The Psychopolitics of the Oriental Father

the long version

The Psychopolitics of the Oriental Father problematizes the East/West dimorphism, especially focusing on the so-called 'Modernisation' or 'Westernisation' processes in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey. Its main hypothesis is that 'Modernisation' and 'Westernisation' are only euphemisms for the advent of capitalism in Asiatic and African societies, which lead to fatal transformations of the cultural and political incarnatations of the Oriental Father. The end result is a transitory rebirth of Freud's Primordial Father during the construction of the nation-state, which rises again and again anytime there are grounds for a 'state of exception'.