Culture and Imperialism

In light of America’s “forever wars” that occurred after the publication of this book and Said’s death—he died shortly after the start of the second war with Iraq, in 2003—Said’s critique of the Gulf War of 1991 is both prescient and precise. As he recounts, following the work of political scholar Richard Barnet, “a United States military intervention in the Third World had occurred every year between 1945 and 1967 (when he stopped counting)” (283). And as current readers know, America has intervened many more times, from Bosnia to Afghanistan and beyond. This is important to Said’s scholarship because he wants to emphasize the enormous support—culturally speaking—for what is essentially an imperializing mission. The media bolsters the project of “manufacturing consent,” in the words of critic Noam Chomsky, making “the average American feel that it is up to ‘us’ to right the wrongs of the world” (286).

Said’s larger point is that the project of imperialism continues apace in the contemporary era, with a uniquely American bravado and with cultural forces still arrayed to support and disperse imperialism’s message. His critiques of the media are also notable for their foresight: He is writing at a time in which the media was not so clearly and consciously divided between those in the “conservative” bloc and those who consider themselves “liberals.” In addition, the polarizing presence of social media had yet to become a significant part of the social discourse. These forces work together to fortify the essentialist and nationalist versions of identity—versions that Said claims only work to create further strife and conflict in the world.

His vision calls for what the reader might today call “intersectionality,” where identity is a complex and sometimes conflicted construction consisting of multiple discrete elements such as race, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic background, and other factors. He tracks the publication of works that further a post-colonial “expression of essentializations,” the codification of attempts of “Africanizing the African, Orientalizing the Oriental, Westernizing the Western, Americanizing the American, for an indefinite time and with no alternative” (311). As Said sees it, “The idea behind these works is that orthodox, authoritatively national and institutional versions of history tend principally to freeze provisional and highly contestable versions of history into official identities” (312). This only works to sustain the imperial worldview, preventing a world culture that recognizes the overlaps and interdependence of all peoples across the globe.

Ultimately, Said turns this discussion into a call to action: He wants scholars to reassume the mantle of political responsibility for the preservation of a culture that is more equitable, open, and honest about the realities of the post-colonial moment—which is not yet post-imperial. His critique of contemporary academics highlights his frustration:

If you are a professional scholar of literature or critic of culture, all your affiliations with the real world are subordinate to your professing in those fields. Similarly, you are responsible not so much to an audience in your community or society, as to and for your corporate guild of fellow experts, your department of specialization, your discipline (321).

Said finds this tendency among academics to hide from the “real world” within their ivory towers to be counter-productive to his political project of liberation. Instead, the “intellectual mission” of scholars should be to think of themselves as migrants, or exiles, moving between cultures and disciplines. His call to action requires scholars to be liminal figures, able to recognize and identify the interconnectedness of geographical spaces and cultural productions, but not like Kipling’s Kim. Instead of practicing the kind of liminality that works to reinforce the centralized power of the metropolis, the contemporary scholar should function to destabilize that power. In his concluding words, he writes, “This also means not trying to rule others [...], not constantly reiterating how ‘our’ culture or country is number one […] For the intellectual there is quite enough of value to do without that” (336).