It
is an illusion of liberal society that the language we use can ever have a
neutral application, in the strictest sense, for it carries all sorts of hidden
cargo - some of it intentionally so, no doubt. You only have to look at the
discourse around the Middle East for a demonstration of this and that’s before
we even get to the details of the various crises. The very designation of the
region as the ‘Middle East’ has a historical and political significance in
itself. There is no longer commonly heard talk of a ‘Near East’ or even a ‘Far
East’. The days when the Balkans and Greece are seen as otherly to the rest of
Europe are hopefully gone. Of course, Turkey is the exceptional case, typically
viewed as a middle-passage from the West to the East. Yet the example of Turkey
ought to prompt serious questions about the widely accepted and most
problematic division of ‘East’ from ‘West’. The assumptions built into such
statements are in dire need of a vigorous unpicking.
It’s
not the case that the difference boils down to a distinction between Islamic
and Christian culture. If this were the case then not only would Turkey not be
European, but neither would Bosnia be considered European. We would then be led
to the suspect conclusion that the level of Muslim population determines the
un-European nature of a society. In contrast, many would assume that Europe
ends at the borders of Greece even without Islam in mind. And this in turn
would lead us back to the old colonial signifier of a ‘Near East’ from which we
must be on guard. It used to be that Greece was a part of the ‘Near East’ along
with the Balkans, yet it has been confined as the ‘Middle East’ to the
territory ruled by the Ottoman Empire in the last century or so. The terms
‘Near’ and ‘Middle’ imply that the region is defined in relation to the rest of
Europe, though not as a part of the same region. Serbia may be more near than
far as with Singapore, while Syria falls in the middle from where we sit. Yet
no one would draw Indonesia as Eastern with the same connotations as Syria.
No
one talks about the ‘Near East’ or the ‘Far East’ with any serious today, but
the 'Middle East' remains in our vocabulary as stubborn as ever. Given the
hybridity of European countries, the distinction can no longer be maintained on
the contours of ‘race’ and instead the language of ‘culture’ fills the breach.
This is where the talk of a clash of civilisations enters, with the West is
defined as civilised only negatively
against the barbarism of the East.
For the nationalists, Christian identity is worth emphasising because it isn’t
Islamic. In the conflicts erupting from Yugoslavia’s demise in the early 90s it
was the claims to civilisation which prefigured the exclusion of an Other. So-called
Christian civilisation was under threat in the Balkans, as people like Karadžić
claim, and therefore it was necessary to resort to ultra-violence.[1]
As ethnic identity became determined by religious affiliation Orthodox Christians
became Serbs while Muslims remained Bosnian regardless of the heritage they may
have shared.
In
light of this we’d do best to note that human civilisation has never been
homogenous, nor monolithic, and certainly not ahistorical. We may reiterate these
points with regard to the variety of cultures in the world. If we then accept
religion and culture as socially constructed, responding to a need in human
society, as well as constitutive of identities, this ought to be obvious. In
this sense culture is partially determined by its material basis, while culture
retains its own capacity for productivity and not all of its development can be
reduced to the material.[2]
It should surprise no sensible person then that the economic formations in the
region have been conducive to religiously infused forms of politics. Due to the
transient condition of society the interdependence of the economy and its
cultural effluvia may lead to serious contradictions. The unbridled forces of
the market tend towards relativism, pluralism and pragmatism, are fettered by
tradition, order, cohesion and moral realism.[3]
It’s
an inescapable problem for modern societies. Some, like Britain, have become
increasingly secular and that has actually solved the problem to a large
extent. This secularisation of Britain seems to have come about with a displacement
of religion to the state. Ironically, it may be the absence of a separation of
church and state in Britain which maintains its secularity in everyday life.
Meanwhile the US remains as fervent as ever in spite of its formal laicism. Yet
there is nothing English about the Church of England, other than its peculiar
head, no Christian value which can be monopolised by the British state. More
and more British society is comfortable with its relativizing economy and its
religious-state establishment. The problem for those who complain of the threat
of immigration to British values is that there are no such values. There is
nothing uniquely British about emotional restraint, even if it is a cultural value.[4]
As Eagleton points out, the moral values of the ‘natives’ and the ‘foreigner’ hold much
common ground than we might first assume when customs and beliefs differ.[5]
There
may be a probability of a cultural transformation, but there are no values
under threat and culture was never a unified and ahistorical continuum to begin
with. Likewise, if we take Islam and Christianity as sharing a common ancestor,
namely Judaism, then we shouldn’t lose sight of the common ground either. As a
monotheistic tradition it lays claim to universal truth, and this was a huge
advance on polytheism with its multiple truths taken for granted. It was a
necessary shift for culture and civilisation to undertake, moving from
particularism to universalism.[6]
This laid the groundwork for the Enlightenment to come many centuries later. In
this way we may understand secular society as necessarily post-monotheist, its
own universalist claims holding ancient precursors.[7]
The predisposition of religion towards an aversion from Enlightenment values
does not necessarily amount to an incompatibility between religious conviction
and a liberal society.
The
British Right has long maintained that the United Kingdom is separated from
Europe not just by the seas, but by its culture, language and history.
Strangely, we find this view of the Anglo-Saxons can be found among the dirigiste conservatives of France and
has a history of its own going back to Charles de Gaulle if not further. It
rears its head in odd ways every so often in French politics, yet it is a
recurrent motif of British political discourse. The paucity and anaemia of our
‘national’ identity can easily be overlooked when there is an Other within
reach. Thus we once raved about turbans and now it’s the much maligned niqab.
Likewise, it doesn’t matter if we can’t define our so-called ‘Western’ values -
that we must protect from the hordes about to swarm across our borders - as we
can reassure ourselves that we are not like the Other. Not only is this danger
of xenophobia underestimated, we have overlooked the role we could play in counteracting
the very presuppositions of the debate to be had.
In
this way we find that the conservatives may have succeeded in defining Britain
as somewhat alien to Europe then we should undo the colonialist designation of
‘Middle East’. It seems not just necessary but preferable in countering the
absurd narrative of permanently clashing civilisations. The region may be better
designated as West Asia, that’s including everything from the Iranian plateau
to Anatolia. It includes not just Israel but Palestine and the surrounding Arab
petro-states, as well as the Kurdish land in Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. The
Arab Spring should dispel all orientalist twaddle about the imperatives of the
one-party state over the peoples beyond the Turkish middle-ground. If we are to
take monotheism as running westward in its universal claims then we can’t
pretend the claims made by the Enlightenment ends at the doorstep of Europe.
