Thursday, June 17, 2010

Orientalist cliches

Such Orientalist generalizations about the natives find currency in Western media. The writer is annoyingly arrogant and feigns a morally superior position. He alone, he tells you, understtands what freedom means: "Sadly, much of Egyptian society operates this way. The entire concept of having the "personal freedom" to do what you wish, provided you don't harm others, is nonexistent. Even those who claim to be proponents of individual liberty misunderstand the concept. It's about time that a debate on individual liberties started, for we live in a society where social repression and hypocrisy have risen to sickening levels."