Warrior for the Underdog
By DrAkbar Ahmed
American University
Washington, DC
The legendary anthropologist Laura Nader has the heart of a young undergrad and the mind of a wise and compassionate guru. She is the champion of underdog causes. Her idealism has been unrelenting in her keen observations of society and politics over the decades. Her ideas of America derive from Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, John Kennedy and MLK Jr and she is always concerned about reminding America to live up to its high ideals.
Laura Nader was born in Winsted, Connecticut in 1930 to Nathra and Rose Nader who had immigrated to the United States from Lebanon only a few years prior and owned a local restaurant. Nader’s parents raised politically active children and encouraged dialogue and discussion: her elder brother, Shafeek, would become a community advocate; her older sister, Claire, would earn a PhD in Political Science; and her celebrated younger brother, Ralph, an attorney, has been a vocal advocate of consumer protection, environmentalism, and government reform and is known for his numerous third-party campaigns for President of the United States. Laura went on to obtain a PhD in Anthropology at Radcliffe College/ Harvard in 1961. Since then she has won many awards, written many books and articles and made many films.
Her insights into power dynamics are no doubt strengthened by her own experience living through periods of significant change. She was born before American women earned the right to vote. When she joined the faculty at the University of Berkeley in 1960, she was the first woman to be offered a tenure-track position in the Anthropology Department, an accomplishment that came with many challenges. She recalls having three children without receiving a single day of maternity leave, being told that she was expected to publish more than the men in her department, and never receiving equal pay to her male counterparts. There was no pretense: she would have to work harder for less.
Her academic passions, predicated on challenging various dogmas of the discipline, are apparent in her latest works. What The Rest Think of the West: Since 600 AD provides a challenge to Western accounts of the non-Western world by reversing the paradigm of analysis and providing a diverse set of historical and contemporary perspectives. Contrarian Anthropology: The Unwritten Rules of Academia takes a similar approach, but turns its focus to the entire field itself, citing a number of her own essays that, in some cases, have been previously rejected for publication.
What The Rest Think of the West, reflects Nader’s lifelong interest in comparative thought, gender issues and mutual perspectives on the rule of law. Through this anthology, Nader aims to prove that “Occidentalism is not a mirror image to Orientalism,” but instead part of a broader, often asymmetric dialectic about the nature of cultural interaction and exchange (page xxiii). Orientalism, a term made most famous by Edward Said’s eponymous book, Orientalism, refers to how Asia (and the Middle East in particular) is characterized by the West. This perception is often riddled with stereotypes and reflects colonialist attitudes towards the region.
Occidentalism is the reverse — it is the general perceptions of and attitudes toward the West as presented by non-Western people. Although the two terms seem to be the inverse of one another, they do not carry the same significance: “there is no encounter in which power steps aside” (page xxiii).
Nader divides the views from the non-Western world along geographic and/or cultural lines, with a section each for Middle Eastern, Indian, Chinese, and Japanese observers. While their perspectives span the historical record, they reveal a common thread of viewing other cultures with a mix of appreciation and skepticism.
Nader provides commentary on an excerpt of An Imam In Paris, the observations of Imam Rifa’ah Al-Tahtawi who ran an educational mission in Paris. Overall, al-Tahwawi’s general perceptions of the French tended to be positive, and his writings paint a humanizing picture of “The Other”:” Again, self-recognition is possible by the use of comparison – a look in the mirror” (page 48).
The views of the Western world included in this collection are diverse and often point to perceived double standards and hypocrisies in the West. Nader’s comments prior to an excerpt of From Napoleon in Egypt written by Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti point to the eerie similarities between Napoleon’s justifications for his Egyptian invasion and those of President George W. Bush invading Iraq.
Given her lifelong contributions to highlighting provocative and insightful narratives from often underrepresented groups, I was honored that she highlighted my work in both her recent works. In What The Rest Think of the West, Nader published the opening excerpt of my book, The Thistle and the Drone. In chapter 27 in Contrarian Anthropology, “The Anthropologist, the State, the Empire and the ‘Tribe, ‘” she describes my work as that of “an anthropologist studying up, down, and sideways in ways that were not the centerpiece of works by authors prior to Ahmed.” (page 448). “Akbar Ahmed’s amazing book The thistle and the drone….reflects paradigm changes in the 21st century. Looking backwards in time, Ahmed uses history to move the argument to a contemporary analysis of the state and the empire – as well as ‘the tribe’.”
Concluding, she notes : “The pain and suffering that Ahmed and his team have both recorded and witnessed is real, and he argues for compassion and kindness as a moral duty; through knowledge and research we can learn to co-exist and have mutual respect – we are all humans….Thus the dynamics Ahmed is interrogating – the colonized wished to civilize the center and the periphery, followed by independent states who continue the same trajectory of control and civilizing of the periphery after borders were drawn. However, the challenge now is the attack on both the state and the periphery from global corporate capitalism in the guise of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and international trade deals. In this light, Ahmed’s The thistle and the drone and his journeys to the United States and Europe and comparisons that cut across geographic areas, may be an antidote for the dilemmas of both the periphery and the state. A must read.”
Overall, both of Nader’s works provide a collection of fascinating and otherwise overlooked perspectives on a variety of topics that allow readers, especially those in the West, to better understand and contextualize the opinions of themselves abroad. Nader offers poignant analysis of power dynamics in the excerpts in What the Rest Think of the West and the provocative essays in Contrarian Anthropology. Together, they challenge the inquisitive mind to intentionally consider different time periods, contexts, and social relations. These books should be read by anyone looking to better understand the world around them today and particularly anthropologists considering the future of their field.
Recently, I was privileged to be invited by professor Nader to join her panel in Washington, DC at the great annual gathering of the American Anthropological Association. I was delighted to see an icon of my discipline in such fine form, easily dominating the proceedings with her sharp comments and observations. The years have not dimmed the ardor nor events intimidated the bomb thrower. She is a true lioness in winter.
(The writer is Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies, School of International Service, American University, Washington, DC)
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