For the Times Literary Supplement @TheTLS I wrote about effacement of local cultures & knowledge, Said's Culture & Imperialism, Leila Ahmed's envy of Hanan al-Shaykh, and some other stuff...

One of the more insidious effects of Western hegemony – from the so-called “civilizing” missions of the Age of Empire through to America’s current quasi-imperialist role – has been on culture and education in formerly colonized regions of the globe. Even Gulf Arab states such as Kuwait, which were not technically colonized, have proved to be vulnerable to the cultural imperialism imposed on the wider Arab world as part of the dispossessing processes of globalization.

This goes beyond the erosion of traditions or the abandonment of rituals that bind our societies. It concerns more than curmudgeonly complaints about wearing Levis and drinking Coke or whether younger generations prefer Western pop to Umm Kulthum. In fact, there are those who would argue that such changes are ultimately positive – that the process represents a cultural exchange whereby both sides are enriched in their encounter with the other. However, as is so often the case when we’re speaking about the “East” and “West” (outdated terms that I use for simplicity’s sake), the issue comes down to power. Edward Said, in Culture and Imperialism, tells us that “thinking about cultural exchange involves thinking about domination and forcible appropriation: someone loses, someone gains”.