VDH's Orientalism

Don't get my wrong, I LOVE Victor Davis Hanson. The guy is brilliant and his analysis of history is unparalleled. As a writer, there's nobody better these days. Always eloquent and always lucid.

But his analysis of Islamic Fundamentalism in light of Korangate strikes me as, well, Orientalist. Of course the Muslim world cannot claim the developmental successes we in the West can claim. However, to associate this with some sort of inherent cultural backwardness is to ignore the historical realities of the Middle East...and that's hard to imagine when it comes to VDH. But so be it.

You simply cannot blame Islam or ancient cultures for the "failure" to keep up with the Western Joneses. One needs to look at factors that are largely beyond the control of those cultures for insight as to why they have not evolved at the same pace as more developed regions of the world. Centuries of crusades, colonialism, proxy battles in the East-West struggle, artificially drawn borders and artificially-created despotic monarchies have done much to suppress development in the Middle East. We are talking about civilizations which gave rise to the pyramids, written communication, mathematics, etc. so it is hardly credible to suggest that these people have had nothing to contribute to say, a cell phone. If anything, we are standing upon THEIR shoulders. To argue anything else is, frankly, orientalist.

For a parallel that Hanson would understand, one need only look at Eastern Europe. Over a 300 year period, Poland was partitioned three times and invaded by armies from Prussia, Russia, France and Austria-Hungary. Much of the rest of the region was victim to ongoing wars not of their making and suffered from seemingly continual re-drawing of borders. Comprised of numerous ethnicities with no natural affiliations, the region was artificially drawn together by both the Austrians and the Ottomans and later the communists. The peoples of the region suffered under the most brutal of hatreds, in which every effort was made to make them less Hungarian, less Czech, less Polish, less Romanian, less Serb, less Montenegrin and more Austrian or Turkish. Religious and language identities were imposed and every effort was made to make them subjects rather than partners.

And yet, prior to WWII, the artificial geographical expression known as "Czechoslovakia" had the second highest standard of living in Europe behind Switzerland. And then communism and Soviet domination ensued. Is it any wonder, then, that the Czechs have not been among the historical leaders in technology development since WWII? Are we really surprised that a United States which has not had the same constraints is a technical leader while the Czechs lag behind? And what do we see happening in the Czech Republic since 1989? Growing technology and an increasingly skilled workforce.

So again, is it any wonder that Egypt isn't the source of leading Internet technologies? Hanson's analysis seems to me terribly misguided. True enough, there has been terrible "mismanagement" of regional resources over centuries. But to what extent is that the fault of Muslim moderates? To what extent is that the fault of corrupt leaders like the Shah of Iran, Saddam, Assad, Arafat, and Khaddafi? To what extent do global powers like Britain, the US, the Soviets/Russians, Germans, French, etc. bear responsibility?

I'm sorry, but it's just not as simple as Hanson would have us believe.