Edward Said's opus Orientalism set the academic world on its head and was so erudite and thorough in its deconstruction of the historical record, the way anthropologists looked at the "Orient" was forever changed. Orientalism re-shaped the way academics approached studies of the Arabic world, but it fell on deaf ears where it was needed most; the US State Department. Indeed, the CIA, the NSA and the Rand Corporation have continued to create and implement short-sighted, bigoted foreign policy in ways that Edward Said clearly predicted decades ago. Abu Ghraib, "Extraordinary Rendition", Guantanamo, Halliburton, Iraq, Bin Laden....they have everything to do with Orientalism.



When Orientalism was first published, a clique of corporate-sponsored conservative American critics tried to smear Said's work but it was apparent they did not have the background or knowledge to mount any real attack. It was ironic, as Edward Said noted, that yet again non-Muslim, non-Arabic speakers with no tangible background in Middle Eastern affairs should protest the loudest about a subject they were so woefully ill equipped to discuss. It was only a matter of time before the oil men and Fox pundits found someone to champion. Ibn Warraq is a "poster boy" for the conservatives because he speaks Arabic and has a Muslim name and hates Islam (and apparently Edward Said). Warraq's "Defending the West" is an intellectually deformed, impotenet, under-developed book that attempts to deconstruct a deeply engaging, deeply thought provoking and original work. The rip-off cover is apparently supposed to mock Said's work but it ends up seeming silly. Said chose a painting that encapsulated not only the exotic (and erotic) perception the west had of Arabia, but also captured the xenophobia and hubris so embedded in western attitudes. In a very real way, the thought and intention each author put into the cover artwork speaks heavily about the contents of each book. In this sense you don't even have to move beyond the title page of Warraq's work - he's already exposed his lack of originality and intellectual immaturity for you before you even walk through the gate.

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