OCCIDENTAL REASON, ORIENTALISM, ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISM: A CRITIQUE

Abstract

Western cultural anthropology, sociological and feminist perspectives on development have been adopting an essentialist standpoint. The question, what do natives really mean?, how do they internally perceive themselves?, has become a major concern in Third World sociological and anthropological studies. On the other hand, social scientists in the Third World, and specifically in Arab countries, have called for the `indigenisation' of the social sciences for the creation of analytical and theoretical concepts which are meant to be applicable to local and `indigenous' cultures. This essay attempts to confront the new Western `essentialism' in the social sciences with the call for `indigenisation' in the East. We wish to suggest that, due to the paradox of Western secularisation, namely, that it has been created by religious fundamentalism - a process discovered by Nietzsche and Weber - religion remains an absent centre of Western anthropological and sociological discourse. Owing to a process of growing cultural globalisation the call for `indigenisation' remains a result of intra-cultural discourse and not of any serious attempt to rationalise the modern heritage of history and culture.