ORiENTALiSM.

Edward Said’s book, Orientalism, challenges his readers to rethink the study of Orientalism, its origins, and its place in the modern world. As early as the late 1840’s, the idea of the Other was constructed against the Orient and has persisted in our modern understanding of Orientalism, the Orient, and the Oriental. Scholars, writers, and intellectuals have accepted a false representation of Orientalism and have based their theories and works on previous discriminatory studies and imperialist secondary sources. Said is a brave scholar who noticed these misrepresentations in scholarship and decided to question and challenge years and years of history. At the end of Said’s introduction he clearly indicates that his main goal is to have a “new kind of dealing” with the Orient and ultimately eradicate the Orient and Occident altogether.  

One of Said’s claims is how the West’s “cultural domination” and “intellectual authority” over the Orient has led to repeated misrepresentation and exploitation in the study of the Middle East and its people. The creation of Orientalism was “easily made” and “guarded” through discourses of power and ideological fictions (328). Orientalism was legitimized and protected through continuous years of Western domination over the Orient and Oriental scholarship. Orientalism expanded over a wide range of areas and has generalized an entire region of people. The Orient was not given a voice, it was being written and studied by and for the West. Europe’s dominance has “politically, sociologically, militarily, ideologically, scientifically, and imaginatively produced the Orient; the Orient then becomes a mirror opposite of Europe, the defeated and distant (3). Orientalism has evolved into an idea separate from the Middle East and has transformed into an idea in opposition to the West, which is validated through Oriental scholarship. Throughout the book, Said refers to countless intellectuals who collectively reinforced similar myopic studies and images of the Orient and argues that their work was not objective and should not be considered as factual knowledge because it was filtered through preceding prejudices and stereotypes. It is problematic when imperialist, racist scholars write and theorize years of literature and academia. Biased discourse, media, literature and scholarship has consequently objectified the Middle East and limited its understanding through a prism of racist and “imperialist stereotypes.”

One of the many faults in the study of Orientalism is that it refers to the study of a massive region and generalizes an entire people. The images and representations of the Oriental are static and timeless, stereotypical images from the 1800’s remain prevalent today. Different representations of Orientals range from Disney characters such as Mulan to Aladdin, resulting in the generalization of the entire Asian continent. Oriental women are commonly depicted as overtly sexual and objects of desire, but not as a human. Similarly, the Oriental man is characterized as treacherous, deceiving, and threatening especially to white women and America. The West has perpetuated these images primarily through media, film and literature and develops them into widely accepted stereotypes and prejudices. Today, America has justified its political agenda by relying on former anti-Semitic attitudes established heavily in through its media and film. Said argues that these repeated images reinforce the static, dehumanizing idea of the Oriental and further misrepresent the Middle East. Throughout the 20^th century, America has preserved Orientalism by defining the Orient as dangerous, menacing, and backward. The media has kept Americans unfamiliar with the Middle East and the government capitalizes on this fact by filtering the news to favor special interests. Therefore, media’s reports reaffirm Otherness and justify America’s actions such as its support for Israel’s illegal occupation.  

Chapter two, Orientalist Structures and Restructures, details how Orientalism was restructured and “modernized” by Orientalists. However, as Orientalist “redefined” Orientalism their perspectives remained filtered through cultural domination. Orientalist continued to write about the Orient and what he wrote was intended as useful knowledge, not for them, but for Europe (160). Ideas and observations written about the Orient say more about Western ideology and perception, rather than accurate depictions of the Middle East. Orientalism did not originate with intentions to further understand or enhance Middle Eastern scholarship, but it further materialized Europe’s prejudice ideologies and imperialism. As Orientalists restructured Orientalism, Orient culture and intellect remained dominated and the Orient remained the Other. It is not a surprise that Europeans and Orientalists had similar studies because they both wrote from a foreign, outside point of view, resulting in further perversion. Europe possessed the Orient and by creating Orientalism they had the power to control and manipulate its meaning and how others would further understand it. The years of 1800 and 1950 were filled with literature produced by the West and over 60,000 books were written about the Orient, and yet there were no figures about Oriental’s scholarship written about the West (204). The imbalance of scholarship produced reveals the fact that only one side of the story is being told, while entire generations of people are being silenced. The main issue is that Orientalists and Europeans continued to write about Orientals instead of for them. Rather than immersing themselves in the culture, foreign scholars remained foreign observers and provided biased perspectives. The scholars who studied Orientalism inculcated and reflected their prejudices onto their work, therefore illegitimating their conclusions and observations. Throughout the book, Said criticizes the foreigner’ bias conclusions and falsified truths. Orientalism was essentially written by the West and for the West and the wide-ranging research was unfairly compiled and categorized as Oriental. As Orientalism progressed and modernized the Orient went from being a place, to becoming a domain of actual scholarly rule and potential imperial sway (197). Throughout the years, the Orient has become an idea distanced from the Middle East itself and serves as an example of Western dominance and European hegemony.

            Said's work defies the fact that all has been learned and studied about the Orient, instead he calls for alternate views of the Middle East and more in-dept research and analysis. Now that the problems of Orientalism have been exposed his conclusion hopes that political and historical awareness will begin the venture for valid and credible Middle Eastern scholarship.