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Hmm. This would be the perfect opportunity for some overly sensitive member to jump in and say that this is direct evidence that Tolkien was prejudiced against the Arabs & the Turks.
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I’m not overly sensitive… I just call like it is. Tolkien was prejudiced against the Arabs and Turks.
What is being ignored is a rather uncomfortable historical and modern fact. Ever since the eighth century the western world has been embroiled in an off-and-on-again struggle with the Arab/Muslim world. From the Arab conquest of North Africa and the Battle of Tours in AD 732 to the modern day struggles on the Dalmatian Coast, Cyprus, Palestine and now Iraq, western European culture/Christianity and the Arab culture/Islam has been at odds with each other. It doesn’t take much research to find extreme examples of racism on either side, from chanting in the streets of Damascus and the anti-western statements of the Imams in Saudi Arabia, to the comments of the Rev. Billy Graham, Jr. We who consider ourselves enlightened moderns might not like it, and ignoring the issue is all the vogue, but it’s still a historical circumstance that has left an indelible mark on the world and our respective cultures and social psyches.
Tolkien’s use of the word “Corsair” to describe a presumably doped-into-evil seafaring people from the south is enough to demonstrate a certain parallel to the Saracens. His use of this word is not the only hint of prejudice. He also places scimitars in the hands of his villains from Umbar (not from the east) and orcs, but I’ve yet to find any reference to the “free peoples of Middle Earth” using scimitars or labeled according to Arab history or culture. The attempt to explain this away by intelligent contributors to this thread is both par for the coarse for this forum, and distressing.
I’ve stayed away from threads dealing with the possibility of Tolkien being racist, simply because I thought I would get myself into trouble. Tolkien has made prejudiced statements, that can be interpreted as racist, and most on this forum will go to extraordinary lengths to explain them away. Of course, I’m not saying that Tolkien was a racist the likes of a Wagner or the Nazis. He was appalled by such beliefs, as has been pointed out on this forum in so many ways that it doesn’t need to be rehashed. However, he, like everyone else, held some racial prejudices. There’s no need to defend Tolkien or explain these things away. Nor is there any reason to demonize him for it. Doing either will only bury these prejudices, causing them to fester just under the surface.
We are so concerned with doing away with all prejudice and demonizing those we think racist, that the western academic world is quickly losing its ability to understand the social and historical causes of these prejudices. A relativistic approach, one that assigns no demerit to other cultures, neither assigns any merit. By making all cultures equal, we are no longer inspired to study diverse cultures in order to better our own. More alarming in light of recent world events… not everyone shares the modern relativistic approach (nor should they), and attempting to rebuild a country whose culture we are not only prejudiced against, but are no longer capable of understanding, could very well end in disaster.