Friday, November 03, 2006

Orientalism

Anything related to east is oriental. This is the term popularised by Edward W. Said's 'Orientalism', in which he examine by which the 'Orient' was, and continues to be, constructed in European thinking. Professional Orientalist included scholars in various disciplines such as language, history, and philology but he said the discourse of Orientalism was much more widespread and endemic in European thought.
But as a form of Academic discourse, it was a style of thought based on the Ontological and Epistemological distribution between the 'Orient' and 'Occident' but, most probably, said discusses Orientalism as the corporate institution for dealing with the Orient dealing with it by making statement about it, authorising views of it, describing it, teaching it, settling it, ruling over it, in short Orientalism as a western style of dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the orient. In this sense it is a classic e.g. of Foucault's definition of discourse

The period of immense advance in the institutions and content of Orientalism coincides exactly with the period of unparalleled European expansions; from 1815 to 1914 European direct colonial dominian expanded from about 35 % OF the earth's surface to about 85% of it. Every continent was affected, none more so than africa and Asia. The two greatest empires were the British and the French, allies and partners in some things, in others they were hostile rivals.

In the case of Islam, European leaved a lot. After Mohammad's death in 632, the military and later the cultural and religious hegemony of Islam grew enormously, for example, Islam was a lasting trauma. It symbolized teror devastation, the demonic hordes of hated barbarians, first Persia, Syria and Egypt, then Turkey, then North africa fell to the Muslim armes, in the 8 C 9 C's Spain, Sicily and part of France was conquered by the 13 C 14 C's.Islam ruled as far east as India, Indonesia and China

Orientalism is the generic term that i have been employing to describe the western approach to the orient, Orientalism is the discipline by which the Orient was (and is) approached systematically as a topic of learning, discovery and practice

Islam excepted the Orient for Europe was until the 19 C, a domain with continuous history of unchallenged western dominance. Orientalism describes the various disciplines institutions, processes of investigation and styles og thought by which Europeans came to 'know' the 'Orient' over several centuries, and which reached their height during the rise of 19 C imperialism. The key to Said's interest in this way of knowing Europe's other is that it effectively demonstrates the link between knowledge and power, for it 'constructs' and dominates Orientals in the process of knowing them

Orientalism is an openly political work. Its aim is not to investigate the array of disciplines or to celebrate exhaustively the historical or cultural provenance of Orientalism, but rather to reverse the 'gaze' of the discourse to analyze it from the point of view of an Oriental. His intention, he claims was to provoke, and thus to stimulate a new kind of dealing with the Orient.

Orientalism refers to at least three different pursuits, all of which are interdependent: an academic discipline, a style of thought, and a corporate institution for dealing with the Orient. The three are interrelated particularly since the domination entailed in the third defination is reliant upon and justified by the textual establishment of the Orient that emerges out of the academic and imaginative definations of Orientalism.

Orientalism is best viewed in Foucauldian terms as a discourse: a manisfetation of power/knowledge. Said's methodology is embedded in what he terms, 'textualism', which allows him to envisage the Orient as a textual creation. In Orientalist discourse, the affiliations of the text compel it to produce the west as asite of power and a centre distincly demarcated from the 'other' as the object of knowledge and inevitably subordination. This hidden political function of the Orientalist text is a feature of its worldliners and said's project is to focus on the establishment of the Orient as textual construct. He is not interested in analysing what lies hidden in the Orientalist text, but in showing how the Orientalist 'makes the Orient speak, describes the Orient, renders its mysteries plain for and to the West'.

The Orientalist text is used to represent the truth. The Orient is rendered silent and its reality is revealed by the Orientalist. Since these texts offer a familiarity, even intimacy, with a distant and exotic reality, the texts themselves are accorded enermous status and accuse greater importance than the objects they seek to describe.

Althought Said has a clear debt to Foucault; these are important points of departure. The problem said how with Foucault is a lingering sense that he is more fascinated with the way power operates than committed to trying to change power relations in society. Foucault's conception of power leaves no room for resistance. However, for Said, resistance is twofold: to know the Orient outside the discourse of Orientalism and to represent and present this knowledge to the Orientalist to write back to them.

Edwar Said asserts that until the late 19C and early 20C was a European speciality. 'The principle dogmas of Orientalism, according to Said remain unchanged'. They are, in his words:

1) The absolute and systematic difference between the west which is ratioanal, developed, humane, superior, and the Orient, which is aberrant, underdeveloped and inferior.

2) Abstarctions about the Orient particularly those based on links representing a 'classical' Oriental civilization are always preferable to direct evidence drawn from modern Oriental realities.

3) The Orient is uniform and incapable of defining itself; therefore a heighly generalized and systematic vocabulary for describing the Orient from a western stand point is inevitable and even scientifically objective. 4) The Orient is at the bottom something either to be feared or to be controlled.

According to Said while these were same rare exceptions, the typical Orientalist performed the role of an imperical scribe. He sums up the situation of 19C Orientaalism as Follows. 'The system of European is western knowledge about the Orient, thus becomes synonimous with European domination of the Orient.' While these is no denying the great significance of Said's critique of Orientalism.


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