Orientalism by Edward Said (1935-2004)
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He was Palestinian American writer and educator.
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Highly criticize the Western portrayals of Arabs
and United States foreign policy in the Middle East.
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He identified with Conrad’s sense of being an
exile and took inspiration from Conrad’s exploration of colonialism.
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Best known for his book ‘Orientalism’ 1978,
which discusses the attitude of Western intellectuals towards the east.
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Argued that Westerner have a limited,
oversimplified concept of the Middle East and its history. This view, he said
goes hand in hand with political imperialism.
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‘Culture and Imperialism’ 1993 Drew similar
perceptions from works of Western literature – perceptions of the east as the
‘other’ of peoples barbaric and limited, of oriental despots, and of cultures
both exotic and degenerate.
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He argued that these perceptions remain
influential today and have an impact on politics, particularly towards the
Middle East and Arabs.
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Said’s ideas influenced a rising generation of
educators in former colonies and formed the main foundation for the new field
of post-colonial studies.
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On the political front, Said was a powerful
voice expressing the plight of the Palestinians as a people dispossessed of
their homeland.
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Said supported a Palestinian state and helped
pave the way for secret peace negotiation between Israel and the PLO ‘Palestine
Liberation Organization’ in Oslo.
The Beginning.
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Said, Edward (1935-2004) an American literary
critic, post-colonial theorist and political commenter.
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He was a par proff of English and Comparative
literature, at Columbia University, New York.
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Said’s orientalism is perhaps one of the most
influential texts of 20th century, which Spivak calls, ‘A source
book’ where Bhabha refers to it as, ‘Inaugurating the post-colonial field’.
Crisis (in Orientalism)
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The present extract, called simply ‘crises’ in
the original text, concludes the first section of the book entitled, ‘The Scope
of Orientalism’.
What is Orientalism?
Said’s
argument borrows from Michel Foucault’s dual notions of discourse and knowledge
as inextricably liked to power.
a)
Discourse is the conceptual terrain of thought,
a system of ideas and opinion that section’s certain forms of knowledge.
b)
All ‘Will to knowledge’ is tied up with to power
without prior knowledge about to subject of power.
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Said argues that knowledge about the Orient
(Asia, the east and non European cultures) was not disinterested or knowledge
for the sake of knowledge; it preceded actually colonial practices.
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Colonial practices (political, economic)
necessitated the production of such knowledge. Hence, Orientalism was caused
and was a by-product of colonization.
As we know Colonization is
‘Settlement
on a new land far off… established control over the indigenous people of the
colony’
Now,
the question is why, would one seek settlement in a new and far off land?
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The reason is simple, to exploits the resources
like natural resources, human resources, intellectual resources and so on.
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To cope with protest and resistance of native
the colonizer applied two main strategies.
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To defeat native politically ad establish their
control over administration.
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By making colonized (native) feel inferior
(socially, culturally and so on.)
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And to inject this inferiority in natives,
colonizers constructed, ‘an objective and linear discourse.’
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Where they proclaim that native was ‘an area of
darkness’, and colonizers invaded natives for themselves but to enlighten their
ignorant natives.
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body of knowledge, to orient the understanding in a certain way is called ‘Orientalism’
Hence Orientalism
is …
‘A body
of knowledge, (or discourse) about the orient by the people of occident.’
It was considered as a kind of
favor to colonized (native)
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For the first time this view of Orientalism was
deconstructed by Edward Said, He stated that, the orientalism is not an
objective or linear discourse, but a ‘political discourse.’
David Lodge defines the term Orientalism as…
‘The
discourse of the West about the East, a huge body of text literary,
topographical, anthropological, historical, and sociological – that has been
accumulating since the Renaissance.’
Orientalism overrode the orient:
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Said avers that during 19th century
orientalism produced a great many things, so far as its strictly scholarly work
was concerned; it produced scholars, it increased the number of languages
taught in the West and the large quantity of manuscript edited, and translated.
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In many cases it provides the orient with
sympathetic European studies – Students genuinely interested in such matters as
Sanskrit grammar, Phoenician, numismatics, and Arabic poetry.
Anthropocentrism in Alliance:
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Said further states that almost every
Orientalist began his career as a philologist.
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Moreover, he observes that the great
philological discoveries in comparative grammar made by Jones, Franz, and Jacob
Grimm were originally indebted to manuscripts brought from the East to Paris
and London.
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According to Said, Orientalism carried forward
two traits from the outset.
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A newly found scientific self-consciousness
based on the linguistic importance of the orient to Europe.
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A proclivity to divide, sub-divide and re-divide
its subject matter without ever changing its mind about the orient as being
always the same unchanging uniform.
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Said gives an examples of Friedrich Schlegel,
who learned his Sanskrit in Paris, when Schlegel said, ‘It is in the orient
that we must search for the highest Romanticism.’
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He must the orient of Sakuntala, the
Zend-Avesta, and the Upanishads. Nowhere does Schlegel talk about the living,
contemporary orient.
Summing Up:
Hence,
the crisis in Orientalism dramatizes the disparity between texts and reality.
Said not only to expose the sources of Orientalism’s view but also to reflect
on its importance. Apart from this Said is also known for his other works like,
‘Covering Islam’ 1981, ‘The politics of Dispossession’ 1994, ‘Out of Place’
1999 and ‘Reflection on Exile’ 2001. Etc.
This discussion is primarily based on Said's 'Crises in Orientalism.'
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