An Introduction to Edward Said's Orientalism, EE- 305, Post colonial Literature

Name              -      Bhatt. Dhara. J

Roll no:          -       02

M.A.Part-2    -       Sem-3

Paper                      5, E-E-305

Paper name           Post Colonial Literature    

Topic for Assignment      -

An Introduction to Edward Said’s Orientalism

Submitted To: Dr.Dilipsir Barad

  Department of English,

  Bhavnagar university,

  Bhavnagar.                

An introduction to Edward Said’s Orientalism

·      Author - Edward W. Said

·      Publisher- Vintage

·      Year       - 1994

                                               “Orientalism” by Edward Said is Canonical text of cultural studies in which he challenged the Concept of Orientalism or the difference between east and west; as he puts it. He says that with start of European Colonization the Europeans came in contact with lesser developed Countries of the east. They found their civilization and culture very exotic, and established the science of Orientalism, which was the study of the Orientals or the people from these exotic civilizations.

                                  The book by chapter

Chapter - 1

“The Scope of Orientalism”

(1) Knowing the Oriental

(2) Imaginative Geography and its Representation:

     Oriental sings the Oriental.

(3) Projects.

(4) Crisis.

Chapter - 2

“Orientalists   Structures and Restructures”

(1)  Redrawn Frontiers, Redefined issues, Secularized Religion

(2)  Silvestre de Stacy and Ernest Renan: Rational Anthropology and Philological.

(3)  Oriental Residence and Scholarship: The Requirements of Lexicography and

(4)  Pilgrims and Pilgrimages, British and French

Chapter - 3

“Orientalism now”

(1)  Latent and Manifest Orientalism

(2)  Style, Expertise, Vision; Orientalism   World illness

(3)  Modern Anglo: French Orientalism in its fullest Flower

(4)  The Latest phase.

Basic knowledge about the Chapter:

Chapter-1

“The Scope of Orientalism”

                                   In this Section Said outlines his argument with several caveats as to how it may be flawed. He States that it fails to include Russian Orientalism  and explicitly excludes German Orientalism, which he suggests had “clean “ Pasts(Said 1978: 2 and 4),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 is. 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.

Chapter-2

                      “Orientalist   Structures and Restructures”

                                          In this chapter Said outlines how Orientalist discourse was transferred from Country to Country and Political leader to author. He suggests that this discourse was set up as a foundation for all further study and discourse of the Orient by the occident.

                                              He States that

                              “The four elements I have described expansion, historical Confrontation, sympathy, classification are the Currents in eighteenth century thought on whose presence the specific intellectual and institutional structures of modern Orientalism depend.”

                                Further travelers and academics of the East depended on this discourse for their own education, and so the Orientalist discourse the West over and East was passed down through European Writers and politician (and therefore through all European)

Chapter - 3

                    “Orientalism Now”

                    This chapter starts off by telling us that how the geography of the world was shaped by the Colonization of the Europeans. There was a quest for geographical knowledge which formed the base of Orientalism.

                     The author then talks about the changing approach to Orientalism in 20^th century. The main difference was that where the earlier Orientalist was more of silent observers the new Orientalist took a part in the everyday life of the orients. The earlier oriental lists did not interact a lot with the orients, whereas the new orients lived with them as if they were one of them . This was not out of appreciation of their lifestyle but was to know more about the orients in order to rule them properly. Lawrence of Arabia was one of such Orient lists.

                      Then Edward said goes on to talk about two other Scholars Massignon and Gibb. Though Massignon was a bit liberal with Oriental lists and often tried to protect their rights, there was still inherited biased found him for the Orientals, which can be seen in his work. With the changing world situation especially after World War I, Orientalism took a more liberal stance towards most of its subjects, but Islamic Orientalism did not enjoy this status. There were Constant attacks to show Islam as a weak religion, and a mixture of many religions and thoughts. Gibb was the most famous Islamic Orientalists of this time.               

                          After World War I the centre of Orientalism moved from Europe to USA. One important transformed (transformation) that took place during this time was instance of relating it to Philology and it was related to social science now. All the orientalists study the Orientals to assist their Government to come up with Policies for dealing with the orient Countries. With the end of World War 2, all the Europeans Colonies were lost; and it was believed that there were no more Orientals and Occident, but this was surely not the case. Western prejudice towards eastern Countries was still very explicit, and often they managed to generalize most of the eastern Countries because of it. For example Arabs were often represented as cruel and violent people. Japanese were always considered to be terrorists, thus, this goes on to show that even with increasing globalization and awareness, such bias was found in the people of the developed Countries.

                        Edward Said conclude his book by saying that he is not saying that the Orientalists should not make generalization, or they should include the orient perspective too, but creating a boundary at the first place is something which should not be done.

                        Hereby the presenter has narrowed down her discussion to the first part of the book Orientalism that is scope of Orientalism in study sub-chapter.

Ø Chapter- 1

                      “The Scope of Orientalism”

(1)       Knowing the Oriental

vIntroduction

                          On June 13, 1910, Arthur James Balfour lectured the House of Commons on “the Problems with which we have to deal in Egypt”. Then, he said, “Belong to a wholly different category.” Than those” affecting the Isle of Wight or the west Riding of Yorkshire.”

   

                           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, the Bacon an themes. 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 must then go on to the next part of argument:

                             It is a good thing for these great nations – I admire their greatness – that this absolute Government should be exercised by us? I think it is a good thing. I think that 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……. 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 Egypt; Egypt is what England knows: England knows that Egypt cannot have self-government; England confirms that by occupying Egypt; for the Egyptians, Egypt is what England has occupied 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.”

Cromer made Egypt, said Balfour:

                              Everything he has touched he has succeeded in … Lord Cromer’s Services during the past quarter of a century have raised Egypt from the lowest pitch of social and economic degradation until   now stands among oriental nation I believe , absolutely alone in its prosperity , financial and moral.

                               How Egypt’s moral prosperity was measured, Balfour did not venture to say. British exports to Egypt equaled those to the whole of Africa; that century indicated a sort of financial prosperity, for Egypt and England (some what) together.

                               How much “Serious Consideration” the ruler ought to give proposals from the subject race was illustrated in Cromer’s total opposition to Egyptian nationalism. Free native institutions, the absence of foreign occupation, a self-sustaining nation sovereignty:” these unsurprising demands were consistently rejected by Comer, who asserted unambiguously 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”.

Sir Alfred Lyall Once Said To Balfour:

                               “Accuracy is abhorrent to the Oriental mind. Every Anglo- Indian should always remember that maxim.” Want of accuracy, which easily degenerates into untruthfulness, is in fact the main characteristic of the Oriental mind.”

                                The European is a close reasoned; his statements of fact are devoid of any ambiguity; he is natural logician, albeit he may  not have studied logical; he is by nature skeptical and requires proof before he can accept the truth of any proposition; his trained intelligence works like a piece of mechanism. Many terms were used to express the relation: Balfour and Cromer, typically, used several.

                         The Oriental is irrational, depraved (fallen), childlike, “different”; Thus the European is rational, virtuous, mature,” normal.” 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 in Curriculum), Something one discipline (as in a school or prison), Something one illustrates(as in a Zoological manual).

                          An order of Sovereignty is set up from East to West, a mock chain of being whose clearest from given once by Kipling:

                           Mule, horse, elephant , or bullock, he obey his driver, and the driver his sergeant, and the sergeant his lieutenant, and the lieutenant his captain, and his Captain his major, and major his Colonel, and the Colonel his brigadier Commanding three regiments and the brigadier’s general who obeys the Viceroy, who , is the servant of the Empress.

                            As deeply forged as it is this monstrous chain of Command, as strongly managed as is Cromer’s “harmonious working,” Orientalism can also express the strength of the West and the Orient’s weakness- as seen by West. Such strength and such weakness are as intrinsic to Orientalism as they are to any view that divides the world into large. General divisions, entities that Coexist in a state of tension produced by what is believed to be radical difference.

                            For that is the main intellectual issue raised by Orientalism. Can one divide human reality, seems to be genuinely divide, into clearly different cultures, histories, traditions, societies, even races, and survive the Consequences humanly ? By surviving the Consequences humanly, I mean to ask whether there is any way of avoiding the hostility expressed by the division, say, of men into “us “(westerners) and “they” (Orientals).

Glidden Continues, now more enthusiastically:

                                “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” ; in Arab society only “ Success counts” and “the end justifies the means”;

                                 Arabs live “naturally” in a world “characterized by anxiety, expressed in generalized suspicion and distrust, which has been labeled free- floating hostility;

                                “The art of subterfuge is highly developed in Arab life, as well as in Islam itself”:

                                 The Arab need for vengeance overrides everything, otherwise the Arab would feel “ ego-destroying “ shame. The purpose of this learned disquisition is merely to show how on the western and Oriental scale of values,

“The relative position of the elements is quite difference.” QED.

Conclusion:

                            

                        This is the apogee of Orientalist Confidence. No merely asserted generality is denied the dignity of truth; no theoretical list of Oriental attributes is without application to the behavior of Orientals in the real world. On the one hand there are westerns, and on the other there are Arab- Orientals; the former are rational, peaceful, liberal, logical, capable of holding real values, without natural suspicion; the latter are none of these things.