Staying Globally Engaged Without Traveling

 

Behold, my best impression of what the GEF community's luggage will look like post-pandemic.

How can we stay involved globally when most of us can't even leave our homes? Tricky question. In a way, I lucked out this semester because I waited to take my Understanding the Global Community course until now. With the current circumstances, that class is the closest I get to traveling—for 50 minutes, 3 times a week, via Zoom call.

We've looked at the conflict between Uyghur Muslims and the Chinese government recently. I was aware of the situation in Xinjiang, but I was unaware of the U.S.'s role in China's justification. Per China, the United States' War on Terror allows the internment of "bad Muslims" in camps. It's awkward to try to explain our way out this one.

I talked about the orientalist dichotomy in my last post, and this ties right in. Since the U.S. (a beacon of Western idealism) has deemed non-Western extremism to be a major threat to the Western way of life, we've set a precedent. Now, as China claims that Uyghur Muslims threaten the Chinese way of life, it's difficult to tell them that there's no precedent to do what they're doing. After all, if the Chinese government deems the Uyghur populace to be an "extremist threat," wouldn't they just be following the rest of the world's example if they act swiftly and harshly?

What's more, China has accused the U.S.'s methods of being ineffectual. Since we haven't definitively "won" the War on Terror, you could argue that we aren't doing enough. Therefore, China's internment is justified. It's the logical next step for a country that believes it needs to up the ante.

I'm not sanctioning the actions of China against the Uyghur people. Far from it. However, it's vital that we realize our own role in the ideology that's cultivated this xenophobia. When China points to its bibliography and we're the top citation, that should make you pause.

All this to say: It's possible (and essential) to get involved with global politics during the pandemic. Global events and orientalist thought hasn't taken time off just because of COVID; neither should we. We live in the Information Age, when (literally the entire corpus of human) info is in our pockets. By taking advantage of this, we can stay globally engaged without leaving our bedrooms.

Orientalism in Modern Global Politics

 During my time in the Understanding the Global Community course, I've been interested in the dissection of East vs. West thought that we've done. Studying history, nearly everything is broken down into "east" and "west"—philosophy, architecture, etc. One of the ways by which you identify a culture is its hemisphere. So, I was fascinated to look at how the East vs. West dichotomy falls down upon closer inspection.

This mindset (or "orientalism" as we refer to it) is born of xenophobic constructions of the global stage. We form this "us vs. them" mindset that others all societies that are unlike us, threaten us, or both. Take, for example, the War on Terror. Bush's statement that "they hate what we have" is textbook—establishing a boundary line between us and "them" allows us to rally against a common foe. This is further entrenched by the dialogue of Bernard Lewis, who claims that Islam and Judeo-Christian societies are inherently incompatible. One look at the medieval era will quickly assure you that Jews and Christians have not always been buddy-buddy. In fact, Jews sought out Muslim alliances because Islamic communities were far more tolerant. Regardless.

We also see ideas of orientalism deeply rooted even in "progressive" theories. The idea of Globalization 3.0 (an attempt to give "non-Western" individuals more agency on the global stage) is entirely based around the idea that individuals can be either Western or non-Western. We have already assumed the premise that ethnicity is based around an arbitrary binary. 

Will we get rid of the E vs. W mindset any time soon? It's unlikely, especially seeing how we engage in it almost subconsciously. However, it's possible that an increased awareness of the damage that orientalist thought can cause (e.g., the Uyghur internment in China) will lead to a different conception of the global stage in the future.