Orientalism

Relations between people of different cultures is a vital part of today's world, not only for culture's sake, but in terms of diplomacy, business, travel, military action, and even just general knowledge. Unlike in previous eras, we are extremely likely to find ourselves living and working with those "others" who used to inhabit unknown spaces "out there". So, intercultural relations can impact on our daily life in new ways that our grandparents never dreamed of. The quality and success of those relationships are going to depend on what we know as individuals about those "others" or on what we know as a society. That is why the process by which we get that knowledge and the actual contents of that knowledge are so important. ORIENTALISM is the work that over the last third of a century has most influenced the way people think and write about that process. Edward Said concentrated on what is commonly known as "the Middle East", but would be better known as the largely-Muslim countries east of Europe and west of India, or maybe western Asia. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, this part of the world was often called "the Orient". (Though people applied that term to the rest of Asia too.} The method in which he looks at this so-called Orient can be extended to any other. He examines the process by which Euro-Americans sought information about the Orient. They gleaned it from the writings of diplomats, soldiers, administrators, travellers, and businessmen who had stayed for varying lengths of time in the Orient. They got it from the paintings of artists who wished to sell paintings of exotic scenes or from poets and novelists who wished to write of exotic locales. In almost all cases, the presenters of knowledge treated the Orient as homogenous, simple, dangerous, crude, full of exoticism or fanaticism and above all, unchanging. People there were not separate individuals like "us"; they were the undifferentiated "others" with whom we could make contrasts favorable to ourselves. Some Westerners might dream of escape to the exotic world of the Orient, where society would be the reverse of their own. Some presenters of the Orient knew a lot about what they wrote or painted, others had an extremely superficial knowledge. In all cases, Said writes, the information collected and presented was used by governments in the West to control the Orient. Information was power. The people in the Orient had, and needed, no independent existence. They were only shadows brought to life by the Light of Knowledge emanating from the West. They might be guided to proper ways by Western powers, Westerners with power. Orientalism underlay colonialism. Said examines the vast body of written work---that "Orientalism"---very extensively. He notes that it has had its own paradigms of research, its own learned societies, its own establishment, not to mention university departments labelled "Oriental Studies" in many countries. Through such bodies, th

This book and Edward Said in general seem capable of generating such intense controversy. Many reviewers of this book seem to forget actually to review the work and focus on attacking Edward Said as a person, many others still forget to review the book and proceed to speak for Palestinian rights and the negative western attitudes of Islam. I will attempt to present an actual review of this book based on MY own reading of it.In Orientalism, Said sets about dismantling the study of the "orient" in general with primary focus on the Islamic Near East. Said argues that concepts such as the Orient, Islam, the Arabs, etc. are too vast to be grouped together and presented as one coherent whole, encompassing all there is to know about the subject. Said bases his view on the shear width and breadth of the subject, the inherent bias of conflicting cultures and more recently the role of the Orientalism in colonialism. It is indeed difficult to attempt to represent a book that is so focused on anti essentialism.Said's research of western / occidental discourse was very thorough indeed and he does illustrate through repeated examples how misinformation sufficiently repeated can become accepted academic work. Said also presents an analysis of the causes and motives and theorizes about his findings. A lengthy and a times tedious discussion of the origins of Orientalism is rather repetitive and hard to follow for a non specialist like me.Edward Said however seem to have fallen in the same trap he attributes to Orientalism, he has not attempted to explore Arab writings of the periods he discussed nor has he attempted to present (possibly even read) work by Egyptian and Arab historians of the periods he was addressing save for work carried out in the west and within western universities. In doing so, Said fails to see how the modern and contemporary "orient" sees itself through primarily "oriental" eyes such as Ibn Khaldoun, Al Maqrizi and also through the writings of orientalists like Lane. Said also fails to address the work carried out by orientalists based on many manuscripts of Orientals. I particularly enjoyed Said's analysis of the strong ties that Orientalism has with power and colonialism. Said analysis of the diverging development of the British and French practice based on the latter's limited success as a colonial power was very enjoyable and very well thought out. The Orientalism Today and indeed the Afterwards section are also very informative and as these were more familiar areas for Said his presentation of ideas and thoughts came across more clearly and the writing was far less tedious than the earlier parts of the book.Orientalism is not an easy read, it will challenge many established views, indeed it has already with a fair degree of success led to changes in the way the Near East is studied. To me, most of all I see this as a book that offers in part a largely coherent explanation for the on-going misunderstanding between the West and the Near

Edward Said would say that both demonizing and deifying are problematic because both are distortions and Said wanted to decrease distortion. And so it is that his work has been criticized and praised in a manner that mirrors this distortion through demonizing and deifying. Edward Said's ground-breaking work has been critized on many levels. Some say his writing does not allow adequate agency for Arab and Asian people. In some cases, his examples of historic authors who are allegedly discrediting the "Orient," actually seem to be worshipping. Regardless of the critics, I found the work wholely enlightening. There are so many details of EuroAmerican travel literature which was so profoundly and disturbingly racist. This book gives me a new insight into the history of the way people in EuroAmerica used to think about "The Rest" meaning everything that was not "The West." Edward's work provide s a new way to examine racism -- not from a purely emotional or coldly statistical perspective, but from literary and academic perspectives. This book is a close examination of how racism in many forms, Arab, Asian or "Other," permeates the institutions of the world. Dangerously, these "authoritative" views of Other people become acceptable ways of talking about each other. In this way, racism becomes embedded in the educational systems, in the universities, in the libraries of the world. Elimating it becomes all the more difficult, because it creates the illusion that it is natural, authentic, scientific and rational. Said's Orientalism is an excellent work that I strongly recommend to anyone trying to understand the world, especially the Middle East. Breaking out of the International media paradigms is difficult without some assistance. Said provides the necessary assistance.

Whatever one may chose to believe about Said's methodology, one cannot question his vast erudition concerning Western literature about the Middle East. Said presents a rigorous and thoroughgoing exegesis of Western texts about the "Orient" and covers virtually the entire gamut in European letters, from Nietzsche to Karl Marx, from British colonialsim to American social science. His penetrating criticism of this material constitutes a significant contribution to the canon of literature.One may argue against the merit of Said's more radical interpretation of these texts, namely, that the concept of the "Orient" is a sweeping generalization that lacks "ontological stability," and must be understood as a discourse of power in Western literature. This is a fascinating and intellectually pregnant thesis, although many may find it recondite and polemical.

The phenomenon Edward Said describes in his book is the anti-Arab and anti-Muslim traditions in society and literature. "Orientalism" is a term that describes a "discourse", a school of thought. And like anti-Semtism, which was one part of Orientalist prejudice in the 19th century, the discourse of anti-Muslim anti-Arab prejudice has a long and powerful history. Regrettably it infects leading scholars of the Middle East like Bernard Lewis. Said deserves credit for putting it all together. Although he is a harsh critic of Western imperialism and Israeli and American power in the Middle East, he hardly manifests racism towards any group.