Culture and Imperialism

Although slightly confusing, I think that Said's essay about Culture and Imperialism is fairly interesting. The essay talks about the connections between the Middle East and the United States, or the Western culture in general. Some of his essay talks about events that occured while the first George Bush was president, but the feelings and affects are relevant now because of our ties with Iraq, Afghanistan, and the rest of the Middle East today. One of the things that Said talks about is that the two hemispheres are connected because of conflict and the clashing of cultures. He seems very critical of the United States government and foreign policies-mostly the fact that America acts as the "world police", so-to-speak. Said seems to believe that the United States, as the only remaining superpower since the end of the Cold War, has taken on the role of coming to the rescue of underdeveloped nations and trying to help them either economically or to rid of an oppressive government or dictatorship. In his opinion, the U.S. interferes where they are not needed, but not in the thought of helping others out, but for its' own selfish reasons. The need for oil, and the ability to control its' marketing, economic strife, political uprisings, and moral differences are all reasons why the U.S. interferes with these other nations with different cultures. The main reason, however, for America's "need" to step in is to spread Democracy and provide for a so-called "better" living for these nations. The ulterior motive is to create more allies amongst these oil-rich nations for our own benefit, but make it seem as if we want to honestly help the oppressed citizens out.

Middle Eastern countries are very nationalistic, according to Said, and this creates problems for the United States in their mission. These nationalistic countries, such as Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia have gained much power through militaristic rule, and have lost individual identity in the eyes of other countries throughout the world. Now all of the Arab world has been lumped into one giant category, no matter an individual's beliefs, morals, background, or country of origin. Said goes on to say that United States cannot play innocent in this happening because it is due to America's selfish needs that much of this turmoil, and some wars, have occurred in the Middle East, which created conditions in some areas that are unliveable and run-down. He states that the U.S. is trying to set the agenda for all of the world-trying to monitor, and control to an extent, what goes on, and to terminate any goings-on that it doesn't agree with. He finishes with the fact that each and every nation has its' own culture and history that others try to ignore and lump certain groups together, such as black, white, Oriental, and so on. In order to move on from this lazy and immoral thinking process, the United States and the Arab world should begin to think about others and to take the time to learn about the cultures of others and learn to respect it, although they may not agree with it. He ends by saying that each individual country need not consider their culture and nation as the one and only, but take into consideration all others and pull from them as well, in order to create a sound world in which people can learn to get along because every culture has something to offer to the world.