The word ‘the other in philosophy and literary criticism means an object that is created to describe the self. Pursuant to J. The other is the opposite of the self in the Sage Encyclopaedia of Quantitative Analysis Methodology. However, both are expectations built by a person, culture or the state. For starters, opposed to the pure Aryan races, the Nazis in Germany viewed the Jews as being racially inferior.SMOKER So the imperfect Jews were built to describe the excellence of the Aryans (white Germanic races) as the other.’
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In this regard, the self may be a person or a philosophy belonging to a perceived social, religious or political whole that can be identified only in relation to the other’ which is either represented as inferior, distinct or even threatening to the whole. Almost entirely based on this was the nationalist concept that contributed to the formation of Pakistan. In comparison to Hindu majority (the other) which was represented as ‘culturally alien’ and politically threatening to the region’s Muslim community, Muslim nationalism in India could only be established.
In the same way, without the building of the other Muslim, Hindu nationalism can not be described.SMOKER The self in this context can only reassure and strengthen its perceived self-image by assuring the assumed dissimilarities of the other.’
Scholars such as Edward Said and Michel Foucault, a postmodernist philosopher, harshly punished the personality as an agent of conformity. It demonised non-conformists as the other’ to perpetuate the dominance and self-image of social and political conformity (of a ‘elite’). To Said the European colonialists’ act of imagining the colonised native as an uncouth, entirely sensual and openly emotional being, was an act of enhancing the self-image of the European self’s supremacy as opposed to the oriental other.
Foucault claims in his 1961 book, Madness and Civilization, that a ‘social framework’ imposed by a conformist hierarchy over those who failed to conform was the traditional idea of madness.SMOKER Years later, Foucault went on to laud the ‘Islamic Revolution’ in Iran in 1979 by deriding Western forces for demonising Ayatollah Khomeini as the other.’ According to the Lebanese author Kim Ghattas, Foucault did not withdraw his support for Khomeini in her book Black Wave, even though he is
‘The Other’ is used to define ‘the Self’ in its contrast. But ‘self-Orientalism’, ironically, looks towards assumed Western authority for validation
On the other side, Said clubbed together a diverse assortment of colonised peoples of Africa and Asia as a homogenous whole, according to the critics of Edward Said’s ‘Orientalism,’ and then described this abstract totality in relation to a brutal European colonial set-up. In other words, he created ‘the other in the form of an imperial European elite to describe a supposed homogenous self, which was discarded, in a very binary way, as being an entirely evil individual. This is considered ‘Occidentalism.’
This can suggest that the other is not necessarily passive. But on occasions, somewhat ironically, it hits out, not by reversing how a conformist social self perceives and demonises it but by simply being precisely that. Iran’s transition was celebrated by Foucault as a ‘spiritual’ phenomenon that the ‘non-spiritual’ West did not grasp.SMOKER He thought this was why Khomeini was demonised by the West as being fanatical and insane.
This also leads to what is termed ‘self-orientalism’ or where the other’ starts to behave precisely as it is represented and viewed by a collective-self. The concept is either to own and weave into an offensive philosophy toward the collective self the traits and labels assigned to it by the collective-self, or to own these labels and portray them as being as superior to the collective-self as that. Khomeini owned the stigma of being a fanatic’ issued to him by Western regimes and used it to bully the West, and normalise it as an ethos in Iran, on the other hand. Muslim extremists followed suit around the world.
Things are far more intriguing in India in this regard. Self-Orientalism in India has meant creating cultural and spiritual goods for decades that were crafted according to how India was viewed in the West as ‘mystical, mysterious and spiritual.’ For company and public relations, this ploy was fine. Yet the other was absent.
In comparison to the other’ after 2014, when Hindu nationalists won an absolute majority in the parliament, they started to establish a ‘masculine’ self-image and a common self: i.e. The Muslim Indian culture. Ironically, decades ago, this is precisely what Jinnah was warning about by constructing a Hindu others to describe his definition of Muslim nationalism.SMOKER So in a way, Hindu nationalists finally chose to own the mark that Jinnah gave them and then flex it. That of being hegemonic and a danger to India’s Muslim culture.
Self-Orientalism is also used by the tourism industry to respond to Western ‘Orientalist’ stereotypes. But even though some Self-Orientalism adherents behave as being anti-colonial and authentic (as in being non-Western, or more spiritual), they are generally openly mindful of how they are viewed by the West. Campaign advertisements by Imran Khan’s center-right party, the PTI, during the 2013 Pakistan elections, A Pakistani was gladly greeted (in a blonde wig) by an immigration officer, presumably in a European country. The post-colonial self was here finding affirmation from a Western post-colonial self.
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Often ‘indigenous’ activities are carried out only to achieve Westerners’ momentum. Some claim that more Muslim women in western cities willingly wear the hijab than in Muslim cities do. In a 2003 interview with Nawa-i-Waqt, the late Qazi Hussain Ahmad, the former leader of Jamaat-i-Islami, said that there was nothing wrong with behaving or appearing religious, and the West is more appreciative of this than those Muslims who behave like Westerners.
There are cases of how self-orientalism searches for affirmation in the West. An picture (of religiosity) was embraced in the last two instances to draw recognition (and possibly praise) from others by reinforcing their impressions of a ‘pious Muslim.’
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