Craig Thompson’s Habibi between Orientalism and Occidentalism – A Critical Essay

“Woven through all of Flaubert’s Oriental experiences, exciting or disappointing, is an almost uniform association between the Orient and sex. […] Why the Orient seems still to suggest not only fecundity but sexual promise (and threat), untiring sensuality, unlimited desire, deep generative energies, is something on which one could speculate” (Said 188 qtd. in Shabanirad 24).

In the aforementioned lines, Edward W. Said notices not only that there is a nexus between Orient and sexuality in the work of Gustave Flaubert, but he also concludes that this nexus exists in Western literature about the Orient in general. The 650 page spanning graphic novel Habibi by Craig Thompson is no exception to this rule. For example, right at the beginning, one of the two main characters, Dodola, is forcibly deflowered (Thompson, “Habibi” 13). This instance is just a foretaste to the orgies which occur later in the harem of the sultan (Thompson, “Habibi” 259). Thompson does not fail to integrate every cliché there is about the Orient in his story: caravans, opulent palaces, Jinns, and references to One Thousand and One Nights. Said’s general explanation for the existence of these Oriental stereotypes is the fact that scientific and literary work of Westerners about the Orient is more about Western identity than about the scientific or literary subject itself.

Said’s general explanation raises some follow-up questions that will be answered in this paper. Firstly, what explanation is there for this connection between sexuality and the Orient beyond the very general explanation that it is about the identity of the author? I consider the massive use of above mentioned sexualized story elements racist and I will explain why. Secondly, what Western identity (out of the many there are) is Habibi a reflection of? I will argue that Habibi is primarily about the identity of the contemporary American political left.

After 9/11, the picture of Islam from the Western point of view significantly darkened. Islam had become the prudish, fundamentalist, and self-righteous religion. This image of Islam is in stark contrast to the Orient, as it is described by Said: hedonism, unlimited desire, and ladies of the harem. Presumably, Thompson sought to push the superficially positive clichés about the Orient against the neoconservative narrative of the inherently aggressive and dangerous Orient that is a threat to Western civilization. Unfortunately, these Oriental stereotypes are not less racist. In the Freudian psychoanalytic theory, racism is considered a result of oppressed sexual desires and subdued aggressive feelings. In the Freudian psychic apparatus, aggressiveness and sexuality are both integral aspects of the id (Rommelspacher 26-27). The id is part of the subject, but the subject does not consider these emotions a part of the self. Rather, it projects the felt desires and aggressions on elements the subject considers foreign (Hettlage-Varjas 469-470). In accordance with the critical theory of Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer (who combined Freudian psychoanalysis with Marxism), the submission of nature goes hand in hand with the submission of the id within the subject. In order to subdue nature, the subject must use its rationality, its superego. It cannot give its desires, its id, free rein (Lenk). Consequently, in the eyes of some Western subjects, Oriental people have not yet restrained their desires, subdued their id, in order to adjust to economic utilization. Of course, Oriental subjects do not fail to integrate their id. To the contrary, the wealth of Western civilization and the thereto related fact that nature can nowadays be subdued by a technical means provides the prerequisite for the re-liberation of the principle of pleasure (of the id). The romantic idea of the Other allegedly being sexually hedonistic is apparenty for the Western subject the rationalization for the uncivilized state of the Orient. Thompson reinforces this notion: He presents the imaginary country Wanatolia on the one hand as a place of licentious sexuality and on the other hand as an uncivilized place. Wanatolia is uncivilized in the way that it is not democratized and that it is reigned by a sultan. Also, the marauding gangs at the beginning of the story show that the state monopoly on the use of force (an important characteristic of a civilized society) is not yet established (Thompson, “Habibi” 20). Thompson’s lighter image of the Orient is not less racist than the neoconservative view on the Orient because both views are projections of the Freudian id. Aggressiveness and sexuality are two sides of the same coin.

My second thesis is that Habibi is also a product of a particular political ideology. It is the ideology of the contemporary political left in the US. A central momentum of the political left in general is the engagement for the oppressed. In the US however, the strong influence of the postmodern scientific paradigm and the empathic relationship to oppressed minorities has led to cultural relativism and a strong disregard for the ideas of the Enlightenment. Exemplary for cultural relativism is the concept of “standpoint epistemology”. According to Ward standpoint epistemologists replace scientific realism’s accent on the objective and universal with an emphasis on the perspective, the local, and the particular. This strain of thought can be among others attributed to Foucault and Nietzsche who saw science and knowledge as political tactics in a power game (Ward 778). Taking up this strain of thought, the feminist theorists Sandra Harding tried to unmask scientific realism as “Eurocentric” and “androcentric” (Harding 334). According to Harding, there is no real objectivity because science is always the product of the interest of power and reflects the worldview of the scientists which were hitherto men of European descent. Harding’s concept of “strong objectivity” is consequently the act of adding a strong subjective female voice in science. Following Harding’s strain of thought, objectivity is presumably not something that can be obtained through logical thinking or interpersonal rational discourse (as it is the ideal of the Enlightenment), but knowledge and science is bound to a certain identity. For advocates of standpoint epistemology, culture is just too strong and all-encompassing to allow for any type of objective account (Ward 278). It is the radical rejection of the Enlightenment and of any universal logic that can permeate different cultures and social groups.

Today, this logic of post structural-feminist standpoint epistemology is also applied to liberal American minority politics. If a social group is systematically oppressed, unconditional and uncritical solidarity to this group seems to be the imperative to some of the political left in the US. It is uncritical because every criticism regarding a particular social group would mean to apply a set of universal standards to that particular social group. If culture is just too strong, no universal standard can be formulated that can claim validity beyond cultural borders. It is unconditional because just a strong subjective standpoint of the oppressed group can eventually lead to objectivity in the outcome (strong objectivity). By taking into account the current hype of postmodern epistemology, such self-contradictory phenomena as the following can be explained: The fact that the image of a hijab wearing Muslim women served as an emancipatory statement against the current discriminatory policies of the Trump administration can be seen as self-contradictory because of the fact that most hijab wearing women in the world do not have the chance to choose between wearing the headscarf or not wearing it due to social pressure or legislative regulations. The universal demand for emancipation of all women in the world is sacrificed to the logic of identity politics. It is similar to Obama’s criticism of the ban of the hijab in some Western countries in his Cairo speech while he did not lose a word about the legal obligation of wearing the headscarf in some Muslim countries (Obama). Craig Thompson also applies this logic of uncritical solidarity to Habibi. On page 616, Dodola puts on her hijab due to the sexual leering of a group of men. The headscarf is not seen as an instrument of patriarchal oppression but as a shield against it. Craig Thompson displays oppression in his book several times. But the instrument of oppression is never religion. For example, the sultan is a dictator with a lascivious, impulsive personality but he does not care particularly about religious doctrines.

Craig Thompson has created Habibi in response to the rising “Islamophobia” in the US after 9/11. He is defending Islam and the Orient against the West but unintentionally uses Oriental stereotypes and a double standard when it comes to Islam. He defends the Orient (or what he believes it is) by also demonizing the West.

Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit apparently came up with the concept of Occidentalism in response to anti-American and anti-emancipatory political movements in the world which include Islamic fundamentalist movements. It is also a polemic response to Said’s concept of Orientalism and its preventive immunization against the critique of anti-imperialist political movements, regardless how much they are opposed to emancipation and the ideas of the Enlightenment (Salzborn 149). On page 573 of Habibi, one can examine an Occidental stereotype. Zam, one of the two main characters, works as a construction worker at a dam. Zam is invited to work as an overseer somewhere else by the factory manager. The manager is small and thin shaped, dressed in a huge suit, and wears sunglasses and a huge watch. He owns an opulent SUV with a personal driver. He says: “We recruit workers from abroad for routine jobs over here. They just cost us a fraction of the price […] Wanatolia is not a city, it’s a LABEL. And the SULTAN is like all the politicians – he’s entirely cosmetic. But here you see our real ruler … The dam of Wanatolia. […] Of course we had to resettle the inhabitants of the plateau before we flooded it. But then we could capitalize on the floods” (trans. Thompson, “Habibi” 573–575).

Antisemitism and an anti-Western or anti-American bias are conceivably related because all these resentments refer to the Freudian superego. Rommelspacher writes: “And here antisemitism distinguishes itself from colonial racism by the fact that – speaking psychoanalytically – it nourishes itself from a ‘projection of the superego’ and attributes too much intelligence, wealth and power to the Other” (trans. Rommelspacher 26). Both Jews and Americans but also the West in general can be the projection screen of this resentment. Thompson’s depiction of modernization in Habibi could also be seen as a part of his anti-Western resentment of his Occidentalism. Modernization is primarily seen as bad for the environment. The city of Wanatolia after or during modernization is full of waste (Thompson, “Habibi” 520) whereas the time in premodern Wanatolia with its zoo and exotic animals, its Eden-like garden and bath house (Thompson, “Habibi” 205–207) is heavily romanticized. Thompson does not examine the aspect of emancipation that comes with modernization. Thompson’s vision of the Orient is a region in a pristine and original state unspoiled by the evils of modernization, without environmental damage that destroys the idyllic oasis in an ocean of white sand, and untouched by sinister investment bankers who just have their own profit in mind.

Summarizing, I can fully agree with Said’s diagnose that Oriental literature is all about the identity of the writer and not about the subject itself. In Habibi, there is no regard to the real problems of the Middle East, let alone to Islamic fundamentalism that currently keeps the region in a stranglehold. The Orient that is depicted in Habibi is a fantasy world that is heavily romanticized and sexualized. Besides the Oriental stereotypes, Habibi is a product of the ideology of the contemporary political left in the US and its relationship to Islam that is characterized by cultural relativism. This relativist standpoint furthermore nourishes an anti-Western resentment (Occidentalism) that among other things manifests itself in antisemitic stereotypes.

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