Ian Buruma and Avisha Margalit have recently published a short book (165 pages) which outlines the increasingly anti-Western stance taken by not only extreme Islamic groups currently dominating the news. It also provides an account of how "Occidentalism" - in contrast to Said's Orientalism (1978) - has grown in other areas of the "East", meaning the wider Asian area from Turkey to Japan. As a fascinating twist to this potentially East versus West divide, the writers pin-point the origin of Occidentalism as being in the West itself.

For those working in education this work offers broad resonance with debates regarding the status of English and the blind import of western methodologies into Middle Eastern and Asian classrooms. It is a reference to the deeper religious, political, historical and socio-economic issues underlying the perceptions of the West, how it is both hated and admired by those empowered and disempowered from the benefits of Western-driven globalization. In English language education in the wider Asian area, teachers who have delved into linguistic imperialism (Philippson, 1992) and resistance to it (Canagarajah, 1999) may hesitate to go further beyond purely educational issues. If they do so by looking at the issues raised by Buruma and Margalit, however, they will soon realize that English language teaching is potentially part of a wider philosophical debate interlinked with the social, political and religious fabric in which they work. This broad context, or ecology, is one in which the teacher cannot ignore the theme of prejudice towards the West. In this sense, for those who have read Said's Orientalism and how the West falsely constructs the East, Occidentalism provides a perhaps flawed, but informative, attempt to explain stereotypical constructs of the West.

The extreme task of attempting to explain the nature of anti-Westernism is admittedly one too wide in scope for some reviewers who have labeled the work as jumping on the bandwagon of post-9/11 reactionary literature. To be fair to the writers, though, they both have a history of writing on such themes, Buruma (currently at Bard College, New York) particularly being recognized as an expert on Japanese and German post-war growth, and Margalit .(Professor of Philosophy at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem) on Middle Eastern affairs. It is from this rich depth of knowledge of Eastern and Arabic affairs which both writers draw throughout the book. Buruma, for example, explains the roots of anti-Westernism in Japan and Germany and Margalit describes the nature of Islam. In this sense, their work cannot simply be seen as a knee-jerk reaction to the post 9/11 era.

Some outstanding themes raised by the writers are the link between characteristics shared by al-Qaeda and other revolutionary movements from the nineteenth century. These show that stereotypical prejudices of the West, for example, of the Western city-dweller without soul or morals, of a Western economy driven by greed, and of a Jewish-led conspiracy to take financial control of the world have their origins not in the present day in the Middle East, but in the past in the West itself. Nazi Germany, significantly, had a philosophical movement emphasizing the closely-knit community spirit of "blood and soil" in contrast to the machine-driven societies of the American-influenced West. In the Far East, this is also mirrored in accounts of how Japanese intellegensia, under the guise of the nihonjinron theory of Japanese uniqueness and implied superiority, formed their own anti-Western philosophical movement in the Second World War rejecting the previously wholesale import of Western technology and rational thought.

Buruma and Margalit stress the seemingly valueless, immoral image of Westerners constructed both in the past and currently espoused by Islamic Fundamentalists. Such extreme Occidentalism is argued by the writers as representing a form of "intellectual destruction" having its roots over time in the counter-reformation movement of the church, the counter-enlightenment movement in the French Revolution, fascism, national socialism, anti-capitalism, religious extremism and even anti-globalization. Among the most notorious exponents of Occidentalism was apparently Pol Pot in Cambodia who forced the population back to the land, away from the corrupting nature of city-life and its possible influences from the West. There is the implication that Occidentalism carries a purity in thought and living which the West has neglected and replaced by materialistic greed and scientific rationality. In brief, this is, as the writers explain, a simplification or a set of stereotypical generalizations constructed to polarize the world between those who are godless and devote, coldly rational and those who are community-minded. The descriptive language for this dichotomy is at times provocative in this work and potentially offensive to Westerners who can indeed compromise rationality with a care for the community at home and abroad (Western Christian charities for example and voluntary groups who travel abroad). Yet, the work is perhaps in itself intended as a provocation, and in that respect the writers achieve their objective of stimulating the reader into a deeply reflective self-assessment of the values of their country and themselves as individuals.

Whilst successfully outlining how Occidentalists negatively construct the West with examples of the rhetoric used by extremists, Buruma and Margalit carefully suggest that a middle way does exist for the Islamic world, one put forward by Muhammad Iqbal (1877 - 1938), the "spiritual father" of Pakistan. This was a form of mediation between an Islamic society upholding its values, yet able to live with economic modernism. He particularly was unique in that he advocated that the self, or khudi, should be developed to its full potential, in contrast to the perhaps more community-minded, umma, objectives of traditional Islam. His teachings did not attempt to dehumanize the West, surely an early sign of the moderate Islam the West now craves. The answer to extreme Occidentalism is, as the authors suggest, for Islam to look into itself for this middle way. ?

Finally, Buruma and Margalit, despite much of the book taken up by leading the reader into a seemingly clear condemnation of how extreme religious beliefs create hatred for the West, regard religion itself as a potential source for reconciliation between the West and the East. This places a great burden on the Islamic world to find a strong and tolerant moderate voice as expressed by Iqbal. Also raised in their conclusions is the concept of the "cross-contamination" of extreme religious views overtaking political direction in both the West and East, an overt reference to the Bush Presidency it seems. This influence creates the danger of the West fighting Occidentalists with their own religious-driven intolerance, a foreboding view of the present and future which forms divisions in every community, every office and, finally, every classroom and staff room. What perhaps lacks in this work is the mechanism required to overcome this escalating polarization of beliefs. The book manages to both inform the reader of the history and current state of Occidentalism. It provokes the reader yet begs the question as to how long-lasting reconciliation can take place.

References
Canagarajah, A. S. (1999). Resisting Linguistic Imperialism in English language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University press.
Said, E. W. (1978). Orientalism. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Phillipson, R. (1992). Linguistic Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press