Edward Said, on 'Orientalism'

 

Hello friends,

One mirror is not enough to see yourself as others see you. When you look at a bathroom mirror you see an image of yourself with left and right reversed. If you don't believe it, extend your right hand to shake hands with yourself. The "person" in the mirror extends his or her left hand.

A bathroom mirror switches left and right in any image it reflects. To see yourself as others do, you need a second mirror to undo the effect of the first mirror and switch the directions back again.

This blog is submitted in Google classroom as a submission of assignment as a part of learning Edward said, on 'Orientalism' , Post-Colonial studies. Click here to go on Dr. Dilip Barad's blog.

Now let's try to answer some of the questions related.

What is Orientalism?

During the 18th century, Orient is emerged because of European hegemony in the society. The orientalism is the study of place and people which is already or actually exist.

The Orient was almost a European invention and had been since artiquity a place of romance, exotic beings, haunting memories and landscapes, remarkable experience.

"They cannot represent themselves, they must be represented.”

- Edward Said

At the beginning of Orientalism, 

Said quotes this from Marx, because of this theoretical basis relationship of knowledge and power.

This video is interview of Edward Said on Orientalism:

Orientalism is not only adjacent to Europe;

It is also the place of Europe's greatest and richest and oldest colonies.

Said defines deeply,

Orient was essentially an idea or a creation with no corresponding reality.

Here in the interview, Edward Said defines it very well. 

Said says…

Orientalism tries to answer the question of 'why?'

It is a framework that we used to understand the unfamiliar and strange;

To make the people of middle East appear different and threatening. 

Orientalism asks…

How do we come to understand people, strangers, who look different to us by virtue of the colour of their skin?

Why Said attracted towards orientalism?

Due to two chief reasons, Edward Said was attracted towards orientalism,

1. Arab- Israeli war of 1973

2. His own experience as Arad

Orientalism: process?

Orientalism is the process by which Europe studied disciplined, controlled and governed non-European cultures. European scholars studied and represented the non-European culture in certain ways. They pointed out non-European as backward, pagan, 'other' or polar opposite.

Relationship between occident and orient

The relationship between occident and orient and orient is a relationship of power of domination of valuing degrees of complex hegemony. Interesting is, The orient was orientlalised not only because it was discovered to be 'oriental'.

What's the structure of Orientalism?

Orientalism is nothing more than a structure of lies or of myths. 

Orientalism is a valuable sign of European - Atlantic power.

Orientalism depends for its strategy on this flexible positional superiority.

Demonization

There has been so massive and calculatedly aggressive an attack on contemporary Arab and Muslim societies for their backwardness, lack of democracy, and abrogation of women's rights that we simply forget that such notions as modernity, enlightenment, and democracy are by no means simple and agreed-upon concepts that one either does or does not find.

Postcolonialism explains demonization of Islam with concepts of orientalism, imperialism and colonialism. West needed justification for subordination of East, thus depictions of Orient as inferior, undeveloped and uncivilized. These inaccurate and Eurocentric cultural representations have persisted and developed into stereotypes we are very familiar with today and represent an important foundation of current conflicts in western societies as well as around the world. In the terms of postcolonialism we can argue that Islam being demonized is in interest of imperialism and colonial practices of West, which are still very much present in contemporary world despite being more subtle than in the colonial era.

Orientalism

Most influential book of last decades.

Orientalism tries to answer the question of why

Orientalism asks…

How do we come to understand people, strangers, who look different to us by virtue of the colour of their skin!!

Thus, it is framework that we use to understand the unfamiliar and strange;

To make the people of middle East appear different and threatening.

The Repertory of orientalism

This writing was organised form of writing like and organised science- orientalism.

The Marvels of East

This is one of the most famous phase and critically examined by Edward Said.

French Poet

Gerard De Nerval

He went on the voyage to orient and he found that all orients are the same whether they are in Egypt or India or Syria but Edward Said made distinct line that even though all are orient they are significantly different from each other.

Orientalism and Empire

This Said's analysis of orientalism isn't just a description of its content but a sustained argument for why it looks the way it does!

It's an examination of concrete, historical and institutional context that creates it. It conquer not only militarily but ideologically.

Interesting argument

How do we understand the natives are encountering, 

So we can conquer and subdue them easier?

But… 

Orientalism makes this general process more formal in that it presents itself as objective knowledge.

Said identifies Napolean's conquest of Egypt in 1798 as marking a new  kind of imperial and Colonial conquest, that inaugurates the project of orientalism.

To produce knowledge,

You have a power to be there and to be there, and to see in expert ways things that the natives themselves can't see.

American orientalism

Britain and France had directly occupied parts of the middle East. The US experience was less direct. There has never been full of occupation of the Middle East.

Orientalism today

The Demonization of Islam in the news and popular culture

May people believe that the way American understand the Muslim people or let say world is problematic.

At the heart of how this new American orientalism operates is a threatening and demonized figure of the Islamic terrorist that is emphasized by journalist's and hollywood.

What Said recognise is…

Terrorism exists, as a result of the violent, political situation in the middle East but he argues that there is a long and alot more going on there that is misunderstood or not seen by the people of the west.

As a result of,

Media focus on just negative point that all Islamic people are like this only, which is actually not true.

Palestine and Palestine Issue

In this video of Said's interview on Introduction to the Orientalism, time and again he refers to Palastine and to Palastine issue. What does he wants us to understand through this?

Until 1948, Palestine typically referred to the geographic region located between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. Arab people who call this territory home have been known as Palestinians since the early 20th century. Much of this land is now considered present-day Israel.

These three videos gives brief introduction of palestine and palestine issue.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the world’s longest-running and most controversial conflicts. At its heart, it is a conflict between two self-determination movements — the Jewish Zionist project and the Palestinian nationalist project — that lay claim to the same territory. But it is so, so much more complicated than that, with seemingly every fact and historical detail small and large litigated by the two sides and their defenders.

The key issues are mutual recognition and security, borders, water rights, control of Jerusalem, Israeli settlements, Palestinian freedom of movement, and Palestinian right of return.

The Palestinian Arab leadership rejected partition as unacceptable, given the inequality in the proposed population exchange and the transfer of one-third of Palestine, including most of its best agricultural land, to recent immigrants.

Thus, Power governs discourse and is governed by discourse at the same time. 

So Said says

 “knowledge of the Orient, because generated out of strength, in a sense creates the Orient, the Oriental, and his world”

Thank you.