Questioning Neo-Orientalism: A Study of Diverse Bicultural Responses of Emigrants in Tariq Ali’s Iranian Nights

Abstract

This research paper is the study of different structures of Neo-Orientalism and their opposite responses in the characters of Father and Son by application of Edward Said’s Orientalism. The dawn of modern age has brought with it new discourses of Orientalism based upon power structure (power/knowledge) where the physical colonization is not the only tool of colonization. In this phase, Islam and Islamophobia has become the new Orient, new ghost, which is generalized and reinforced by Western means of image production. Similarly, the power structures of Orientalist discourses are more hidden, complicated and powerful. They are like the air; easy to breathe and difficult to recognize. The paper questions bicultural identity of emigrants within Neo-Oriental propaganda produced in West and emigrants’ traumatic experience as a result. The paper further enhances Franz Fanon’s concept of “nervous conditions” by locating it within Neo-Oriental discourse since “nervous conditions” are not only confined to colonial violence. This paper stretches the concept of “nervous conditions” beyond simple colonial rule, nervousness and national revolution. The paper takes “nervous conditions” to the dilemmas of hybrid Muslim emigrants in West by defining them as “Natives” and highlighting new forms of colonial discourse in West in terms of Image production of Islam by commenting at the same time on the term “Post-Colonialism.” “Is the post really post?”