“Orientalism” with Reference to Edward Said’s Book

“Orientalism” with Reference to Edward Said’s book

Name: Riddhi Jani

Roll no: 23

Semester: 3rd
Paper: 11, The Post-colonial Literature

Submitted to: Smt. S. B. Gardy Department of English

Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

·        Introduction:

            Edward wadie Said was born on 1^st November, 1935 and died on 5^th September, 2003. He was Palestinian American literary theorist. He contributed in the field of literary theory named Post colonialism. He is famous for his work named “Orientalism”. As a cultural critic, he sees the cultural representation in the things. He sees West’s condescending perception in their depiction of Middle East, Asian and North African people, their society and their culture. As a public intellectual, Said discussed culture, literature, music and contemporary politics.

·      Orientalism:

          

 “Orientalism” is a foundational text for the academic field of Post colonial studies. The West sees the Middle Eastern, Asian, and North African society by the only word “the East”. In simple words ‘orientalism’ is the term used to show Western approach and attitude towards Middle , North African and Asian people, society and culture. Western people see them as unintelligent, undeveloped, uncivilized and lower than themselves. So, in this way they think themselves superior than the Eastern people. This is the simple meaning of the term ‘orientalism’.

            As this term suggests, ‘orient’ that is east and on the contrary there is ‘occident’ means west. After the coming of the book “Orientalism” by Said, in 1978, this term started getting place in the field of research and education. Said argues against western’s prejudiced views towards east in this book.

·      “Orientalism”- a work by Said:

“The Orient was almost a European invention, and had been since antiquity a place of romance, exotic being, haunting memories and landscapes, remarkable experiences.”

            The very first line of this quote (from the introduction part of the book) is very much suggestive. Said is concerned with it that ‘the orient- the particular orient with some particular characteristics- is a European invention’. And this European eye sight to see the orient with particular image is never changed. In Western minds the picture of orient is stagnant from many years, that is the picture as ‘exotic East”. Here the word ‘exotic is not taken in its simple way. Here ‘exotic’ means something ‘unusual’ or ‘strikingly different’. So, the west sees east in this way.

            Such images they have got from the European visitors of Eastern places. But it is clear that it is European representation of the Orient, which is perhaps not quite true or it is incomplete. And by these images the occident people see themselves higher than the orient people. They, in this way, privilege themselves over the oriental people. Said says that orient is not different or lower than the occident, rather the orient is an integral part of Europe and its culture and civilization. I quote Said:

“The orient is not only adjacent to Europe; it is also the place of Europe’s greatest and richest and oldest colonies, the source of its civilizations and languages, its cultural contestant, and one of its deepest and most recurring images of the Other.”

            So, the part, which they called ‘orient’ is of themselves. On the contrary America has different views about the orient. American views see orient as more sober, aware and ‘less dense’. So, the criticism goes to only British and French understanding of the orient.

            Said here gives other meaning of Orientalism, i.e. “Orientalism can be discussed and analyzed as the corporate institution for dealing with the orient”. Means Western society ruled over orient, now they view the Orient by narrow sight, they make statement about it. And in this way Orientalism is “a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the orient”. Here comes Michel Foucault’s notion of ‘knowledge and power’ and ‘discourse’. Orientalism is more than a discourse. And Western spread their knowledge about orient, as they were and are in power.

            When the whole identity of ‘the orient’ is facing questions and problems (of getting wrong description) ‘Orientalism’ should carry many more things except the definition as discourse.

            The geographical distinction between ‘orient’ and ‘occident’ is man maid, not natural. So, as West, orient also has its own reality and physical (i.e. geographical) presence. It has, as West, its own tradition of thought, imagery and vocabulary. In this way they both (west and east) support and reflect each other. Said gives the example that how East is misinterpreted by the West.

“When Disraeli said in his novel ‘Tancred’ that the East was a career, he meant that to be interested in the East was something bright young. Western would find to be an all consuming passion; he should not be interpreted as saying that the East was ONLY a career for Westerners.”

            So, the relationship between orient and occident is the relationship of power and hegemony. Said says about three aspects of his contemporary reality:

1.     The distinction between pure and political knowledge

2.     The methodological question

3.     The personal dimension

Mainly this Orientalism came when European power met with the lesser developed people of the East.

·      Examples of Orientalism from the Western pop-culture:

            This is the example of how the west depicts east in their literatures and the other things.

            This is the example of Alladdin- a character of “Disney Land”. Alladdin is an Arab character from a cartoon series named “Arabian Nights”. It was the show for children. So, before putting the example I want to quote some lines:

“Movies that children watch for enjoyment and pleasure rather than instruction, unfortunately leave a deeper imprint on a fresh, impressionable mind than does an unexciting textbook.”

(Kincheloe, 159)

            In that cartoon series, by Walt Disney Pictures, Alladdin was the most celebrated character. But that series had faced criticism for wrong and unjust portrayal of the Arab people and world. In that series Alladdin was ridiculed and mocked a lot. This becomes problematic because he was shown as the representative of Arab society and people. And the theme song of that cartoon series was also very much criticized for its words, that show Arab as uncivilized world. The lyrics of that theme song are:

“Oh, I came from a land

From a faraway place,

Where the caravan camels roam,

Where they cut your years if you

Don’t like your face,

It’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home.”

            We can see in this song lyrics that how the Western world does mis-portrayal of Arabic world. And in this way they prove themselves more civilized that the Arabic world. And such films or series are consumed a lot, and became popular also. After facing enormous criticism about such lyrics, Disney Pictures had changed them. So, instead of the line “…where they cut off your…”, This lines was put:

“Where it’s flat and immense

And the heat is intense.”

This is the link of a small video of that song with lyrics:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aw8Do64bEtU

            But these new lyrics are also problematic. And we can see in the video that how the whole identity of Arabs is mocked and misinterpreted. It also show that “exoticness”, which the Western used to see in the East.

            Another example is of a comedy produced by Paramount Pictures, named “The Director”. It was released in 2012. The main character is Admiral General Haffaz Aladeen here; a director from that Northern African Republic of Wadiya. In this movie Aladeen has travelled to New York City to tell the secrets of his country’s nuclear program to United Nations Council. And this character was mocked a lot. This all are also criticized from the orientalist point of view.

            In this way, we can see that how they misunderstand the orient and exaggerate it also in their descriptions. It is clear that the Western ideas about orient are not based on facts or reality, but rather they based on imagination and on the old archetypes about Eastern people. As ‘orient’ and ‘occident’ are opposite to each other, and when we see Foucault’s notion of power and knowledge, we come to know that orient is seen as negative or contrastive to occident. Apart from Foucault Said puts here Antonio Gramsci. Said’s views are based on and connected with his views. Gramsci gave the idea of ‘hegemony’. I quote Said:

“…my whole point is to say that we can better understand the persistence and the durability of saturating hegemonic systems like culture, when we realize that their internal constraints upon writers and thinkers were productive, not unitate really inhibiting.”

            Said sees Orientalism as ‘dynamic exchange’, between solo, individual writers and the large political concerns. And those political relations were shaped by three great established empires- British, French and American. Said says that under the intellectual and imaginative territory of these three empires the writing was brought out. And yet Said narrows down his views to only academic study of Middle Eastern, African and Asian history and culture.

            Said connects here the idea of Europe called by Denys Hay that the Europeans have strong idea of identifying “us”- Europeans against all “those” non-Europeans. It is their attempt to built hegemony over East and attempt to feel superior.

·      Critical examination of Orientalism:

            There are some counter arguments also against Said.

            First, is about Said’s limit that he limits this study for only academic area. The discussion of orientalism in academic field is limited to late 19^th and early 20^th century scholarship. So, the point is in that time most of the study departments had already left this area of study. I quote the argument:

“Said’s discussion of academic orientalism is almost entirely limited to late 19^th and early 20^th century scholarship. Most academic area studies department had already abandoned an imperialist or colonialist paradigm of scholarship.”

            And this argument goes further that Said connects the works of Barnard Lewis as an example of the continued existence of this paradigm, but Said admits that it was only an exception by the time of his writing that is 1977.

            And Said gave comparison between the wars of Greco-Persian and the controversy between East and West. Greeks had democratic tradition while Persian had monarchical. But Said makes no mention of the other Greek city states, most of which were not ruled democratically.

            These arguments seem hazy in many ways. But Said’s views about it are clearer. So, this is Said’s orientalism. I found some characteristics of orientalism. I put them in brief.

Ø Western intellectual domination:

Europeans’ idea; of people and society of Middle East, Asia and Northern Africa; is that they have not culture, they have ancient and less civilized living style and they are physically inferior than them. And European struggled a lot to dominate Eastern people and first by arresting them intellectually.

Ø Latent Orientalism:

According to Said, it is a kind of Orientalism that can’t be easily caught. It shows Western attitudes. It refers to cultural differences. Said says that the West continued to show the East as “separate, eccentric, backward, silently different, sensual and passive”. And most of these adjectives came from technological progress’ comparison between East and West.

Ø Manifest Orientalism:

In latent Orientalism, they see the speaking style and ascents of eastern people. While in manifest Orientalism, there is the dealing of visible features of Eastern cultures e.g. clothing, architecture and art.

Ø Contemporary Orientalism:

In this type of Orientalism Said describes the Western typical attitude to see the Eastern people esp. Arabs as “irrational, menacing, un-trustworthy, anti-western…and prototypical”.  These mental states are the result of pre 19^th century Orientalism. And Said writes:

“This is the culmination of Orientalism as a dogma that not only degrades its subject matter but also blinds its practitioners.”