It is surprising how reading “Colonizing Egypt” by
Mitchell went from a surprise and questioning the reading at the first sight to
a big appreciation of how is relates to the context of our class as well as the
contexts of the topic of modernity in the ME that we endeavor to study for the
time being.
The themes such as the world exhibition and enframing are excellent
themes representative to the relations between the West and the East. Let me
start on my understanding of the World Exhibition. Although Mitchell did not emphasize
the distinction he draws between World-as-Exhibition and World Exhibition, I
believe his emphasis on the former makes a lot of sense in describing the perception
of the East by the West. Mitchell argues that World-as--Exhibition is the representation
of the East or the other from what they grasp and only the non-European visitor
really understands the difference between the reality and representation. I would
agree with this approach because it still holds true to the current time. Those
who do not know the East and whose interaction with the East is through commercialism
or exhibitions really do not get the real sense of what the represented is;
which creates what we call now stereotypes. In addition, Mitchell stressed on
the idea that representation is distinct from the original and what is out in
the world is a continuation of what is in the exhibition. I understand that the
exhibition means to evoke the idea that there is a reality behind it. Thus how
is this supposed to be so different from the original? This is one of the arguments that I do not
believe to fully understand.
Mitchell engages himself in conversations that we already
had in class such as Weber and Marx. He smartly connects one of his major
themes which is exhibition to “Commodity Fetishism”. This is the separation of
the object from various costs and the effort it takes to make things. I would have liked Mitchell to touch more on
this real fact that is so trendy nowadays. Yet, he briefly connects it to
exhibition of the world and leaves the reader with lack of examples in order to
grip the bulk of this idea.
Enframing defined as controlling the space through the
creation of containers and the contained is what I enjoyed reading the most in
this text. This topic not only introduces us the control, the order of
appearance and appearance order that Mitchell exerts to discuss, but also I, as
a middle eastern can draw some real comparison and contrast between the West
and the East. In other terms, his lengthy effort to describe the Kabyle house
not only serves the purpose of his arguments but also highlights the
differences between the colonizer and the colonized. The West was known to draw
real boundaries between the interior and the exterior. This was definitely not the
case in the East, at least in the old orders. One could hardly know what was
happening inside in the latter. Family or women for example were privacy not
exposed to the outside. Instead of the boundaries between the inside and the
outside, the East was characterized by fullness, emptiness and therefore continuity;
as he draws and example from the Kabyle house. In such a cultural context, the
idea of control was hard to persist and that is why the colonization started
enframing or the codification of space. Space in the old order has so much
meaning (i.e., fullness and emptiness) but the new order controlled it and
divorced it from its individuals. The
introduction of this invasion of space was to serve purposes such as controlling
the population and productivity as well.
Overall, Mitchell’s touches on our course (IMG) relevance in
many ways. Although complicated, in his writing style and possibility of being
over all the places, this piece of writing tells so much of what is really
happening especially in terms of the Wes and the East, and how it all started.
S.A.A
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