Що е оксидентализъм и има ли той почва у нас? Предварителни тезиси в търсене на литературните аспекти на проблема

The idea of the Other is a crucial part of the own identity. People imagine the Other in different ways, very often he/she is presented as a dangerous Enemy. Mythical thinking, which is alive even nowadays uses different tools to name and imagine the Other and to master it. Edward Said's well-known book introduced the term Orientalism in the international humanities, and with it he designated "a way of coming to terms with the Orient that it based on the Orient's place in European Western experience", one specific "style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between "the Orient" and (most the time) "the Occident". The work ends with a warring Above all, I hope to have shown my reader that the answer to Orientalism is not Occidentalism. No former "Oriental" will be conformed by the thought that having been an Oriental himself he is likely - too likely - to study new "Orientals" - or "Occidentals" - on his own making. If the knowledge of Orientalism has any meaning, it is in being a reminder of the seductive degradation of knowledge, of any knowledge, anywhere, at any time. Now perhaps more than before. Said knew that this was not just a potential threat. Occidentalism not only exists; its effects are extremely pernicious. The most demonic of them befell on September 11, 2001. Ancient mental constructs and psychological trends, realized in different texts - secular and religious, literary, philosophical, journalistic and so on - lay beneath the terrorist acts. It appeared that not only the West is biased against the "Orient" and tries to dominate through literary and scholar texts, but the "Orient" reacts in a similar way and tries to deal with the problems of its relations with the West by building (analogical?) mental and linguistic constructions. In some cases Occidentalism may become a positive strategy, as in Hassan Hanafi's Introduction to the Science of Occidentalism (1992). The phenomenon of Occidentalism finds its annalists among the politicians, journalists and scholars. Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit are the most famous among them. Their book Occidentalism: the West in the Eyes of Its Enemies provoked serious debates and became a bestseller. Although the two terms (becoming titles of popular books) were constructed in obviously the same manner, the two phenomena are not entirely analogical, and Buruma and Margalit do not refer to Said. It is disputable whether Orientalism is the earlier one (according to Buruma, Islamism on which he focused is a modern phenomenon with western roots); but for a long period of time Orientalism was more powerful and was backed by and realized in the Western colonialist institutions and the Western academic studies of the "East", that were more elaborated than the Eastern studies of the "West". On the other hand, Occidentalism is to some extend a reaction to the Orientalism and the related politics, military actions, colonial institutions and academia. Occidentalism appears to be more radical, more active. Its roots and reasons could be traced in quite different mental and spiritual spheres; their common ground is the belief in the own uniqueness and the hostility of the Other. Scholars find strongholds of the Occidentalism in the reactions to the universalism of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, in some variations of the Japanese Shintoism, connected with imperial ideology, in pan-ideologies (Pan-Slavism among them), in different variations of fascism, in Stalinism, etc. Avishai Margalit and Ian Buruma highlighted several [four] "features of Occidentalism": Hatred of the City and urban civilization, symbolized by the fabled tower of Babylon; the state and modern civilization with its attributes (literature, films, pop music, advertisement), separation between the private and the public domain, commercialism; Critique of the bourgeois civilization, its commercialism and addiction to safety and comfort, and lack of heroism and revolutionary gestures; Rejection of Bourgeois Reason, rationality and science, opposed to irrational notions such as spirit, race, blood and soil, etc.; Denial of feminism, seen as giving too much freedom to women. As a whole this is a rejection of modernity, which was associated with the West. The result is an absolutely negative image of the West, containing "a set of attributes, such as arrogance, feebleness, greed, depravity, and decadence, which are invoked as typically Western, or even American, characteristics". The conclusion of Avishai Margalit and Ian Buruma was: There is no clash of civilizations. Most religions, especially the monotheistic ones, have the capacity to harbor the anti-Western poison. And varieties of secular fascism can occur in all cultures. * * * The question of the usability of the term Occidentalism in the context of Bulgarian, Balkan or East European culture is a big challenge for the scholars. Other challenge is the discovering of Occidentalism in these cultures. The present paper argues that if Occidentalism is a form of demonizing, then the Other that comes from the West Occidentalism could be traced in Bulgarian culture as well. It takes critical place in the national mythology, in the images of the other presented in texts which deal with abductions, seductions and other plots concerning sexual or matrimonial relations with foreigners; in nostalgic poems, written abroad; in retro-utopia visions of the traditional life; in anti-Catholic pamphlets; in polemics with foreigners; in travel notes, etc. On the other hand this paper argues that in the Bulgarian context Occidentalism is often mixed with Orientalism. Both phenomena are ambivalent and exported from other cultures.