Egyptian Public Intellectuals and their “Wests”

Abstract

Gradually, the term “occidentalism” is gaining ground. Since the end of the Cold War and the consequent loss of a West that could be defined in terms of (and against) its Communist nemesis in the East, the process of imaging the West is steadily acquiring students. This article reviews how popular writers in Egypt imagine the West, showing that while their views on the West are shaped differently by particular ideologies, they converge in condemning the policies emerging from the West.