EDWARD SAID

EDWARD SAID Edward Said was a Palestinian-

American literary theorist and

cultural critic.

He was born 1935 and died in 2003.

Author of several highly influential

post-colonial texts, the most famous

of which was Orientalism.

He is one of the foundational

theories of post-colonial and Middle-

Eastern studies.

The cover of the first edition Orientalism is a detail from the

19th-century Orientalist painting ‘The Snake Charmer’

by Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904).

Representations of the Orient in early cinema

REPRESENTATIONS OF THE ORIENT IN FILM (ALADDIN)

REPRESENTATIONS OF THE ORIENT IN FILM (ALADDIN)

Oh, I come from a land,

from a faraway place

Where the caravan camels roam

Where they cut off your ear

If they don't like your face

It's barbaric, but hey, it's home

When the wind's from the east

and the sun's from the west

And the sand in the glass is right

Come on down stop on by

Hop a carpet and fly

To another Arabian night

MODERN REPRESENTATIONS OF THE ORIENT IN...

FILM

VIDEO GAMES

NEWS MEDIA

EUROPEAN CULTURES HAVE HISTORICALLY DIVIDED WORLD HAS BEEN DIVIDED INTO TWO CATEGORIES:

OccidentalThe West

The familiar

Civilised and Sophisticated

Intelligent and Peaceful

Superior, Victorious and Dominant

Explicable and Rational

OrientalThe East

The other

Uncivilised and Crude

Barbaric and Violent

Inferior Defeated and Submissive

Mystical and Irrational

WHAT IS ORIENTALISM?

Said argues that the ‘orient’ is an idea that was invented by the Western

consciousness. It is part of a historical miscategorisation of people from

Africa, Asia and the Middle East by European academics, scholars, authors

and political elites.

It turns Eastern cultures into an ‘other’ – something that is different, that

can be feared, that can be defeated without offending the other values we

hold.

The concept of the ‘orient’ emerged as a means of justifying imperialism and

colonisation. This understanding of the ‘orient’ was not aimed at

understanding the people or coexisting, but on how to conquer and subdue

them.

ORIENTALISM, COLONISATION AND IMPERIALISM

Europe came to define itself in relation to the orient: the orient was

everything that Europe was not. If Europe is everything that is good, then

the Orient is it’s opposing force.

It has been about the glory of conquering the East and as a means of

justifying Western superiority over other cultures.

As a concept, orientalism is closely tied to colonialism (the conquering,

occupying and controlling of another country, populating it with settlers

and exploiting it economically) and imperialism (extending a country’s

power and influence through many means, including colonisation, military

force of economic power).

ORIENTALISM ON IDENTITY: EUROPE AND THE ORIENT

“European culture gained in strength and identity by

setting itself off against the Orient as a sort of

surrogate and even underground self.”

“A line is drawn between two continents. Europe is

powerful and articulate; Asia is defeated and distant.”

Orientalism became “a code by which Europe could

interpret both itself and the Orient to itself. “

WHOSE KNOWLEDGE?Said argues that Orientalism has always been more about the European

cultures than the Eastern cultures: it is the story of the conquerors, not the

conquered.

The ‘knowledge’ of the Oriental people is based on entirely generalisations:

mythology, romanticised ideas, turning isolated observations into

“immutable law”. This knowledge, in turn, becomes a means of dominating

the colonised people and justifying the coloniser’s actions and narrative.

The ‘Orientals’ become passive in this history – they are objects to be

studied, don’t have any active role and lack their own voice.

ORIENTALISM ON KNOWLEDGE:HUMANISM VS ORIENTALISM

“…there is a difference between knowledge of other peoples

and other times that is the result of understanding,

compassion, careful study and analysis for their own

sakes, and on the other hand knowledge—if that is what it

is—that is part of an overall campaign of self-

affirmation, belligerency and outright war. There is, after

all, a profound difference between the will to understand

for purposes of co-existence and humanistic

enlargement of horizons, and the will to dominate for

the purposes of control and external dominion.”

ORIENTALISM AND STEREOTYPES

Orientalism leads to misconceptions in the West: mass stereotyping, lack of

knowledge of the differences between different countries, social groups,

religious sects, time periods, etc. There are always huge problems when you

attribute the one identity to a large group of diverse people.

Because of this, Orientalism is also anti-humanist as it prevents people from

viewing others as ‘humans’. People are robbed on their identity and

individuality when they are viewed in this way.

ORIENTALISM AND IDENTITY:THE DANGERS OF STEREOTYPING

“…the terrible reductive conflicts that herd

people under falsely unifying rubrics like

"America," "The West" or "Islam" and invent

collective identities for large numbers of

individuals who are actually quite

diverse…”

THE EFFECT OF ORIENTALISM TODAY

Orientalism continues to create fear towards the Eastern world. As a result,

it validates and encourages Western intervention in the Middle East. It

perpetuates ideas of Western cultural superiority while discouraging people

from learning and understanding the true complexities of Eastern cultures.

Orientalism continues to lead to the subjugation of Eastern cultures: in the

past through being turned into colonies of Europe, and today through

Western Imperialism, both military and economic.

In many ways, Orientalism has led to many of the problems that the Middle

East now faces: nations follow western-imposed boundaries; Western

policies and interference either gave rise to or support the continued

power of many of the dictatorships, etc.

ORIENTALISM AND CONFLICT

Orientalism invariably leads to conflict. By creating an ‘other’, fear is also

created, since this ‘other’ is meant to represent everything we are not.

When combined with mass-stereotyping and ignorance of these cultures, it

makes it difficult to avoid or resolve conflicts.

This fear and hatred can then be replicated. If people in the East are

treated as the enemies of the West and the representation of everything

the West is not, then this can be internalised. Stereotypes beget

stereotypes.

Through its connection with colonialism and imperialism, orientalism is

also closely aligned with greed and the desire to gain power and control

over others.

ORIENTALISM ON FEAR:AMERICA, ISLAM AND THE MEDIA

“Today, bookstores in the US are filled with shabby screeds bearing

screaming headlines about Islam and terror, Islam exposed, the

Arab threat and the Muslim menace, all of them written by political

polemicists pretending to knowledge imparted to them and others by

experts who have supposedly penetrated to the heart of these strange

Oriental peoples over there who have been such a terrible thorn

in "our" flesh. Accompanying such warmongering expertise have been the

omnipresent CNNs and Foxs of this world, plus myriad numbers of

evangelical and right-wing radio hosts, plus innumerable tabloids and even

middle-brow journalists, all of them re-cycling the same unverifiable

fictions and vast generalizations so as to stir up "America" against

the foreign devil.”

ORIENTALISM ON THE IRAQ WAR:THE WESTERN VIEW OF IRAQ

“Without a well-organized sense that these people over there

were not like "us" and didn't appreciate "our" values,

the very core of traditional Orientalist dogma,…there would

have been no war.”

WHAT IS THE SOLUTION? Said, as a humanist, believes that we need to view people as humans first

and foremost, and not be misled by imposed identities. We must instead

seek understanding and knowledge and recognise our shared humanity

The aim of all cultures must be to work towards coexisting, rather than

trying to dominate the other. If we can do so, we will discover that there is

much that all of these cultures can learn from each other.

“Rather than the manufactured clash of civilizations, we need

to concentrate on the slow working together of

cultures that overlap, borrow from each other, and live

together in far more interesting ways than any abridged

or inauthentic mode of under-standing can allow.”