What is Postcolonialism |Criticism of focusing on National Identity in the Middle East

 Postcolonialism 

Postcolonialism ( Postcolonial theory, post-colonial theory) is a set of theories in philosophy, film, and literature that deals with the cultural legacy of colonial rule.

    

As a literary theory, it deals with literature produced in countries that once were colonies of other countries, especially of European colonial powers Britain, France, and Spain; in some contexts, it includes countries still in colonial arrangements.

It also deals with the literature written in colonial countries and by their citizens that have colonized people(s) as its subject matter. Colonized people, especially those; of the British Empire, attended British universities; their access to education that was still unavailable in the colonies created a new criticism, mostly literary, and especially in novels. The postcolonial theory became a part of the critics' resources in the 1970s; most take Edward Said’s book Orientalism as its foundation work.

Subject Matters

Postcolonialism deals with the cultural identity matters of colonized societies: the dilemmas of developing a national identity after colonial rule; how the writer articulates and celebrates cultural identity (often reclaiming it from and often maintaining strong connections with the colonizer); how a colonized people’s knowledge is generated and used; and how the colonist’s literature justified colonialism via images of the colonized as a perpetually inferior person, society, and culture. 

In colonialism’s case, the Oriental and the Westerner were distinguished as different from each other (i.e. the emotional, decadent Orient vs. the principled, progressive occident). This position justified the “white man’s burden”, the colonizer’s self-perceived “ destiny to rule” naturally sub-ordinate peoples.

Middle East, Postcolonialism, and National Identity

In the last decade, Middle Eastern studies and research produced works focusing on the colonial past’s effects on the internal and external political, social, cultural, and economic circumstances of contemporary Middle Eastern countries. A particular focus of the study is the matter of Western discourses about the Middle East, and the existence or the lack of national identity formation:

Many countries in the Middle East have struggled with defining their public identity. Even after more than three decades since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, which most of these countries emerged from, they have been unable to create and maintain a public identity that is inclusive and representative.

Independence and the end of colonialism have failed to resolve social fragmentation and conflicts in the Middle East. As Larbi Sadiki understood and noted in The Search for Arab Democracy: Discourses and Counter-Discourses (2004), because European colonial powers drew borders discounting peoples, ancient tribal boundaries, and local history, the Middle East’s contemporary national identity problem is traceable from imperialism and colonialism.

Indeed, ‘in places like Iraq and Jordan, leaders of the new state were brought in from the outside, and tailored to suit colonial interests and commitments. Likewise, most countries in the Persian Gulf were given to those who could protect Homeric interests in the post-withdrawal phase. 

Criticism of Focusing on National Identity

Scholars criticize and question the recent post-colonial focus on national identity. The Moroccan scholar Bin ‘Abd al-Ali argues that what is seen in contemporary Middle Eastern studies is ‘a pathological obsession with . . . identity’.

According to Kumaraswamy and Sidiki, the lack of identity formation of nations is a widespread problem in the Middle East and is an important aspect of understanding the politics of the region. No doubt the national identity of the Middle East is crucial for understanding the politics of the region.

What if Bin 'Abdval-'Ali' described as an obsession with national identity may be explained by ' the absence of a championing social class?'