Arab nationalist discourse mirrors Western claims by positing its own civilising mission
Evidence
Given the decline of the West at the end of the twentieth century the Orient is supposed to rise under the leadership of the Arab nation and under the banner of its mission civilisatrice to guide humanity out of the state of decadence to which Western leadership has brought it. For, the ‘western essence’ produced such unmistakable signs of decadence as: ‘mechanism, darwinism, freudianism, marxism, malthusianism, secularism, realism, positivism, existentialism, phenomenalism, pragmatism, machiavellism, liberalism and imperialism’, all of which are worldly doctrines manifesting ‘a purely materialist essence.’ … In contrast, ‘The human universe’ (i.e., man, humanity, the world, life, civilisation) is today awaiting its appointed encounter with ‘the nation bearing that mission and chosen to lead it out of its impasse’. — Sadik Jalal al-‘Azm, Orientalism and Orientalism in Reverse, 142
Categorization
- XREF: Mirrors the symmetric critique pattern in al-‘Azm’s wider reversal thesis — the Arab nation’s essentialized civilising mission is structurally the mirror image of the Western civilising mission it denounces.
- ADDENDUM: Parallels the ‘mission civilisatrice’ framing discussed in the sacrifice article’s treatment of civilisational self-justification, though through national-essence claims rather than ritual practice.
- QUESTION: Worth chasing: the list pairs ‘marxism’ with ‘liberalism’ as decadent Western materialisms — inviting a fuller genealogy of when and why Arab nationalist discourse equated socialism with materialist decadence.