thus while the “discovery” of India by da Gama might well have been a revelation to the backward Europeans it was merely yesteryear’s news to the Easterners. Moreover, da Gama and his Dutch and British successors did not set up the era of proto-globalization. For there were no civilizational walls to batter down since these had already been done away with over the previous millennium, mainly at the hands of the Muslims. Put differently, all da Gama and his successors were really doing was directly joining the global economy that had been constructed by the Muslims and others (within which the Europeans had been indirectly linked to the Eastern economies during the previous six centuries). As a result of all this, the final gift that the Muslims bequeathed to the Europeans was in passing across to the latter all manner of technologies, institutions, ideas and inventions that were pioneered beyond the Middle East. In this crucial sense, the Islamic Middle East constituted the bridge of the world, linking Europe up with the wider Eastern world, whose inventions played such a crucial role in stimulating the rise of the West. Arguably in the absence of the manifold Islamic contributions between 650 and 1900 (the latter date representing Europe’s breakthrough to industrial capitalism), most likely Europe would have remained on the backward periphery of the Islamic-led global economy where it found itself in the aftermath of the Roman Empire. Put differently, had Islam not emerged, the Europeans might never have got to a point where they could strut the world stage in the first place and ask such questions as “What have the Muslims ever done for us?’ Conclusion So what does all this tell us about the Islamophobic rhetoric that underpins the war on terror and the presumptions that stand behind Kilroy Silk’s question? It should be clear by now that the presumption that the West single-handedly created modern capitalism cannot be sustained. Rather the West owes a great deal to the East in general and the Muslims in particular. Thus the familiar notion that the West created single-handedly the modern world appears as little more than Western parochialism. It is one thing to borrow or appropriate the East’s innovations, but another

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thing entirely to deny the East the recognition that it so richly deserves. Recognizing the Eastern contribution could bring a much-needed dose of humility, which is entirely absent from the not-infrequent conceited Western rhetoric that lies behind the war on terror. In the interests of global reconciliation, then, showing gratitude for the many things that the East in general and the Muslims in particular have bequeathed to the West might be a first-step to healing some of the wounds that the West has cruelly inf licted upon the East’s sense of self; something which, according to Osama bin Laden, began in 1922 with the carving up of the Ottoman Empire (though Western attacks, of course, stem back to the Crusades). But to sum up: only by incorrectly assuming that the East—and especially the Middle East—is a land that is foreign to “civilization”—can we continue to wage a barbaric war on an imaginary “barbaric” enemy. Kilroy Silk’s rhetorical question, then, might be better phrased from the point of view of the Muslims: “What have the Europeans ever done for us in return for all that we have done for them?” And here Kilroy Silk’s reply would be more fitting: very little bar imperial trouble and war. But, above all, we might do best by asking: “Apart from the noria, windmills, water-mills, irrigation techniques, commenda partnerships, bills of exchange and cheques/checks, credit institutions, insurance and banking, trigonometry, geometry, and algebra, medicine and anaesthetics, public health and hygiene, philosophy and theology, literature and poetry, astrology, astronomy, science, and the experimental method, cartography, navigational techniques including the astrolabe, lunar and solar calendars, longitude and latitude tables, the lateen sail, and last but not least, the creation of a global economy that delivered not only a vibrant stream of Eastern trade but more importantly the many Eastern inventions, institutions, ideas, technologies, production techniques and a list of foods and products far too numerous to list here, what have the Muslims ever done for us?” Bibliography Abu-Lughod, Janet L. (1989) Before European Hegemony (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Al-Hassan, Ahmad, and Donald R. Hill (1986) Islamic Technology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Bala, Arun (2006) The Dialogue of Civilizations in the Birth of Modern Science (Houndmills, UK: Palgrave Macmillan). Bloom, Jonathon, and Sheila Blair (2001) Islam: Empire of Faith (London: BBC Worldwide). Bowen, Richard LeBaron (1949) Arab Dhows of Eastern Arabia (Rehoboth, MA: Privately Published). Braudel, Fernand (1995) A History of Civilizations (London: Penguin). Brindley, H. H. (1926) “Early Pictures of Lateen Sails,” The Mariner’s Mirror 12(1). Casson, Lionel (1971) Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World (Princeton: Princeton University Press). Cipolla, Carlo (1993) Before the Industrial Revolution (London: Routledge). Di Meglio, Rita R. (1970) “Arab Trade with Indonesia and the Malay Peninsula from the 8th to the 16th Century,” in D. S. Richards (ed.), Islam and the Trade of Asia (Oxford: Bruno Cassirer).

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Elbl, Martin (1994) “The Caravel,” in Robert Gardiner (ed.), Cogs, Caravels and Galleons (London: Brasseys). Forbes, R. J. (1956) “Power,” in Charles Singer, E. J. Holmyard, A. R. Hall, and T. I. Williams (eds.), A History of Technology, II (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Frank, Andre Gunder (1998) ReOrient (Berkeley: University of California Press). Ghazanfar, S. M. (2006) Islamic Civilization: History, Contributions, and Influence (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press). Goitein, S. D. (1961) “The Main Industries of the Mediterranean Area as Ref lected in the Records of the Cairo Geniza,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 4(2), pp. 168–197. ——— (1967) A Mediterranean Society, I (Berkeley: University of California Press). ——— (1968) Studies in Islamic History and Institutions (Leiden: E. J. Brill). Goody, Jack (1996) The East in the West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). ——— (2004) Islam in Europe (Cambridge: Polity). Haider, Najaf (1996) “Precious Metals and Currency Circulation in the Mughal Empire,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 39(3), pp. 298–367. Hall, A. Rupert (1962) “General Introduction,” in Marie Boas (ed.), The Scientific Renaissance 1450–1630 (London: Collins). Hobson, John M. (2004) The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Hodgson, Marshall G. S. (1993) Rethinking World History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Hourani, George F. (1963) Arab Seafaring in the Indian Ocean in Ancient and Early Medieval Times (Beirut: Khayats). Jones, Eric L. (1988) Growth Recurring (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Joseph, George G. (1992) The Crest of the Peacock (London: Penguin). Kannepalli Kanth, Rajani (2005) Against Eurocentrism (New York: Palgrave Macmillan). Kister, M. J. (1965) “Mecca and Tamıˉm,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 8. Kunitzsch, Paul (1989) The Arabs and the Stars (Northampton, UK: Variorum). Needham, Joseph and Wang Ling (1965) Science and Civilisation in China, IV(2) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Needham, Joseph, Wang Ling, and Lu Gwei-Djen (1971) Science and Civilisation in China, IV(3) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Pacey, Arnold (1991) Technology in World Civilization (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press). Raju, C. K. (2007) Cultural Foundations of Mathematics, X(4) History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization (New Delhi: Pearson Education). Ravenstein, E. G. (ed.) (n.d.), A Journal of the First Voyage of Vasco da Gama, 1497–1499 (London: Bedford Press). Rodinson, Maxime (1974) Islam and Capitalism (London: Allen Lane). Said, Edward W. (2004) Power, Politics, and Culture (London: Bloomsbury). Seed, Patricia (1995) Ceremonies of Possession in Europe’s Conquest of the New World, 1492–1640 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Sottas, Jules (1939) “An Early Lateen Sail in the Mediterranean,” The Mariner’s Mirror 25. Steensgaard, Niels (1974) The Asian Trade Revolution of the Seventeenth Century (Chicago: Chicago University Press). Subrahmanyam, Sanjay (1994) “Precious Metal Flows and Prices in Western and Southern Asia, 1500–1750: Some Comparative and Conjunctural Aspects,” in S. Subrahmanyam (ed.), Money and the Market in India 1100–1700 (Delhi: Oxford University Press). Tibbetts, Gerald R. (1971) Arab Navigation in the Indian Ocean before the Coming of the Portuguese (London: Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland). Udovitch, Abraham L. (1970a) “Commercial Techniques in Early Medieval Islamic Trade,” in D. S. Richards (ed.), Islam and the Trade of Asia (Oxford: Bruno Cassirer). ——— (1970b) Partnership and Profit in Medieval Islam (Princeton: Princeton University Press). Wertheim, Margaret (1996) Pythagoras’ Trousers (London: Time Books). White, Lynn (1978) Medieval Religion and Technology (Berkeley: University of California Press).

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Eurocentrism: Policy and Prospects

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CH A P T E R

E L E V E N

Beyond Eurocentrism: The Next Frontier R aja n i K a n n e pa l l i K a n t h

Breaking with the Enlightenment, and its delusional Modes of Discourse, involves necessarily returning to our Organic Roots in Anthropic Society, radically rent for centuries by Modernist Revolutions. We need therefore to reconfigure our placement in the Universe, both Social and Natural, and Reclaim our Natural State of Autonomy and Self-Regulation. I offer here, in pithy “Thesis” format, an unravelment of Modernism in favor of the real Organa of Anthropic Existence. 1. In its most basic sense, Politics, en generale, is simply the Relations between Competing Orders of Men. More specifically, it refers to the Modalities of Masculinity as expressed in the “Public” Domain whose very illimitable extension is an index of the Atrophy of the “Domestic Economy of Affections,” i.e., Convivial Relations. 2. Economics, on the other hand, refers to the Momenta of the Material Life, and takes Two General Forms: (a) One, the efforts invested in garnering a conventional subsistence which is originally a “Feminine,” Non-Modernist activity, involving various Reciprocities with/within both Natural and Communitarian resources; and the Other (b), the uniquely Male-driven search for “Command over Resources,” i.e., a “Surplus,” potential or actual, involving Asymmetrical and Adversarial relations between Disparate Cadres of Men, in overlordship over “Other” Men and Women, Other Species, and Nature. It is this latter thrust [peaking under Modernism, but far from unique to it] that merges concordantly with the Masculinist Politics described above. 3. The “Social” is simply the Matrix of Familial Relations centered on the Modalities of Child-Rearing, and Child-Care, and is therefore, again, a uniquely Feminine site of Praxis. Theorem# A: Women and Children form the irreducible Familial Units of Anthropic Society., upon which Men impinge and intrude as Itinerants only. a) The ordinary Anthropic State is one of Tribalism—the Anthropic version of Mammalian Herds—which is an extension of the Familial/ Kin Principle.

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b) In essence, Humans exist as both Pack and Herd animals .Modernism breaks the Tribal Tie, by invention of the Novel Domain of “Civil Society”—not an Anthropic Society at all—which is the ultimate home of the arid, Masculinist Paradigm shorn of all Affective Affinities. 4. Culture is a Hierarchical ordering of Values, Tastes, and Preferences, whose tone, form, and content, are set by the historically specific Gender Balance of Ideologies and Practices extant in a given Eco-society at a given Moment of Evolution. The wide divergence in the Cultures of Patriarchy is accounted for by this, amongst other factors. 5. And Civilization, i.e., the Pacification of Anthropic Existence, is the extent to [and intensity with] which essentially Feminine Hospitalities, as conceived within the Familial Moment, are extended in evolution—with, by, and through the consent of the Ruling Patriarchs who are ever the Final Arbiters of Power—in a given culture, to the full range of Anthropic activities and possibilities. a) Stated differently, Theorem# B: “Civilization” is simply the extent to which the “Feminine Principle” trumps inherent Masculinist proclivities; b) As such, Theorem# C: Gender struggles, not Class struggles, are the true determinant of this “Civilizing” process. 6. Women are, perennially, not merely the prime Bearers of Conviviality, but through their affective activities essentially found (and are the progenitors of ) the Affective Society, and become the Guarantors, even in Patriarchical Empires, of what we might understand as the Prerequisites of Civilization. 7. Religion is not necessarily, “false consciousness,” despite infiltration into its discourse by ruling orders who seek to manipulate it, but is our Original Paradigm of Anthropic Awareness of the Universe. It needs only the on-going enrichment of Non-Modernist Science and Philosophy, as available in all PreModernist frames, to arrive at profundity. It can serve as Opiate, but is more often, an Amphetamine. Theorem# D: Religion is uniquely PreModernist [the bulk of it is NonEuropean as well; the only heartfelt religion Modernist Europe has bequeathed us is the Worship of Mammon] in provenance; its late surrogates within later-day Modernism are but desperate, reactive efforts to counter/resist burgeoning Modernist Inhospitalities. 8. In European history, Church and State fought it out because Catholic Ideology was resistant to the needs of Capital Accumulation. Theorem# E: There is no need for us all to Universalize, permanently, a passing footnote in European History. Theorem# F: The Protestant Revolution “modernized,” i.e., subverted, the Anti-Materialist import of Classical Christianity. In Eastern/Traditional Formations, Religion provided, as in Medieval Europe, both a Code of Propriety and Conduct and a Repository of Anthropic Knowledge. In ancient Vedic Civilization, for example, Science, Religion, and Philosophy, are virtually indistinguishable.

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Theorem# G: This integration of Religion and Science is equally true of all Tribal and Traditional Formations. Modernism virtually invents/ concocts the Self-Divisive Society, par excellence, permanently at War with Itself. Besides, to ask why we are here in the first place is the very First Anthropic Query, and is the locus classicus of the Religious Impulse: Modernist Science has little to offer here, and can claim no monopoly on Answers to such queries. Theorem# H: We must not impose Modernist Divisive Grids on such organically integrated systems. Modernist Knowledge, where it is not blatantly counterfactual, is purchased at the dear, and dire, cost of Traditional Wisdoms. 9. Formal “Equality,” the dissembling slogan of Modernism, is far from being an Anthropic virtue, and is absent as a serious demand, in all NonModernist Formations. As an ideology, Modernist Equality is arguably the Alien, Individualist Antidote to Caring, Civility, and Corespective behaviors. Theorem# I: Anthropic Hierarchies, based on Trusteeship, are Anthropic Universals and are not inferior to abstract, barren, and, more to the point, fictitious Modernist Equalities which leave us cold, separate, isolate, and uncared for. 10. “Liberty,” in its Modernist usage, is, similarly, a Negative, Anti-social Ideology born again of a Reactionary Corporatism. Substantively understood, it is emphatically not a Modernist invention, nor even a Modernist Condition, except in its characteristically Anti-social, Corporatist, and Alien(ating) form. Under European conditions, Libertarian Sloganeering devolved from the need of emergent industrial oligarchies to be free of customary, traditional restraints that curbed their Manifests of Expropriation. And, in its Individualist Variant, as pervades the Subject Orders within Modernism, it privileges only a Hobbesian Estrangement from others, which is no great boon. Indeed, such Asocial Liberties would spell, and have so spelt, the moral failure [collapse] of society at the very moment of their success. Theorem# J: Modernism has invented neither Individuals nor Individualism, except in their Asocial, Misanthropic, and perverse forms. 11. Putative Democracy, reducing only to a formal voting rule, is not a virtue, either, and is again a tendentious Tool of Modernism, an artifice originally to resolve differences peaceably within the Ruling Strata. Majority Rule, its concomitant, is both divisive and corrosive, and breeds only anger and discontent. Traditional formations pursue a far more effective and satisfactory Mode of Participation: Consensus-building—which takes Aeons to achieve, but which leaves none behind. Theorem# K: Hominids seek Autonomy, which is Communitarian and Cultural, in the extreme, not abstract freedoms. Theorem# L: Modernism destroys all Autonomies in favor of mechanical Dependencies, created by either Market or State. 12. The Anthropic Family is an exemplary, pedagogical model of a natural and traditional institution; it is not based on Equality, Freedom, or Democracy—and yet offers the human animal all the nurturance vitally

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necessary for survival. Now imagine, in context, the madness of the High Modernist Marx and Engels who hoped, astonishingly, in some of their wilder fantasies, to “abolish the family.” Theorem# M: In much the same way that Economics has no understanding of Anthropic Needs, Modernism has no understanding of our Species-Being, or our real, flesh and blood, State of Being. Whilst knowing better, despite its long-standing Physics-Envy, Modernism tendentiously likens us to free-fending Atoms, i.e., standard, homogeneous and, above all, Manipulable Entities. 13. The Escape from Alienation is given by Delinking—be it Individually, in Groups, and/or as Communities—Epistemically and Ontically, from the variegated Logics of Modernism, so we can reconstruct our lives free from Modernist Delusions/Practices. This does not involve, at least directly, any need to “seize the Winter Palace,” or confront power violently, which is the Eternal Masculinist Temptation. In effect, Modernism is Self-Subverting; minus our willful consent to its Epistemes, its Hegemony simply ceases to be. 14. More explicitly, to be Whole, we need to bring our Lives and Labors under Self-Direction and infuse all our inherited, arid, and barren, Modernist roles, which confer no benediction, with real meaning, so next time you say “have a nice day” in that routine, disembodied all-American way: mean it, and you might even surprise yourself, Theorem# N: Modernism fails to survive scrutiny when confronted seriously with its own Myths. To challenge Modernism we need to Quiz/Query the Formal Rationality of the System with Substantive Rationality, Formal Justice with Substantive Justice, Formal Education with Real Education, and so on, in our daily lives. Theorem# O: By Demanding the Impossible, as above, albeit in a routine way, we expose convincingly the hollow Charades of Modernism. 15. Life, just possibly, is meant to be lived, not theorized. Theorem# P: There is no need for a Social Science, only Social Empathy. In effect, the most pervasive Transcendent Anthropic Need is to huddle. Even within Masculinist Patriarchy, we are Heat seeking, not Light seeking Animals. 16. Theorem# Q: To tame/contain the Murderous Predations of Masculinity is the Permanent Challenge for Anthropic Civilization: It can only be so calmed within the Matrix of Kinship, or the Social Economy of Affections. This is what Tribal, i.e., Familial, society achieves super abundantly. It is the real Anthropic Paradise we Modernist subjects have lost. 17. The current, Epochal Struggle between the Mammals and the Reptiles will not be won by Modernism, since Nature may not be supplanted for long by the Artifice of Culture. 18. The world over, Religion, which stands today for an Anti-Modernist, Transcendent Ethics, is in revolt against Modernist tyranny. Its Power to Mobilize is simply inexhaustible.

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19. In the end, and we are fairly close to that Climacteric, the Spontaneous Moral Economy constituted by Women, Toilers still close to their Peasant Roots, and Traditional Cultures, will both survive and triumph. 20. We Custodians of Abstract Words can assist their struggles, but only if we so choose. Theorem# R: We are the Planet—and do not dwell apart from it—and the Planet, through us, is/will be fighting back. Theorem# S: Planets likely survive, but Recalcitrant Species don’t: Therein lies our Warning. Nature, eventually, Repairs all Trespasses against her Weal. 21. The Challenge for Sentient/Thinking beings is to intrude the Sympathy of Life into all our nostrums, and engage Modernism critically in all domains, in particular Science, Politics, and Everyday Living. Indeed, a simple slogan suffices to define this posture, as from the NonEurocentered to the Eurocentric: “You are not the Standard; We are not on Trial.” 22. But the real Challenge of Eurocentrism is to Reclaim our Anthropic Natures once more: and strip the imposed, delusory, Material Veils within which we sadly, but daily, hide our true Anthropic Affinities, from both ourselves, and each other. Note This Paper was presented in a Special Event at the American Economic Association Meetings, Chicago, January 4, 2007: “The Challenge of Eurocentrism: A Global Review of Parameters: Festschrift Celebration of the Life and Work of Rajani Kannepalli Kanth.”

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POST FAC E

Eurocentrism—Whither Now? R aja n i K a n n e pa l l i K a n t h

We live, quite obviously, in rather fateful times. The long, enervating, Night of EuroModernism is quite nearly at an End. Epochs end, sometimes, in Cataclysms: and so might this one. Baptized in Fire, Immolated in Catastrophe: it may all be only natural. Certainly, no Formation has tried harder to subvert Sustainable Values more fervently. But the First Issue is not really the imminent End of an Era: rather, it is what might take its place in the Comity of Things—and Non-Things. Now, the Planet has always been a veritable Mother of Hospitalities in this regard, for Aeons. So, the Anthropic Laboratory to turn to can only be the received History of our Species, in particular of its time-tested Tribal Integument, within which the Genius of our Race has lay virtually hid from Modernist insight, for generations. In odd, mordant, irony, it is our putative “primitive” forebears that likely hold the key, if one can be supposed to exist at all, to our Future History. In this respect, the Bushmen and other such Aboriginal peoples of this Good Earth have much to teach us, being the generative Mother Lode of our scopious Agenda of Possibilities. It is that Trove, howsoever interlarded with enduring Human Imperfection, that might yet engender a Great Restoration. They watched us Enter, Once upon a Time: they will watch us Depart from the burning Stage of History: as equably, Now, as Then. But the Second Issue is, perhaps, even more critical: can We, who may now be presumed to have Eyes to See, Learn? Unless there is a Providence, which Ordains our Ends, the Answer can only be unclear: We might—We might not. Indeed, given the Masculinist Proclivities I have outlined in my Papers in this Work, it is all too easy to be pessimistic. The saga of what passes for “history” is, more often than not, the struggle of Big Men being challenged by Little Men, until a role reversal is achieved: and then, back to the Sisyphean struggles again.

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But, I would yet counsel Perseverance. Left to Men Alone, the Anthropic World of us Hominids might have perished at the very moment of its Great Inception. But, it didn’t. Why? The Answer is not difficult to glean. The Other Gender [and its Structural Allies] stood in their Unwholesome Way. They still do now. But they will do so, I think, far less passively than before. Indeed, it is my firm conviction that we are, In These Times, at the Dawn of a New Consciousness. The Bearers of this New Light are, and will be, Women [together with their Allies]. Indeed, it is Women [via their vivifying “Paradigm of Femininity”] come to Consciousness, in belated realization of their own Creative Potential. In realizing themselves, they will help fulfill whatever promise may be thought to reside in our own, roughshod, Anthropic Possibilities. I have argued, here and elsewhere, that Civilization, if it exists in any shape or form at all, is their Singular Contribution. In effect, they have already Saved the species, a long time ago. And, repeatedly, thereafter. And They will do so, again. Of course, Nature lends a helping hand here. Women are, amongst a host of other Things/Non-Things, Progenitors, Propagators of Our Kind. The necessity of rearing children, within a Semblance of Security, even within a Masculinist Wasteland of War and Despotism, is/becomes their “natural” Prepossession. The Power of Propagation is a powerful force, possibly the most powerful force operative on the Planet, outside of forces that constitute Non-Anthropic Nature. It is far more potent than the ubiquitously rabid Masculinist potential for itinerant War and Violence. Whilst it may well be a struggle of Instinct versus Instinct, some instincts, arguably, are stronger than Others. I can only state this hypothetically here, since, as I have said earlier: there is no God’s Eye View of the World. Moreover, additionally, an important obstacle vests in the fact that the Language of Modernist Science simply lacks the Essential Vocabulary needed to understand and express this insight effectively. Worse, the corrupt Language/Lexicon of Modernism, and the arid Cosmology it constitutes, is, both ontologically and epistemically, for all its delusionary dialectics, an Ineffable Fraud upon the Human Race. We can, all, Think and Feel more deeply than we can Write, Express, or Talk, in particular whilst employing the Dialect of Modernist Science. This is because Feelings spring from Instincts that are pre-given, and “embedded” far too deeply in the Anthropic Psyche to suffer corruption at the hands of Modernist Ideologies steeped in the regressive gestalts of Angst, Anomie and Despair. The Modernist Mind excels at Asking Questions: that is its Critical, Interrogatory Function [it confuses this Inquisitorial Propensity, mistakenly,

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with the “Scientific Temper”, and with “Objectivity,” and with other Correlates of “Progressivist,” Intellectual Interlocution]. But it is less than useless at discovering Real Answers, for it deftly avoids digging any deeper than the mere Surface of Things. Indeed, its entire Q&A operates strictly within a Vicious Circle of its own making, like a macabre hamster tilting endlessly within, and at, an Ever Spinning Wheel of Delusion, unaware of being imprisoned inside but One of all possible Explicate Worlds. Instincts, like other Forces of Nature, subsist at the Implicate Level, and, here, one need not Seek: one Finds. For Wisdom, and Knowledge [the Golden Grail of Modernism], dwell, ever, Apart: and drift steadily away from each other as Modernism Advances, though drawing closer again as it Regresses. Every Atom, physicists now tell us, is, in some hypothetical sense, “Aware” of Itself. It is, as Amit Goswami has aptly written, a Self Aware Universe. We are the Planet, despite the delusion of living apart from it. The Sentient are given Instinct, Intuition, and Revelation as both Means and Ends of Anthropic Insight. The Modernist deploys only an Abstract Reason, stripped of its Provenance in these Other Propensities, and so wanders in a Perpetual Regress of His Own Making. Women, and others who dwell in a Moral Economy [similar to Native peoples, Peasant communities, et al.], herein, have the indefeasible Structural Advantage. Reason, in their context, is ever safely subsumed within the, healing Matrix of Feeling. As such, both their Thinking and Engagements are wholly grounded (despite the Inroads of Modernist Ideology, determined to Extirpate this Great Distinction: and, ominously, to clone Women in the Likes of Men): indeed, grounded in the very Source of all Anthropic Morality, which is the Eternal Locus of Nurturance, i.e., the Survival of the Human Infant. In this simple Anthropic Fact, lie the only Seedings of Hope that are wholly realistic, and based on our Inherent Anthropology alone, not any fanciful f light of speculation. But, there well might be more: even in a strictly scientific sense, the possibility of a Guiding Energy (in short, the Random Data that litters space may conceal all manner of Hidden Information) cannot be ruled out, howsoever Inscrutable may be Its Ways. Indeed, curiously, the Universe is arguably “teleological”: leastways, in its Physics. It is apparently headed to Absolute Zero—and we are but less than 3 degrees away from that awful Apocalypse. If so, then we dwell not merely in a Self-Aware Universe, but, perhaps, in a Self-Fulfilling one as well. And, poignantly, given the unscalable reach of the Knowable Universe, the absurdity of Eurocentrism is exceeded only by the sheer ludicrity of our petty, anthropic Geocentrism.

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So, to conclude: I believe it is our distinctive privilege, though vested with Great Responsibility, to be at the Cross-Roads of Anthropic History today, on the very Threshold of the Future. We know, we feel, we “remember”: that, somewhere in our distal past, a Wrong Turn was taken by Modernist Conquistadores, whose ill-effects dog our lives today, in sphere after fractious sphere of societal existence, within Modernist Civil Society. We have seen, similarly, the Trivial Pursuits of Wealth and Warfare dominate, even Engulf, our Modernist lives—to the point of Asphyxiation of all, or most, of our Convivial Impulses. The putative Garden of Eden was no idle Myth: it still exists, as it always has, universally, in the Paradigm of Femininity, involved daily in Self less and Unrequited Acts of Nurturance, Caring, and Co-Respective behaviors. Women, even whilst entrapped in the wretched Modernist Cage, yet remain the Self-Replenishing Fount of Original Philanthropy. It is this Paradigm, Natural and Cultural simultaneously, that is still the irresistible Vortex that can yet draw down the Predations of Masculinity, and allow us to dwell once again, warmly enmeshed in the Tribal Tie of Kinship, real or ersatz, and its Ineffable Bounty of Gratuitous Affections. Speaking metaphorically, our Mammalian Heritage can yet slough off the Accoutrements of Reptilian Traits that Modernism ushered in, unrelentingly, some 500 years ago. The desiccating Dogmas of Relentless Production and Incessant Consumption might still succumb to the humbler Felicities of Being, imbued with the benefice of Affective Bondings of Nurturance. But this can only be via a long and hard struggle whose lineaments are becoming more and more clear today. Philosophies of Materialism Unbound, universally, are facing their ultimate Anathema in the Incipient Prodromes of Conviviality, portending a Return to our, all but forgotten, Anthropic Roots. The Wise, the Beneficent, and the Self-Aware, can only, if they but so choose, try and assist this Monumental, Meta-Historical Effort, in both Theory and Praxis. For It will, all but Inexorably, Prevail.

CON T R I BU TOR S

Arun Bala is a physicist and philosopher by education who is currently a Visiting Professor in the Department of Philosophy. and an Adjunct Professor in the Toronto School of Theology, both at the University of Toronto. He not only taught philosophy at the National University of Singapore for many years but has also worked with various international institutions, including the Regional Institute for Higher Education Development of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (Singapore), the Dalhousie University School for Resource and Environmental Studies (Canada), and the Foundation for Advanced Studies in International Development ( Japan). He is the author of the book The Dialogue of Civilizations in the Birth of Modern Science (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). Amit Basole holds a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Duke University (Durham, NC) and is currently a doctoral candidate in Economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He has published articles in Nature, Journal of Neuroscience, Progress in Brain Research, and Genetics. His interests include Eurocentrism, Knowledge Politics, Philosophy of Science, Gandhian and Marxist Thought, and critiques of Industrial Modernity. His Web site is: http://people.umass.edu/abasole/ Ravi Batra, a Professor of Economics at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, is the author of five international bestsellers. He was the Chairperson of his department from 1977 to 1980. In October 1978, because of dozens of publications in top journals such as the American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, Econometrica, Journal of Economic Theory, Review of Economic Studies, among others, Batra was ranked third in a group of “superstar economists,” selected from all the American and Canadian universities by an article in the learned journal Economic Enquiry. In 1990, the Italian prime minister awarded him a Medal of the Italian Senate for writing a book that correctly predicted the downfall of Soviet communism, fifteen years before it happened. Dr. Batra has been written up in major newspapers and magazines, such as the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Time, Newsweek, the U.S. News and World Report, and has appeared on all major networks including CBS, NBC, CNN, ABC, CNBC, among others. Batra’s latest book is The New Golden Age: The

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Coming Revolution against Political Corruption and Economic Chaos (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). His Web site is ravibatra.com Rajesh Bhattacharya received his Bachelors in Economics from Presidency College, Kolkata, and M.Sc. from Calcutta University. He is presently a doctoral candidate in the Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, as well as a Lecturer in Economics at Jogamaya Devi College, Kolkata. He is interested in the political economy of development and Marxian economic theory. Firat Demir is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Oklahoma and received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Notre Dame (IN). His research is focused on international finance and development economics, and in particular on the role of globalization of financial markets in determining the growth and development path followed by developing countries. He has published articles in the Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Development Studies, Development and Change, Review of Radical Political Economics, World Development, and Applied Economics Letters. Mathew Forstater is Associate Professor of Economics and Africana Studies at the University of Missouri—Kansas City. Previously, he was a Visiting Scholar at the Levy Economics Institute (1997–1999), where he remains a Research Associate, and taught at Bard College (1997–1999) and Gettysburg College (1992–1997), where he was the recipient of a number of teaching awards. Forstater received his Ph.D. in Economics from the New School for Social Research in 1996, where he specialized in Race and Class and the History of Thought. He has published numerous articles and book chapters and has co-edited ten books. Forstater is the author of The Little Book of Big Ideas: Economics (Chicago Review Press, 2007). John M. Hobson is Professor of Politics and International Relations at the University of Sheffield, and is co-director of the Political Economy Research Centre as well as a Subeditor of Political Studies. His main research interest lies in the area of intercivilizational relations and globalization, past and present. He is author of The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation (CUP, 2004) and is currently working on a book manuscript on the Eurocentric foundations of International Relations Theory. He is also completing a co-edited book comprising some of John A. Hobson’s lectures provisionally entitled “Constructing the International Mind.” Nick Hostettler teaches at Queen Mary University of London. His recent research has focused on the nature of Eurocentrism. His related research interests are critical realism and Marxism. He is currently working on the relationships between Eurocentrism, capital, and modernity. George Gheverghese Joseph holds joint honorary appointments at Universities of Manchester and Toronto. His teaching and research have ranged over a broad spectrum of subjects in Applied Mathematics and Statistics, including Multivariate Analysis, Mathematical Programming, and Demography. In recent years, however, his research has been

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mainly on the cultural and historical aspects of Mathematics with particular emphasis on the non-European dimensions to the subject and its relevance for Mathematics education. In 1993 he was invited by the African National Congress of South Africa to take part in a Workshop on “Mathematics Curriculum Reconstruction for Society in Transition.” In recent years he has been invited to lecture at Hobart, Monash, Perth, and Sydney in Australia; at Cornell, Los Angeles, New Mexico, New York, Berkeley, and Chicago in the United States; at York, Laval, and Toronto in Canada; at Western Cape and Durban in South Africa; at UNAM in Mexico; at Cave Hill in Barbados; at Singapore, and at various universities in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Germany, and Norway as well as the United Kingdom. He has appeared on radio and televisions programs in India, United States, Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand as well as United Kingdom. His publications include four books: Women at Work (Philip Allan, Oxford, 1983), The Crest of the Peacock: Non-European Roots of Mathematics (1st Hardback Edition, Tauris, 1991; 1st Paperback Edition, Penguin 1992, 2nd Edition, jointly by Penguin Books and Princeton University Press, 2000, 3rd Edition, forthcoming), Multicultural Mathematics: Teaching Mathematics from a Global Perspective (Oxford University Press, 1993) and George Joseph: Life and Times of a Kerala Christian Nationalist (Orient Longman, 2003). A Malayalam translation of the book came out in 2008. The last-named book is a political biography of his grandfather, George Joseph, a close associate of Mahatma Gandhi, Jawarhalal Nehru, and other leaders of modern India. Fadhel Kaboub is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Denison University where he teaches macroeconomics, economic history, and monetary theory. He holds an MA (2001) and Ph.D. (2006) in Economics and Social Science Consortium from the University of Missouri—Kansas City (UMKC), and a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Economics and Management of Tunis (1999). His current research focuses on the design and implementation of full employment policies in developing countries. His work reconciles the critique of Eurocentrism with the overall goal of improving the quality of life for all people through the creation of decent, productive, and ecologically sustainable jobs. His most recent publications include: “Elements of a Radical Counter-Movement to Neoliberalism: Employment-Led Development,” (Review of Radical Political Economics, September 2008); and “Institutional Adjustment Planning for Full Employment” ( Journal of Economic Issues, June 2007). Before returning to Denison University in 2008, Kaboub taught economics at UMKC, Simon’s Rock College of Bard, Denison University, and Drew University. He currently serves as the Book Review Editor of the Heterodox Economics Newsletter, and serves on the editorial board of the Review of Radical Political Economics. Rajani Kannepalli Kanth is a Professor of Political Economy and Social Anthropology. His current interests are in globalization, ecology, women’s issues, peace studies, and philosophy. He has served Major Universities

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across the globe and has been an Advisor to the United Nations. He is also involved in Film, Art, Literature, and Media. His most recent book is titled Against Eurocentrism, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). He lives in Salt Lake City, Utah. Professor Kanth is currently a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University. Kho Tung-Yi is a Singapore citizen who has lived in Asia, Australia, Europe, and the United States. He has a background in Economics and Political Economy and is currently a Researcher in Sociology at the University of Oregon. His interests encompass global political economy, feminism, ecology, and how they are connected to issues of peace and war. Of late, he has been deliberating on the future of humanity. Previously a professional tennis player, he has represented Singapore in the Davis Cup. Rajiv Malhotra works in a variety of intercivilizational topics, including whiteness in America and its implications to the world, especially India. His approach to religions starts by examining their history-dependency, and the resulting closed mindedness and conf licts. His interest in Indic spiritual traditions stems from the following question: Can religiosity be decoupled from historical prophets and other non-reproducible exclusive claims, and would this lead to a postmodern spirituality? Ali A. Mazrui is Professor and Director of Global Cultural Studies at State University of New York, Binghamton, Senior Scholar in Africana Studies at Cornell University and Chancellor of Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology in Kenya. He is a leading expert on comparative civilization and has published over thirty books. He has also done television documentaries for the BBC, London, and PBS, Washington, DC. His books are on Global Cultural Studies, African Studies, political Islam, and North-South relations.

I N DE X

Abarry, Abu, 138 Abeles, F.F., 36 Abu-Lughod, Janet L., 221, 229 Adams, John, 175 Adams, John Quincy, 189, 192 Adelard of Bath, 29–30 Adorno, Theodor, 127, 204–205 African Diaspora, 135–136, 139 Africans: A Triple Heritage, The, 161–162 Afrocentrism, 134, 138–139 Ahmad, Mohsin, 166 Al-Andalusi, Said, 34 al-Ghazali, 19, 63 Ali, Muhammad, 70 al-Kashi, Jamshid, 41 Almagest (Ptolemy), 29 al-Ma’mu¡¥n, 222 Ambedkar, B.R., 86–87, 91–92, 103 American exceptionalism academic research and museumizing of Indian culture, 195–198 atrocity literature as genre, 206–208 Biblical mythology and, 179–180 civilization’s aesthetics, morality, and reason, 200–202 discourse on Native Americans, 198–199 Enlightenment thinking and, 180 evolution of Myth, 208–210 founding of America, 175–177 frontier encounters with other civilizations, 204–205 greed and, 180–181 guilt management and genocide, 184–194 hypocrisy as national character, 199–200 “immoral potatoes” and other savages, 203–204

Kantian Eurocentrism, 202–203 lessons from Native American experience, 200 making of a supernation, 171–174 Manifest Destiny, 178–179 “merciless savages”, 182–183 mutations of Myth, 177 myth of savages and heroic frontiersmen, 174–175 Native American reservations, 194–195 Native Americans and, 179–181 “noble savages”, 183–184 overview, 171–212 power of Myth, 210–212 theorizing savages in early expansion, 181–184 Amin, Samir, 97, 139 Amoco-Arco, 49 Annan, Kofi, 155 Archimedes, 18, 222 Ari, Marimba, 138, 199–200 Aristotle, 18–19 Aryabhata, 35 Asante, Molefi, 138, 140, 144 Ascher, M., 41 Asiatic Mode of Production (AMP) theory, 70–71 Ayaga, Odeyo, 138 Bacon, Francis, 20, 97, 222–223 Bala, Arun, 3–21, 218, 223, 243 Bandung epistemology, 142–144 Baraka, Imamu Amiri, 134, 143 Baron, M.E., 36 Barro, Robert J., 68 Basole, Amit, 83–101, 247 Basu, Pranab, 96, 99 Batra, Ravi, 45–58, 247–248

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Index

Bentley, J., 35 Berger, Peter, 117 Berkhofer, Robert, 180 Berlusconi, Silvio, 83 Bernal, Martin, 30, 97 Bernanke, Ben, 53, 55 Bhattacharya, Rajesh, 83–101, 248 Biblical myths, encounters with Native Americans and, 179–180 Bind Us in Time: Nation and Civilization in Asia (Gungwu), 11–12 Black Power movement, 143 Black studies, 134–139 Blair, Tony, 83 Blaut, J.M., 112, 211 Bodde, D., 16 Borradori, Giovanna, 83–84 Bowen, Richard, 226 Brahma Siddhanta, 35 Brahmagupta, 35 Brands, H.W., 193 Braudel, Fernand, 232 Brindley, H.H., 226 British Petroleum (BP), 49 Brodkin, Karen, 174 Buddhism, 139–142 Bush, George W., 49, 108, 166, 218 Bushmen, 6, 247 Cabral, Amilcar, 136, 143 Calinger, R., 36 Callicott, J. Baird, 140, 141 Cambridge Illustrated History of of the World’s Science (Ronan), 15–16 Casson, Lionel, 235 caste system, India and, 86–87, 90–92, 95–96, 102–103 censorship, 159–163 Cesaire, Aime, 139 Chakrabarty, D., 89, 97, 102 Chatterjee, P., 86, 102 Chen Li-fu, 118 Cheney, Lynne, 162 Chetwynd, Eric, 58 Chetwynd, Frances, 58 Chevron-Texaco, 49 Chipko movement, 95, 103 Ciller, Tansu, 163 Cipolla, Carlo, 219 City on a Hill imagery, 175–177

Clash of Civilizations, The (Huntington), 9, 12 Clinton, Hillary, 163 Coltrane, John, 135, 143 Columbus, Christopher, 191, 224 computerization, 53, 149 Confucianism, 116–126 as antidote to Eurocentrism, 124–126 Confucianist modernity, 118–119 globalization and, 121–124 ideology and dynamics, 119–121 origins and signifcations, 116–118 postcolonialism and, 121–124 Singapore and, 117–124, 128 Conoco-Phillips, 49 Constantine I (emperor), 148 corruption, poverty and, 45–58 defined, 46–47 Cortez, Hernando, 210 Cortez, Jayne, 135 da Gama, Vasco, 148, 224, 226–228, 233 dalits, 87, 91, 95–96, 102, 103 Dandekar, V.M., 93 Dark Ages, 30–31, 63, 69 de Tocqueville, Alexis, 194 Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said’s Orientalism (Ibn Warraq), 14, 17 Demir, Firat, 63–80, 218, 248 Dengyo, 140 Derrida, Jacques, 83–84, 211 developmentalism, 100, 122, 131–132, 138 Dewey, John, 87, 91 Dharampal, 28 Diop, Cheikh Anta, 139 Dirlik, A.F., 117, 120, 125–126 Drinnon, Richard, 180, 184, 188–189, 197 Du Bois, W.E.B., 139, 143 Dutt, A.K., 103 economic development East Asia and, 131, 137, 140 India and, 100, 102, 107, 114 Middle East and, 77–94 Edwards, C.H., 35–36 Eliade, Mercea, 212 Engels, Friedrich, 70, 240 Enlightenment, 1, 3, 30, 65, 70, 72, 83–84, 92–93, 97, 114, 177, 179–195, 198, 200–203, 212

Index Enlightenment rationalism, 88–90 Enlightenment thought, encounters with Native Americans and, 180 Euclidean geometry, 18, 36, 41 Eurocentrism clash of civilizations and, 20–21 Confucius and East Asian development, 116–126 East Asia and, 107–109 economic development in MENA and, 67–71 as erroneous and distorted historiography, 111–113 as EuroAmerican ethnocentrism, 111 mathematics and, 33–34 as modernity, 113–116 persistence of, 83–84 as “superficial cultural subordination”, 110–111 experimentalism, 20, 23 Exxon-Mobil, 49 Fanon, Frantz, 139 Federal Trade Commission (FTC), 47–49 Fiegenbaum, L., 36 Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), 77 “forming/transforming structures”, 137 Forstater, Mathew, 133–144, 248 Frank, Andre Gunder, 65 free trade, 46, 53, 77 Friedman, Milton, 53, 57 frontiers. see American exceptionalism Fukuyama, Francis, 10, 22, 114 Galileo, 16, 18 Gandhi, Mahatma, 84–91, 96, 100, 102, 103, 142, 147, 151, 155–157, 164, 249 Gandhi, Mohandas, 155 Garden of Eden mythology, 175–177, 195, 201, 207, 246 Garvey, Marcus, 136 Gerdes, P., 32 Gherardo of Cremona, 29 globalization defined, 148–149 poverty and, 52–54 Goebbels, Joseph, 160 Goh Keng Swee, 120 Graham, A.C., 16 Gray, Cecil Conteen, 134, 138

255

Greece mathematics and, 29–32, 35–36 Middle Eastern inf luences, 8, 18–20, 222–224 greed, encounters with Native Americans and, 180–181 Greenspan, Alan, 55, 56 Guiso, Luigi, 68 Habermas, Jurgen, 83 Hagedorn, Jessica, 135 Haider, Jorg, 159 Hall, McKenney, 196 Halliday, Fred, 66 Harootunian, H., 126 Havel, Vaclav, 83 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 182, 186 Haydar, 159 Hegel, G.W.F., 4, 184, 201, 212 hegemony, vs. homogeny, 149–151 Heidenheimer, Arnold, 58 Hinduism fundamentalist, 88–90, 92, 102 Huntington and, 12, 22 science/mathematics and, 16, 40 Hindutva, 88, 102 Hirschmann, Albert, 86 Hirshman, Albert, 86 history, relativity of, 163 History of Economic Analysis (Schumpeter), 63 Hobson, John M., 16, 65, 67, 70, 217–234, 248 Hodgson, Marshall, 230–231 homogeny, vs. hegemony, 149–151 Hong Kong, 117, 120–121, 128 Hostettler, Nick, 248 housing bubble, 55–56 Huff, Toby E., 16 Huntington, Samuel, 9–14, 17, 20, 21, 22 Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen), 18–19, 224 Ibn al-Shatir, 223 Ibn as-Saffar, 227 Ibn Khalaf al-Mura¡¥d.¡¥¡¯*, 222–223 Ibn Khaldun, 63, 97 Ibn Qayyim, 63 Ibn Sina (Avicenna), 34, 63, 223 Ibn Taimiyah, 63 Ibn Warraq, 14–21, 22

256

Index

ibn-Majid, Ahmad, 225 Ignatiev, Noel, 174 Ikeda, Daisaku, 140, 143, 144 imperialism, 14, 26–29, 76, 87–88, 93, 99–100, 137, 212 imperialism, mathematics and, 26–29 Inalcik, H., 69 Independence, Liberation, Revolution: An Approach to/nlthe Understanding of the Third World (Tran), 136 India caste system and, 86–87, 90–92, 95–96, 102–103 Chipko movement, 95, 103 education, 96–98 Enlightenment thinking and, 83–84, 97 fascism and, 88–90, 97, 101, 102 Hindu fundamentalism and, 88–90, 92–93, 102 independence, 84–87 mathematics and, 34–36 modernism and, 82–84 Narmada struggle, 95, 103 Pashchimikrit and Bahishkrit, 93–96 political participation, 95–96 poverty and, 93–96 power and instrumentalization of local, 98–99 social engineering, 87–92 indigenous knowledge, 113 Institute of East Asian Philosophies (IEAP), 120 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 88 Internet, 43, 150, 164 Irving, David, 160 Islam European Renaissance and, 221–224 European “voyages of discovery” and, 224–228 global economy and Oriental globalization (c. 500–1800), 228–233 homogenization and hegemonization, 151–154 Italian financial revolution and, 220–221 Medieval European energy revolution and, 219–220 origins of Western civilization and, 217–234

Jackson, Andrew, 175, 184, 189, 193, 198 Jacobinist Institution Building, 71–77 development bottlenecks, 73–74 formation of centralized state, 72–73 neoliberalism and, 75–77 sociopolitical conf licts and revival of Oriental despotism, 74–75 James, C.L.R., 139 Jefferson, Thomas, 154, 180, 182–183, 184, 189–190, 194 Jesseph, Douglas M., 18 Jodha, N.S., 94 Johnston, Michael, 58 Jones, Eric, 232 Joseph, George Gheverghese, 22, 25–43, 218, 248–249 Joseph, Keith, 25 Judaism, 40, 154, 212, 222, 224, 226–227 Kaboub, Fadhel, 63–80, 218, 249 Kanth, Rajani Kannepalli, 1–6, 237–241, 243–246, 249–250 Karakasidou, Anastasia, 160 Katz, V.J., 41 Kaufman, Bob, 142 Kebede, Ashenafi, 135 Kemenade, W.V., 121–122, 128 Kennedy, John F., 175 Kenyatta, Jomo, 155–156 Kerala School, 35–36 Keto, C.Tsehloane, 138 Khayyam, Omar, 41 Khilnani, S., 93 Kho Tung-Yi, 121–141 Kilroy Silk, Robert, 217–218, 233–234 King, Martin Luther Jr., 135, 142–143, 155, 156 Kumar, S., 95, 103 Kumarajiva, 140 Kumarappa, J.C., 86, 95, 102 land reform, 72, 75 Landes, David S., 68 Lappe, Frances Moore, 140, 141 Leaves of Grass (Whitman), 178–179 Lee Kuan Yew, 118, 119–121 Lewis, Arthur, 86 Lewis, Martin W., 66 Lieven, Anatole, 179 Lincoln, Abraham, 175

Index Lincoln, Bruce, 210 Loewen, James, 197–198 Lotus Sutra, 140–141. see also Buddhism Ma Zhenduo, 118 Maathai, Wangari, 155 MacFarquhar, Roderick, 117 Mahan, Alfred Thayer, 66 Mahbubani, Kishore, 11 Makiguchi, 140 Malcolm X, 135, 136, 142–143 Malhotra, Rajiv, 171–212, 250 Mandela, Nelson, 155, 156 Manifest Destiny, 173, 178–179. see also American exceptionalism Mao Zedong, 123 Marshall, John, 190–191 Marx, Karl, 20, 21, 66, 70, 161, 240 Marxism, 88, 103, 136–137, 139, 151, 164, 212 Marxism and Literature (Smythe), 137 Mastermind of the Third Reich (Irving), 160 mathematics dismissal of non-European traditions, 33–34 exclusion by definition, 33–34 hidden ideology of, 37–38 “hidden mathematics”, 32–33 imperialism and, 26–29 Indian, differing perceptions of, 34–36 objectives of multicultural/antiracist mathematics, 39–42 omission and appropriation by West, 29–33 origins and nature of, 29–34 Mather, John, 175 May Fourth Movement, 123 Mazama, Ama, 138 Mazrui, Ali A., 147–166, 250 McCleary, Rachel M., 68 MENA economic development in, 67–71 Eurocentrism and, 64–67 formation of independent states with Jacobinist Institution Building, 71–77 overview, 63–64 reform from within, 77–79 “merciless savages”, 182–183 Miao-lo, 140 Mill, John Stuart, 2, 92

257

minimization of violence, 155, 157 Modern West, dialogical origins of, 17–20 modernization, 10–11, 14, 17, 72, 79, 85–86, 95, 109, 118–120, 125–126, 171 Eurocentrism and, 113–116 Moleah, Alfred, 138 Mowitt, J., 103 Multicultural/Anti-Racist (MC/ AR) Mathematics, 39–42. see also mathematics combating racism, 41–42 developing knowledge and empathy with different cultures, 41 drawing on student’s experience as resource, 40 recognizing different cultural heritages, 40–41 Nagarjuna, 140 Namada struggle, 95, 103 Nanda, M., 88, 90–92, 102, 103 National Curriculum (UK), 25, 37, 39 National Planning Commission (NPC), India, 86, 102 nationalism, 30, 36, 72, 75–76, 78, 89, 97, 102, 109, 115, 123, 139, 179 Native Americans, encounter with, 179–181 Biblical myths and, 179–180 Enlightenment thought and, 180 greed and, 180–181 Native Americans, genocide of, 184–194 anecdotal data of atrocities urging “savage wars”, 186–188 Biblical and Enlightenment-based intellectual justifications, 185–186 displacement for their own good, 193–194 good cops and bad cops, 188–190 institutional and legalistic manipulations, 190–193 Neal, Larry, 134, 143 Needham, Joseph, 13, 17, 225 Nehru, Jawarhalal, 84–86, 88, 95, 103, 249 neoliberalism, 75–77 New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East, The (Huntington), 11

258

Index

Newcombe, Steve, 190 Newton, Isaac, 18, 28, 36, 40 Ngugi, 139 Nichiren, 140 Nigerian civil war, 156 Nkrumah, Kwame, 137, 139, 143 “noble savages”, 183–184 Noland, Marcus, 68 nommo, 134–135, 144 Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), 136, 137 Nurske, Ragnar, 86 Obama, Barack, 57, 153, 163 Obengo, Theophile, 138 oil prices, 47–50, 56 OPEC, 47–48, 51–52 oral traditions, African, 135 Oriental despotism, 70–71, 74–75 Orientalism, 63–65, 75, 126 “Other West”, 90, 91 Othering, 14, 79, 127, 237 Pacey, Arnold, 219–220 Paldam, Martin, 69 Palshikar, S., 95, 103 Pan-Africanism, 134, 136, 137–139 Paradigm of Femininity, 1, 2, 5, 244, 246 Paradigm of Masculinity, 1 Pashchimikrit and Bahishkrit, 93–96 PBS, 161–162 Pearce, Roy Harvey, 179 Plamenatz, John, 147, 166 Plato, 18–19, 29–30 Playfair, John, 28 poverty forecasts, 57 fundamental cause of, 46–50 future of, 57–58 globalization and, 52–54 housing bubble and, 55–56 oil price rise and, 56 regressive taxation and, 50–51 rising wage gap and, 54–55 share market crisis and, 55 sinking minimum wage and, 52 Powell, Adam Clayton, 138, 143 Pryor, F.L., 68 Ptolemy, 18, 29, 222 Puritanism, 175, 179, 182, 185, 208 Pythagoras, 31–32, 33

Rajagopal, C.T., 36 Rao, J.M., 103 Rath, N., 93 rationalism, 14–21, 22, 88–90, 92, 103 Ravell, James, 138 Ravell-Pinto, Thelma, 138 reactive self-understanding, 13, 21 Reagan, Ronald, 51, 52, 175, 177 reform, economic, 77–79 regressive taxation, 50–51 relativism cultural and historical, 157–159 empirical, 154–157 empirical and comparative censorship, 159–163 historical, 163 Ricardo, David, 53 Richards, Dona, 138 Rigby, Peter, 138 Robert of Chester, 30 Robeson, Paul, 139, 143 Rodinson, Maxime, 230–231 Rodney, Walter, 139 Ronan, Colin, 15–17 Roosevelt, Theodore, 173, 175 Rostow, W.W., 86 Royal Dutch Shell, 49 Rudolph, L.I., 90 Rudolph, S.H., 90 Rushdie, Salman, 158, 160, 210 Sabra, A.I., 16 Sadat, Anwar, 151, 155 Sahasrabudhey, S., 94, 101 Said, Edward, 14, 65, 126, 219 Samuelson, Paul, 53 Sanchez, Sonia, 134, 135, 138, 142–144 Sangvai, S., 98, 99 Sapienza, Paola, 68 Sarkar, Prabhat R., 58 Sarkar, S., 88–90, 102 Satanic Verses, The (Rushdie), 158, 160, 162 “savages”, 181–184 Schumpeter, Joseph, 63 Science and Civilization in China (Needham), 13 secularization, 10, 67, 72, 84–85, 87, 89–90, 92, 95, 143, 149, 158, 163, 177, 212 Sedillot, L.A., 35

Index Seed, Patricia, 225 self-criticism, 14–17, 20, 21, 22 Sen, Amartya, 11–13, 17, 20–21 Sententie astrolabi, 227 SGI (Soka Gakkai International), 140 share market crisis, 55 Singapore, 117–124, 128 sinking minimum wage, 52 slavery, 30, 87, 136, 147, 155, 172–173, 185, 191–192, 194–195, 201, 205, 208 Slotkin, Richard, 171, 185, 187 Smith, Adam, 50, 70 Smith, D.E., 35 Smith, Henry Nash, 176, 178 Smith, Ian, 156 Smythe, Dallas W., 136–137 Sottas, Jules, 226 Spector, Bertram, 58 Stolper, Wolfgang, 53 Stolper-Samuelson theorum, 53 Swann Report, 25, 41 Taiwan, 117, 120, 121 Taylor, Cecil, 140 technocratization, 76, 99, 102 Temple University, Black Studies at, 134–139 Thapar, R., 102 Thatcher, Margaret, 39 Tibbetts, Gerald R., 231 T’ien Tai, 140 Toda, 140 Tran Van Dinh, 136 Turner, Fredrick Jackson, 173 Tutu, Desmond, 155, 156

259

Udovitch, Abraham, 221 United States. see American exceptionalism universalism, 12, 14–15, 17, 20, 21, 65, 92, 101, 108, 114–115, 122, 147, 155, 157, 158 USAID, 99 utopianism, 2, 183 Varamihira, 35 Voloshinov, V.N., 137 Vygotsky, L.S., 137 wage gap, 54–55 Wallerstein, Immanuel, 65, 109, 125 Wang, L., 128 Wang Gungwu, 11–12, 22 Weber, Max, 3, 65, 67, 72, 124–125, 127, 128, 182 Welsh-Asante, Kariamu, 138 Westernization, 14, 17, 67, 71, 78, 93–94, 103, 116, 128, 152–154, 164, 191 White, Lynn, 225–226 Whitman, Walt, 178–179, 212 Wigen, Karen E., 66 Wilde, Oscar, 45, 156 Wilson, Gerald, 175 Wilson, Woodrow, 175 World Bank, 58, 76, 88, 99, 104 World Trade Organization (WTO), 91 Wright, Richard, 138, 139, 143 Young, Robert, 212 Zankel, Bobby, 139–140 Zingales, Luigi, 68