M.A ENGLISH LITERATURE & LANGUISTICS

4th SEMESTER-SECTION A

POST COLONIAL LITERATURE

ASSIGNMENT TOPIC: ORIENTALISM (INTRODUCTION & 1 ST CHAPTER)

SUBMITTED TO: DR. SAYIMA ASLAM

SUBMITTED BY: HUMA HAFEEZ

HUMA ASLAM

KINZA GHAFOOR

SUMAIRA BIBI

MARIA SABEEN

Dated: 7TH march, 2013

INTERNATIONAL

ISLAMIC UNIVERSI

TY, ISLAMAB

AD.

In the introduction of Edward Said’s book of Orientalism, Said takes the initiative by describing Orient in order to expose the vital common Western misconception about the East. The term orient is a western invention. He says that this misconception dwells in the Western mind in such a way as if it were irrelevant that the Orient itself was actually sociologically affected. Said uses the phrase “Other” to describe the Western fascination with the Orient” as one can only find an idea of themselves through a contrast with an “Other.” This is a fitting comparison to Said’s topic, considering the emphasis he puts on “the Orient’s special place in the Western experience.” Said suggests that the Orient does not mean the same to American as it does to the European countries, which fits logically into the equation. This makes historical sense, since the Orient was adjacent to Europe’s earliest civilizations and the cultural exchange has always existed.

Said analyses orientalism in terms of academic interprettation. He refers it to the field of work of anyone who teaches, writes about, or researches the Orient. This definition is generally too indistinct as compared to the introductory designation. Although it incorporates the multiple discourses of knowledge, it fails to distinguish the Orient as existing comparatively instead of just being the subject of examination.

The second definition draws attention to this distinction and clarifies Orientalism, while also extending its breadth to all that is not considered west; The Middle East, India, Russia.Said then proposes a third definition of Orientalism, using an analysis substantially more applicable in the historical context. Orientalism as the corporate institution for dealing with the Orient, as the Western authority has done. He professes to be motivated here by Foucault’s notion of a discourse. Michel Foucault’s theories that have come to bear on this discussion are his ideas of the critical relationship under which the ontology of subject and object come to be known and how these associations may come to constitute knowledge. According to Foucault, the problem is not isolating any empirical conditions that may bring about this subjectivity, but to determine what the subject is and to what conditions it is subject. Said’s application of this theory fits his third definition well, and provides a strong platform for the rest of his argument. The Orient has, for much of history, been the active object to the European missionary and scientist positions.

He then lists his findings about the recent history of the Orient’s relationship with the West. Said suggests that the balance of power from Franco-British involvement to a largely American involvement has not had so great an effect Orientalism as would be expected. This is because the Orient is not nearly as sterile as effective Western domination would bring about; it is a thriving entity just like those cultures that have power over it. Additionally, his observations make sense in the scope of colonialism, since certain sections of the Orient have been excluded from the whole at certain times; The Middle East or India.

In his qualifications for interpreting Orientalism, Said includes several points of interest and clarification. He agrees with Disraeli, in saying that the East is more than just an idea with no corresponding reality. In fact, this is concurrent with the fact that many Western scholars have dedicated their entire lives to studying the Orient.

Secondly, Said reinforces that it is irresponsible to discount the control that the West exercised over these societies. The study of Orientalism could not exist had the East not been the victim of Western power and domination.

Said differentiates between the types of society and how cultural influence is derived. He cites Antonio Gramsci as distinguishing between civil and political society, and the different configurations and responsibilities therein. According to Gramsci, a political society is one in which the citizen is directly dominated and imposed on by the state, who create and maintain the social institutions. Civil society, however, is made up of citizens voluntarily affiliating themselves with certain social responsibilities. Only under this type of society does the derivation of cultural enterprise instantiate itself. Gramsci’s main argument as that in any form of society that is not totalitarian, certain types of culture will thrive. It is this societal happening that he calls hegemony, which Said explains is the phenomenon that necessitates interest in cultural ‘otherness’ such as Orientalism.

After listing the three aspects of his contemporary reality, Said discusses and attempts to address three realities that would bring the puzzle of Orientalism closer to a solution.

In differentiating between pure and political knowledge, he mentions the difficulty of distrusting political knowledge in the realm of a subject that is so interconnected with politics and international awareness. It seems to come through in the writing that Said is finding it hard to address a problem that is so deeply involved in imperialism, yet not trustworthy of political knowledge. This sharp paradox problematizes his attempt to understand Orientalism in it’s historical situation.

The second step is the proposition of his methodological devices, which are in answer to the evident absence of the “problematic” in this study. Said uses these devices to examine the authority that is descriptive of the West’s relationship with the Orient. The first device is strategic location, which describes an author’s position in his study with regard to the Orient. Every person who writes about the Orient must associate themselves with either the Orient or the West (Their strategic location), therefore adding certain connotations and themes to their interpretations.

Strategic formation, the second device, incorporates the study of the Orient and the way in which different intellectual standpoints gain acceptance and credibility. Just as everyone must be either associated with the West or the East, anyone who considers the Orient in their thoughts

must create a basis for whatever argument or position they assume. The intellectual basis of their position is composed of referential knowledge that relates to other works (Their strategic formation). At the end of this section, he reminds the reader that information that is popularly disseminated by a culture is only a representation of truth, not reality itself. He uses this clarification to elucidate the use of language as being culturally, not universally, expressive.

The final reality that must be addressed to bring a greater understanding of Orientalism is what Said calls the personal dimension. He quotes Gramsci as saying “The starting point of critical elaboration is the consciousness of what one really is, and knowing thyself.” This quote applies directly to the subject matter at hand, and also to Said’s analysis of it. He mentions his upbringing, the pertinence of which relates back to the aforementioned methodological devices considering his particular background and previous knowledge of those who are involved in the Orient. Some elements of his personal reflection on Orientalism are the long history of prejudice against people of Arab and Islamic descent, the struggle between the Arabs and the Israelis, and its effects on American population. The one-sidedness of this struggle has to do mainly with the largely liberal American identification with Zionism and the reinforcement of stereotypes of the Orient in the electronic and popular media.

Said delves further into the reasoning behind the futility of a positive view of Arab life in the West. His remaining comments include that his experiences as a person of Arab descent are what motivated him to write about Orientalism in the first place. For someone who is so directly and negatively affected by Western perceptions of the Arab world and the Orient altogether, his analysis is a fairly objective and sophisticated view of Orientalism. Perhaps it is because of his experiences with lifelong stereotypes and the apparent dichotomy of Western and Eastern approaches to the subject. His final comment is somewhat of a plea to the reader in the hopes that if a greater understanding of the topic is derived from reading, then an unlearning of the processes of cultural domination can conceivably begin.

Throughout Said is attempting to lay out the foundations of how the concept of Orientalism is understood through a historical analysis of Britain’s relationship and experience of colonial rule over Egypt. He reviews who is called “Oriental” and how we begin to label others. Said reviews how knowledge and power creates the ability of one group to obtain authority over another group and thus striping the autonomy away from “the other.” Moreover, Said continues by noting that this dominance allows for the group with power and knowledge to accept the superiority as the norm and takes for granted their position of authority. For example, the West will take their position of dominance and analyze all beliefs and views, which differ from their own, as abnormal. As Western nations, became more powerful, we automatically begin assuming positive qualities towards the dominating group and negative qualities towards the “weaker” group. Thus, all attributes, behaviors, and cultural norms are compared to the “western norm.” This then allowed all Western thought to be rational and normal and all others thought patterns to be irrational and strange. Said uses his first chapter to describe how the concept of the western

dominance over the east (Orient) created an ideological framework, which looks at the East as least superior than West, this is what Said describes as Orientalism.

Said outlines his argument with several limitations as he States that it fails to include Russian Orientalism and explicitly excludes German Orientalism, which he suggests had “clean “ pasts and could be promising future studies. Said also suggests that not all academic discourse in the west has to be orient list in its intent but much of it. He also suggests that all cultures have a view of other cultures that may be exotic and harmless to some extent, but it is not this view that he argues against and when this view is taken by a military and economically dominant culture against another it can lead to disastrous results.

Said starts by analyzing public speeches and writings of two British imperialists of the early 20 th

century about the Egypt, making an emphasis on how the stress that since the British imperial authorities “know better” their country, they have a natural right to rule it:

British knowledge of Egypt is Egypt for Balfour, and the burdens of knowledge make such questions as inferiority and superiority seem petty ones. Balfour nowhere denies British superiority and Egyptian inferiority; he takes them for granted as he describes the consequences of knowledge.

During his involvement in imperial affairs Belfour Serve a monarch who in 1876 had been declared Empress of India; he had been especially well placed in position of uncommon influence to follow the Afghan and Zulu wars, the British occupation of Egypt in 1882, the death of General Gordon in the Sudan, the Russo- Japanese war.

Two great themes dominate his remarks here and in what will follow: Knowledge and Power. As Balfour justifies the necessity for British occupation of Egypt, Supremacy in his mind is associated with “our” knowledge of Egypt and not principally with military or economic power. Knowledge to Balfour means rising above immediacy, beyond self, into Foreign and distant. The object of such knowledge in inherently Vulnerable to scrutiny; this object is a “fact” which, it develops, changes or otherwise transforms itself in the way that civilizations frequently do, nevertheless is fundamentally, even ontologically stable.

Balfour is of the view that; it is a good thing for these great nations and he admires their greatness that this absolute Government should be exercised by them. He think it is a good thing an experience shows that they have got under it far better government that in the whole history of the world they ever had before, and which not only is a benefit to them, but it undoubtedly a benefit to the whole to the civilized west. Balfour states; “We are Egypt not merely for the sake of the Egyptians/ though we are these for their sake; we are there also for the sake of Europe at large”.

Balfour produces no evidence that Egyptians and “the races with whom we deal.” Appreciate or even understand the good that is being done them by Colonial occupation. It does not occur to

Balfour , however, to let the Egyptian speak for himself , since presumably any Egyptian who would speak out is more likely to be “ the agitator (Who) wishes to raise difficulties” than the good native who overlooks the “difficulties” of foreign domination.

England knows that Egypt cannot have self-government; and England confirms that by occupying Egypt, and now governs; foreign occupation therefore become” the very basic” of Contemporary Egyptian civilization ; Egypt requires, indeed insist upon, British occupation. But is the special intimacy, between governor and governed in Egypt in disturbed by parliament’s doubts at home, then “the authority of what… is the dominant race and as I think ought to remain the dominant race – has been undermined.” Not only does English prestige suffer; “ It is vain for a handful of British officials, endow them how you like, give them all the qualities of character the genius you can imagine , it is impossible for them to carry out the great task which in Egypt, not we only, but the civilized world have imposed upon them.”

Balfour was of the view that Cromer made Egypt, as he states; “Everything he has touched he has succeeded in … during the past quarter of a century have raised Egypt …. Stands among oriental nation I believe, absolutely alone in its prosperity, financial and moral.” British exports to Egypt equaled those to the whole of Africa; that century indicated a sort of financial prosperity, for both; Egypt and England.

Free native institutions, the absence of foreign occupation, self-sustaining nation sovereignty are the demands rejected by Comer, who asserted; “that the real future of Egypt lies not in the direction of a narrow nationalism, which will only embrace native Egyptians but rather in that of an enlarged Cosmopolitanisms”.

Arabs (Orientals) are shown to be “devoid of energy and initiative,” intrigue, cunning, and unkindness to animals; Orientals are inveterate liars, they are “lethargic and suspicious,” and in everything oppose the clarity, directness, and nobility of the Anglo-Saxon race.

Balfour and Comer used many terms to explain the relation between the Orientals and Orient. The Oriental is irrational, depraved (fallen), childlike, “different”; declaring that the European is rational, virtuous, mature and different. In Cromer’s and Balfour’s language the oriental is depicted as something one judges (as in a Court of law), something one studies depicts as a discipline as in a school or prison and something one illustrates as in a Zoological manual.

In short, Orientalism is a set of constraints upon and limitations of thought than it is simply as a positive doctrine. If the essence of Orientalism is the ineradicable distinction between Western superiority and Oriental inferiority, then we must be prepared to note how in its development and subsequent history Orientalism deepened and even hardened the distinction.

Orientalist ideas took a number of forms during the nineteenth and twentieth century’s. As in Europe there was a vast literature about the Orient inherited from the European past. Orientalism can also express the strength of the West and the Orient’s weakness as seen by West. Such

strength and such weakness are intrinsic to Orientalism because they are the view that divides the world into two.

Kissinger is not value-free and he used words as “prophetic,” “accuracy,” “internal,” “empirical reality,” and “order” throughout his description, and they characterize either attractive, familiar, desirable virtues or menacing, peculiar, disorderly defects. Both the traditional Orientalist, as Kissinger conceive of the difference between cultures, first, as creating a battlefront that separates them, and second, as inviting the West to control, contain, and otherwise govern (through superior knowledge and accommodating power) the Other.

Another critic, Glidden states: “It is a notable fact that while the Arab value system demands absolute solidarity within the group, it at the same time encourages among its members a kind of rivalry that is destructive of that very solidarity.” The purpose of this learned disquisition is merely to show how on the western and Oriental scale of values, as the relative position of the elements is quite different.

The argument was that, there are Westerners, and there are Orientals. The former dominate; the latter must be dominated, which usually means having their land occupied, their internal affairs rigidly controlled, their blood and treasure put at the disposal of one or another Western power.

Political domination had to be justified, therefore, in the course of the nineteenth century, a bunch of theories turn up which persisted into the twentieth century and which constructed the colonial subject as inferior to Europeans; in logic, culture, moral, etc. Many resources were invented in this vision of Oriental people, as it justified and legitimized domination. The Orient was viewed as if framed by the classroom, the criminal court, the prison, the illustrated manual.

The reason why this domination emerged was that at that time Britain and France, two leading colonial powers, divide between them (and other powers) the whole world, but only between them Middle East. In a way, they cooperated to secure cultural domination over these lands, And share they (Britain and France) did, in ways that we shall investigate presently. In a sense Orientalism was a library or archive of information, commonly and, in some of its aspects, unanimously held.

The crux of it is that the West has created a dichotomy, between the reality of the East and the romantic notion of the "Orient. The Middle East and Asia are viewed with prejudice and racism. They are backward and unaware of their own history and culture. To fill this void, the West has created a culture, history, and future promise for them. On this framework rests not only the study of the Orient, but also the political imperialism of Europe in the East.