Desert Is Just Another Word for Freedom

Note that on page 386 it is stated that

This essay originally appeared as Chapter 2 in Amira Jarmakani, An Imperialist Love Story: Desert Romances and the War on Terror (New York: New York Univ. Press, 2015). [...] This edited version is printed with permission. (386)

For more details about An Imperialist Love Story see https://rsdb.vivanco.me.uk/bibliography/imperialist-love-story-desert-romances-and-war-terror

Here's the description of this chapter, from the introduction to the volume:

Amira Jarmakani delves into the genre of desert romance novels, exploring the numerous dimensions of portrayals of liberated white women who traverse the desert. The white women, she reports, are always represented in contrast to oppressed "Arabiastani" women and promise to deliver to these oppressed women a new reality of liberation. In fiction writers' hands, the white women enact empire's alleged gift of freedom to Arab women. This, Jarmakani finds, is a classic literary take on the common mantra of whites rescuing women of color, especially rescuing women of color from men of color. (13)