The "Other"

Olu Oguibe discusses Eurocentrism and notions of the "Other" in "In the Heart of Darkness." Because history was constructed by the West, ideas about non-Western countries are often false. Oguibe writes, "the idea of Rome and Greece is dishonest - Africa is a historical construct rather than a definitive" (Kocur and Leung 226). Colonists constructed false notions about countries like Africa for their own gain, and we are unfortunately still doing the same thing today. The media and some politicians often depict the Middle East as corrupt and even "evil". We are bombarded with images of Middle Easterners as violent and chanting things like "death to America." Though these people do exist, they do not speak for their region as a whole. Even when we see images of people of that area who are not participating in violent acts, they are still depicted as the "Other," and as people so different from "us" or the West that we could never truly understand each other. Just as countries depicted Africans as others or as bellow Westerners to justify colonization, countries today are depicting the Middle East as others to avoid fully feeling the atrocities of war. However, all cultures have constructed notions of the "Other." Just as the people of the Middle East, Asia, and Africa are outsiders to the "West", the people of the "West" are considered outsiders to those of the "East". As Oguibe writes, "Otherisation is unavoidable, and for every One, the Other is the Heart of Darkness. The West is as much the Heart of Darkness to the Rest as the latter is to the West" (Kocur and Leung 232).

So, there will always be ideas about the "Other." However, we can try to move past seeing what is outside of our own cultures as something to be feared, and begin to appreciate otherness as a positive and beautiful thing. Gerardo Mosquera writes about "The Marco Polo Syndrome," "What is monstrous about this syndrome is that it perceives whatever is different as the carrier of life-threatening viruses rather than nutritional elements" (Kocur and Leung 218). Though there are still problems, the world has changed greatly since the time when Eurocentrism began its development. If we can see differences for what they actually are rather than flaws or fears, we can learn much and benefit from them.