Abstract
This chapter addresses how the nineteenthcentury, and its waves of colonization around theworld, saw the medicalization of therepresentation that individuals within Europeansocieties, France, the UK, and Arab-Muslimsocieties developed of their national identities,until then considered to be “cultural,” or evencivilizational, identities, in particular, throughthe “normalization” of sexual orientations andgender identities.
Keywords: European colonization, theArab world, sexuality's emergence
The nineteenth century brought with it themedicalization of the representation thatindividuals within European societies, France, UK,and then Arab-Muslim societies, developed of theirnational identities, until then considered as“cultural,” or even civilizational, identities, inparticular through the “normalization” of sexualorientations and gender identities. For indeed, isthere a more efficient, more devious, way to controlindividuals than by inducing fear and guilt, and, ifnecessary, by employing verbal and physical violenceon their most instinctive sexual behaviours? Thishistoric movement towards greater control overEuropean identities, which would lead totwentieth-century fascism in Europe, was accompaniedand marked, during the same period, by increasinglyradical colonial policies and equally strict,xenophobic control over those who were considered“natives” of territories now belonging, in theory,to the imperial metropoles.
For example, at the time, the narratives of Europeanssuch as William Lemprière, a traveller and doctorwho exceptionally gained access to Ottoman orMoroccan harems, contrast sharply with those fromtwo centuries earlier about female doctors, ormidwives, who practised various types of medicinewithin these same harems, without the need forEuropean doctors. Things began to change during thisperiod, as Lemprière's narrative suggests:
[My Jewish guest in Morocco] told me the story ofa European surgeon who had been summoned to theMoorish prince, and who had been shot in the headby the ingratitude of his illustrious patient, whodid not follow the surgeon's prescriptions, butthen made him responsible for his ailments, which,instead of diminishing, increased. This unjustprince had forced the surgeon to kill himself inhis presence. (Lemprière, 1990, p. 59)
Jean Potocki, an eighteenth-century Polish aristocratwho travelled extensively and wrote about Russia,the Ottoman Empire, and Morocco (in 1791), wasreportedly sent on a mission of diplomacy andespionage. Potocki maintained a more empathetic, andmore nuanced, relationship with Moroccan societythan Lemprière.