The New Islamic Golden Age?

The New Islamic Golden Age?

This paper explores the evolution of the Western perceptive and representative use of Middle Eastern identity in the modern world. The historical references will range from the culture of the medieval European emirates (including the nostalgic dissemination of A Thousand and One Nights that started with its French translation) to the current mass migration. The general historical outline will necessarily evolve along the many battles of Damascus, from the seventh through the twenty-first century, but the analysis will focus mainly on modern times, reminiscing on the Balkan crisis of 1875-1876, and then following the late-twentieth century dramatic and periodic evolutionary series: the 1956 Suez Crisis, the 1967 Six-Day War, the 1973 oil crisis, the 1980s Persian Gulf Crisis and crude oil price collapse, the 1990s energy crisis, and then the very dramatic start of the twenty-first century. But these aspects will be mainly used in the contextualization of the industrially produced socio-cultural spectacle (as defined by Guy Debord) and its elements: iconic media, fashion, art (cinema included), etc. Reference will be made both to iconic violence (Al-Qaeda, ISIS, etc., and their European equivalents), and to resilient commentators, like Pakistani novelist and filmmaker Hanif Kureishi (e.g., My Son the Fanatic, 1997), British author and journalist Christopher Hitchens (e.g., “Londonistan Calling”, 2007), Dutch politician Geert Wilders (e.g., the 2008 speech at the Four Seasons in New York), and also the current supporters of the ongoing Syrian migration in Europe and its demographic impact.