An Introduction to Edward said's Orientalism

Name                -            Foram.Y.Vyas

Roll no:             -            21

M.A.Part-2       -            Sem-3

Paper                -            5, E-E-305

Paper name    -           Post Colonial Literature     

Topic for assignment  -

An Introduction to Edward Said’s Orientalism

Submitted To:   Dr.Dilipsir Barad

                           Department of English,

                           Bhavnagar university,

                           Bhavnagar.                    

An Introduction to Edward Said’s Orientalism

Introduction:-

Orientalism by Edward said is a canonical text of cultural – studies in which he has challenged the concept of Orientalism or the difference between east and west, as he puts it.  He says that with the start of European colonization the Europeans came in contact with the lesser developed countries of the east.  They found their civilization and culture very exotic, and established the science of Orientalism, which was the study of the Orientals or the people from this exotic civilization.

·                              Edward said argues that the Europeans divided the world into two parts; the east and the west or the accident and the orient or the civilized and the uncivilized.  This was totally an artificial boundary; and it was laid on the basis of the concept of them and us or theirs and ours.  The Europeans used Orientalism to define themselves.  Some particular attributes were associated with the Orientals, and whatever the oriental weren’t the accidents were.  The Europeans defined themselves as the superior race compared to the Orientals; and they justified their colonization by this concept.  They said that it was their duty towards the world to civilize the uncivilized world.  The main problem, however, arose when the Europeans started generalizing the attributes they associated with Orientals, and started portraying these artificial characteristics associated with Orientals in their western world through their scientific reports, literary work, and other media sources.  What happened was that it created a certain image about the Orientals.  This Prejudice was also found in the Orientalist; and all their scientific research and reports were under the influence of this.  The generalized attributes associated with the oriental can be seen even today, for example, the Arabs are defined as uncivilized people; and Islam is seen as religion of the terrorist.

F              The Scope of Orientalism:-

·                              Edward said explains how the science of Orientalism developed and how the Orientals started considering the oriental as non-human beings.  The Orientals divided the world in to two parts by using the concert of ours and theirs.  An imaginary geographical line was drawn between what was ours and what was theirs.  The orients were regarded as uncivilized people; and the westerns said that since they were the refined race it was their duty to civilize these people and in order to achieve their goal, they had to colonize and rule the orients.  They said that the orients themselves were incapable of running their own government.  The Europeans also thought that they had the right to represent the Orientals in the west all by themselves.  In doing so, they shaped the Orientals the way they perceived them or in the other words they were oriental zing the orients.  Various teams have been sent to the east where the Orientalist silently observed the Orientals by living with them; and everything the Orientals said and did was recorded irrespective of its context, and projected to the civilized world of the west.  This resulted in the generalization.

·                              The most important use of Orientalism to the Europeans was that they defined themselves by defining the Orientals for example qualities such as lazy, irrational un-civilized, crudeness were related to Orientals, and automatically the Europeans became active, rational, civilized.  Sophisticated.  Thus, in order to achieve this goal, it was very necessary for the orientalists to generalize the culture of the orients.

·                            Another feature of Orientalism was that the culture of the Orientals was explained to the European audience by linking them to the western culture, for example, Islam was made in to Mohammadism because Mohammad was the founder of this religion and since religion of Christ was called Christianity; thus Islam should be called Mohammadism.  The point to be noted here is that no Muslim was aware of this terminology and this was a completely western created term, and to which the Muslims had no say at all.

F           Orientalist Structure and Restructure

·                              Edward said Points the slight change in the attitude of the Europeans towards the Orientals.  The Orientals were really publicized in the European world especially through their literary work.  Orientals land and behavior was highly romanticized by the European Poets and writers and they presented to the western world.  The orientalists had made a stage strictly for the European viewers, and the orients were presented to them with the color of the orientalists or other writers’ perception.  In fact, the orient lands were so highly romanticized that western literary writers found it necessary to offer pilgrimage to these exotic lands of pure sun light and clean oceans in order to experience peace of mind, and inspiration for their writing.  The east was now perceived by the orientalists as a place of pure human culture with no necessary evil in the society.  Actually it was this purity of the Orientals that made them inferior to the clever, witty, diplomatic, for sighted European; thus it was their right to rule and study such an innocent race.  The European said that these people were too native to deal with the cruel world, and that they needed the European fatherly role to assist them.

·                            Another justification the Europeans gave to their colonization ws they were meant to rule the Orientals since they have developed sooner than the Orientals as a nation, which shows that they were biologically superior, and secondly it were the Europeans who discovered the orients not the orients who discovered the Europeans.  Darwin’s theories were put forward to justify their superiority, biologically by the Europeans.

·                              Edward said also Explain how two most renowned orientalists of the 19^th century, namely Silvestre de saucy and Ernest Renan worked and gave Orientalism a new dimension. In fact, Edward said compliments the contribution made by saucy in the field.  He says that saucy organized the whole thing by arranging the information in such a way that it was also useful for the future orienatlists.  And Secondly, the prejudice that was inherited by every Orientalist was considerably low in him on the other hand, Renan who took advantage of sacy’s work was as biased as any previous orientalists.  He believed that the science of Orientalism and the science of philology have a very important relation; and after Renan this idea was given a lot attention and much future oriental is worked off in its line.

F              Orientalism Now:-

·                              The author then talks about the changing circumstances of the world politics and changing approach to Orientalism in the 20^th century.  The main difference was that where the earlier orientalists were more of silent observers the new orientalists took part in the ever day life of the orients.  The earlier orientalists did not interact a lot with the orients, where as the new orients lived with them as if they were one of them.  Then Edward said goes on to talk about two other scholars Massignon and Gibb.  Though Massignon was a bit liberal with orientalists and often tried to protect their rights, there was still inherited biased found in him for the Orientals which can be seen in his work.  After World War 1 the centre of Orientalism moved from Europe to USA.  One important transformation that took place during this time was instances of relating it to philology and it was related to social science now.

·                   

        With the end of world war 2, all the Europeans colonies were lost; and it was believed that there were no more Orientals and occident’s, but this way surely not the case western prejudice towards eastern countries because of it, was still very explicit, and often they managed to generalize most of the eastern countries because of it. Edward said concludes his book, by saying that he is not saying that the orientalists should not make generalization, or they should include the orient perspective too, but creating a boundary at the first place is something which should not be done.  This goes on to show that even with increasing globalization and awareness, bias was found in the people of he developed countries.

F              Malcolm kerr’s review on Orientalism:-

·                              Malcolm kerr did his specialization in International relations and specialized in the Middle East from Princeton University.  Malcolm’s review on Orientalism can be concluded by his following remarks, “This book reminds me of the television program” Athletes in action,”  in which professional football players compete in swimming, and so forth.  Edward said, a literary critic loaded with talent has certainly made a splash, but with this sort of effort he is not going to win any major race.  He further goes on to say” The list of victims of said’s passion is a long one, too long to examine in detail.  Some of them deserve it: he has justly taken the measure of Ernest Renan.  The difference between representations of the orient before the last third of the last third of the eighteenth century and those after it is that the range of representation talk expanded enwmously in the later period.

·                            To Conclude, The nexus of knowledge and power creating “The oriental” and in a sense obliterating him as a human being is therefore not for me an exclusively academic matter.  As he discussed, Orientalism resemble each other very closely is a historical cultural and also political understood but what I should like also to have contributed here is a better understanding of the way cultural domination has operated.  Indeed if it eliminates the “orient” and “occident” altogether, then we shall have advanced a little in the process of what Raymond Williams has called the “unlearning” of “The inherent dominative mode.”