The Real Victims

"You are swine," the unwitting couple were told. "The children that you bear from this marriage will all be bastard swine. Your marriage is not a valid one. You are not the kind of people who can have a valid marriage. One of you is an infidel. The other, too, is an infidel and, we have reason to believe, an atheist, who does not even believe in an infidel religion."

That Swiss couple who were roundly abused when they believed they were renewing their marriage vows in the Maldives? Well, the article that we knew was coming has now appeared at the Guardian's CiF, courtesy of William Sutcliffe - The exploited Maldives 'celebrants' are the victims here, not the Swiss couple. Oh yes:

Thirty-two years after Edward Said published Orientalism, the debate he started, about the west's patronising and glib pseudo-appreciation of "eastern mysticism", has acquired a delicious 21st-century twist. This eight-minute video says it all. Jaded atheist westerners who want something "spiritual" in their lives think they can find it by hopping on a charter plane eastwards. A renewal of the marriage vows – a ceremony whose avowed purpose is to inject a spark of interest into a flagging project – can be spiced up with a sprinkle of spirituality, in much the same way that a dull meal can be livened up with a pinch or two of Tesco curry powder.

"The east" can provide this, in a way that South America or Africa can't. One of Said's key points is that this reverence for the east contains within it a toxic element. It is a modern equivalent of the noble savage idea in which easterners are revered for being somehow more simple and pure than their western counterparts.

The Asian tourist industry knows exactly how to tap into and exploit these Orientalist attitudes....

It seems likely that the source of the bile directed towards the Swiss couple is as much economic as religious. But then perhaps the question shouldn't be "why do they hate this couple?", but "how could they not?". Can any of us honestly say that if we had to do their job on their salary we would feel any different? Despite the grovelling apology issued by the Maldivian authorities, the victims in this story are not the Swiss couple but the "celebrants" who have now been arrested....

There's also a kind of orientalism which can only see brown-skinned people as victims, unable like the rest of us to rise to the level of being fully functional moral agents, capable of wicked as well as good behaviour. And which can ignore the clearly expressed religious and xenophobic contempt and pretend that, no, it's all about economics, really. 

Comments

[Bob-B]

It's funny how orientalist those who repeat the standard criticisms of orientalism can be.

[DaninVan]

http://www.themaldives.com/culture/religion.html
....oh, right. Didn't see THAT mentioned in Sutcliffe's piece.

Wonder how ecumenical the lovely couple are feeling now(?).

[Richard]

Thankfully, Mr Sutcliffe does not usually write for the papers, thereby sparing us his moronic opinions. Let us hope he confines his future efforts to turning out fiction books.

Many people on the Comment is Free thread disagree with Sutcliffe as well.