Paradise Lost
In Paradise Lost, a collection of rewritten and updated articles spanning a period of twenty-five years, C.A.O. van Nieuwenhuijze attempts to tackle issues of identity and interaction in the Arab-Islamic world. Together they constitute phenomena of virtual reality, reifying concepts as instruments...
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| Formato: | article |
| Lenguaje: | EN |
| Publicado: |
International Institute of Islamic Thought
1999
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| Acceso en línea: | https://doaj.org/article/2ff808b54ef34f7a9e3c9ecbdee55df4 |
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| Sumario: | In Paradise Lost, a collection of rewritten and updated articles spanning a
period of twenty-five years, C.A.O. van Nieuwenhuijze attempts to tackle
issues of identity and interaction in the Arab-Islamic world. Together they constitute
phenomena of virtual reality, reifying concepts as instruments of intelligibility,
being at once the product and frame of human intellect and action (p. 3). Both components, as the common thread which ties and pervades his work,
comprise the conceptual himework within which the “forever problematic”
relationship between the Middle East and a revitalizing Islam on the one hand,
and a Western Europe undergoing a post-Christian, postmodem phase, on the
other, is probed.
This nexus of collective identity and interaction manifests a “logical complementarity”
inasfar as both presuppose and negate each other (p. 1). Identity
evokes an all encompassing eclectic representation of an individual‘s or collectivity’s
cosmos, be it in the form of someps pro toto (nation, polity, economy,
or culture; u r n or din) or an intentional comprehensive indication
(lifestyle; patrimoine; htruth). In recognizing no other beyond its cosmic
domain, identity connotes a seemingly timeless and placeless unicity which
frequently bestows upon it an impressive though mistaken aura of static permanence
and absoluteness @. 2). Interaction conversely represents the “practice
of identity as a plural phenomenon” (p. 405) and thus incorporates all the
complexities which emanate from the dynamics of a highly variable reality.
The formulae it gives rise to purs pro toto are correspondingly much more fluid
(communication, harmony, strife, domination) or reflective of inherent, large
ly imbalanced ambiguities (mission civilisatrice; development aid or,
euphemistically, cooperation; ddwuh). In contradistinction to identity significations
asserting the positive aspects of constituency (i.e., what one is), these
interactional code words are summary evocations arrived at by the intervening
perception of a counteridentity of the “other” (i.e., what one is not). Hence, it
gives rise to polar images of binary opposites of such orders as Greek vs. barbarian;
Islam vs. jahiliyuh; or &zr ul-Islam vs. dar al-harb. In and of themselves,
interactional identifications bear limited significations to those concerned
except in tacit conjunction with each term’s opposition (p. 2). In other
words, self-identification is arrived at by detour. Consequently, interaction is
relegated to an instrumental role on behalf of a pre-established and, in most
cases as AmbDslamic-European historical experience has shown, dominating
self-centered structure. As a result, “the fundamental complementarity bemeen
identity and interaction is neglected, and with it the contingency inherent in
identity” (pp. 2-3). Entrenchment in the face of an aggressive ethnocentrism,
henceforth, becomes the order of the day.
Intellectual exploits of Western Enlightenment elevated objectification to the
highly esteemed means toward ethnocentrically motivated mastery over “reality.”
Its basic mode of analysis combined empirical observation with critical
rigor and methodological empathy and an overwhelming penchant to universalize
conclusions--method being confused for truth. In the process, social sciences
and Oriental studies came to reflect national categories contrived by an ...
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