Humiliation in Action: A Badian and Postcolonial Analysis of Western Practices in the Middle East
This article employs the concept of humiliation identified by B. Badie as a pathology in contemporary international relations and applies it to today’s Middle East. Drawing on a close examination of the practices of the Western powers purveying the normative contemporary order, the central argument is that the policies adopted in the volatile 2000s and 2010s engender humiliation and, consequently, instability. The article looks at the various sources of that humiliation, the many levels at which it operates, and what a Badian reading reveals of the turbulence sweeping the region. It also suggests that this reading gains from the addition of a postcolonial perspective in continuity with the criticism of orientalism formulated by Edward Saïd. That perspective results in a better understanding of the power relations expressed by policies that engender humiliation. In so doing, it helps to de essentialize an all-to-common view of the region, its populations, and its conflicts.