in transformation, and the Mohammedan mentality as well--though not
perhaps exactly as we might wish. It is undergoing a period of crisis,
wherein the past struggles everywhere against the present; where ancient
customs, impaired by modern innovations, present a hybrid and
disconcerting spectacle."[77]
To this is largely due the unlovely traits displayed by most of the
so-called "Westernized" Orientals; the "stucco civilization"[78] of the
Indian Babu, and the boulevardier "culture" of the Turkish
"Effendi"--syphilized rather than civilized. Any profound transformation
must engender many worthless by-products, and the contemporary
Westernization of the Orient has its dark as well as its bright side.
The very process of reform, however necessary and inevitable, lends
fresh virulence to old ills and imports new evils previously unknown. As
Lord Cromer says: "It is doubtful whether the price which is being paid
for introducing European civilization into these backward Eastern
societies is always recognized as fully as it should be. The material
benefits derived from European civilization are unquestionably great,
but as regards the ultimate effect on public and private morality the
future is altogether uncertain."[79]
The good and the evil of Westernization are alike mostly clearly evident
among the ranks of the educated elites. Some of these men show the
happiest effects of the Western spirit, but an even larger number fall
into the gulf between old and new, and there miserably perish. Lord
Cromer characterized many of the "Europeanized" Egyptians as "at the
same time de-Moslemized Moslems and invertebrate Europeans";[80] while
another British writer thus pessimistically describes the superficial
Europeanism prevalent in India: "Beautiful Mogul palaces furnished with
cracked furniture from Tottenham Court Road. That is what we have done
to the Indian mind. We have not only made it despise its own culture and
throw it out; we have asked it to fill up the vacant spaces with
furniture which will not stand the climate. The mental Eurasianism of
India is appalling. Such minds are nomad. They belong to no
civilization, no country, and no history. They create a craving that
cannot be satisfied, and ideals that are unreal. They falsify life.
They deprive men of the nourishment of their cultural past, and the
substitutes they supply are unsubstantial.... We sought to give the
Eastern mind a Western content and environment; we have succeeded too
well in establishing intellectual and moral anarchy in both."[81]
These patent evils of Westernization are a prime cause of that
implacable hatred of everything Western which animates so many
Orientals, including some well acquainted with the West. Such persons
are precious auxiliaries to the ignorant reactionaries and to the rebels
against Western political domination.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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