Orientalism (c. 1750- ) is the set of ideas, images, stereotypes, facts, projections, lies and half-truths that the West has about the East, particularly the Middle East, what used to be called the Orient in Britain and France. It is the representation the West has built for itself about the East as the Other. At American universities it goes under names like “Middle Eastern Studies”.
Although Orientalism stretches back to the ancient Greeks and can take in all Asian and Muslim lands as “the East”, in practice it mainly concerns Arab Muslims and is mostly the work of the French, British and Germans from 1800 to 1950 and the Americans since then.
Edward Said, who grew up in the Middle East as an object of Orientalism, took a particular interest in it and wrote a book about it: “Orientalism” (1978).
He studied Orientalism by looking not just at scholarly writings and government reports but at all kinds of things written in the West about the Middle East, even works of fiction and poetry. Comparative literature is his stock in trade.
As a body these writings hang together because they all use the same Orientalist representation of the Middle East while helping to create and strengthen that representation, making it common wisdom in the West.
Western scholars are not boot-licking servants of Western imperialism who dutifully turn out self-serving lies for those in power. It is rarely that naked. But neither are they brains in a dish who look at the world as it is, unaffected by being bodies in the West:
- Their deepest loyalties are to the West and its power.
- They are taking part in an enterprise that is by and for Westerners.
- They are speaking for people in whose shoes they do not walk.
- They use Orientalism as a lens through which to look at the Middle East and therefore rarely escape it.
Western leaders, meanwhile, do not do whatever they like. They want to live and act in a world of fact and so depend on “the experts” – who are Orientalists. Power and knowledge go hand in hand.
The veil is not where you think it is: the West sees the East through a veil of Orientalism
Orientalism tends to see the Middle East as exotic, threatening, backward and highly religious. That does not come from close observation but from reading it as the opposite of the West, from seeing the West as best and the measure of all the rest, from seeing the Middle East as a dangerous and despised Other (Islamophobia).
The Middle East is hardly the great Other. European civilization grew out of the Middle East: cows, goats, sheep, wheat, wheels, letters, numbers, etc. Even God and coffee. When compared to the rest of the world, Christianity and Islam are almost the same religion. The Middle East has often been a military threat, but so would any neighbouring region. Different is just different, it does not have to be read as threatening, opposite, exotic or bad. Europe is “different” too. So is every part of the earth.
See also:
- The white lens
- Edward Said: Permission to Narrate
- Homi K. Bhabha
- white ethnographic gaze: the 1960s – white on black in America
- Tips on writing about Asian America
- Islamophobia
- discourse – Foucault
- hegemony – Gramsci
Abagond 
This is a enlightening post.Whenever I would see the word Oriental I would think Asian influences from the far east. I will research my reference books and learn more about this topic. The images of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves and Arabian Nights and veiled dancing slave girls named Shaharazad are stereotypes. Thanks for the enlightenment. I have much to learn. About Middle Eastern culture.
LikeLike
The Arab world also brought advances in chemistry, architecture, astronomy and , soaps and perfumes , where Im not sure they invented soaps and perfumes, they were instrumental in distributing them to the world, especialy the Western world
LikeLike
What is the point of the painting,Abagond? Is that suposed to be a “Western” pont of view? Is that suposed to be “exotic”?
It looks more “erotic” , with men sitting around looking at a very atractive naked woman with a giant snake crawling over her body
LikeLike
Looks like a prepubescent boy to me!
LikeLike
It’s very androdgenous we really don’t know what the gender is. It’s pretty irrelevant to me.
LikeLike
Gat Turner, I just have to come out of commenting exile to say that I was thinking the same thing! Taking in the physique, the length of the hair (would a Middle Eastern woman of that era have had short-cropped ‘bushy’ hair?) and the profile of the face…it is a naked boy holding the snake; not a woman!
LikeLike
*androgynous* forgive typeos.
LikeLike
wow, thanks for the information , Bulanik, and observations , Gat Turner and Flamma…I sure didnt get that
Mary, my question to Abagond was what was the purpose of that painting in this thread? To show Western observations like that as exotic? Im just not sure what it is suposed to represent to Abagond with this thread…and it was curiosity, not criticising it
LikeLike
Abagond, forgive me for using the screen name, ”Conservativesaretheretards”. I used this screen name on another blog regarding WordPress.
Anyways I don’t know very much about the ”Orient” or ”Middle East” enough to say much about it. Plus the term, ”Middle East” is rather vague. Why is it called the Middle East?
LikeLike
@ Bulanik
That picture is from the cover of Said’s book, which is why I used it.
LikeLike
My interest has been piqued. The mention of the nude youth in the painting. The practice of bacha or bazi, has been prevalent in that area since ancient times. When it was observed by ancient Greeks. Historically more common,especially in Northern areas of Afghanistan and the Pashturn areas of Afghanisstan and Pakistan. Bachas or dancing boys. Maybe he was a snake charmer as Bulanik pointed out. Well thanks Bulainik for the information.
LikeLike
Man on boy sex is was not uncommon in the ancient world, and was not / is not as uncommon in the more ‘traditional’ of cultures / societies of the last 100 years or so as some might assume. Tight restrictions on sexual access to women probably played a role in men of certain cultures making use of boys as sexual ‘entertainment — then too, of course, some of the men really just had a desire for this type of sex anyway, and it wasn’t necessarily seen as deviant or abusive in these societies, as modern day Western culture deems it to be.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pederasty
(There is a photo dated circa 1905 of a fully clothed bacha, i.e. ‘dancing boy’, included with the above linked Wikipedia article. I don’t know how to post photos lol)
LikeLike
“Fiamma, I am so glad to see your name appear again!”
– – –
Aww, thank you, Bulanik. That is so kind of you to say!
LikeLike
@ Fiamma Welcome back. Always love your commentary.
LikeLike
@ Bulanik, Thank you for the youtube. I enjoyed that.
LikeLike
oriens/orientis “rising” ie in the east as in the sun pretty simple, de verbis latinorum
LikeLike
@ Bulanik, The painting is beautiful. I wonder who the model is for the painting? What kind of life did he live during that time? Thanks for the art appreciation tutorial. I enoyed that.
LikeLike
Book recommendation
Destiny Disrupted: History of the World through Islamic Eyes, by Tamim Ansary
LikeLike
Thank you for the video, Bulanik. Mentioned in it was the artist’s use of chiaroscuro, ‘shadow & light’, in the painting, which I had noticed, but instead of it contrasting the boy’s smooth skin from the scaliness of the snake, for me it mostly emphasized the boy’s youthfulness. It’s nice to get another take on things….
@ Mary,
(I was actually worried that I might respond to that person at the time with a comment that would get ME banned! Enough with that though 🙂 , I don’t want to derail this thread any further.) Thank you for the welcome!
LikeLike
Oh please! Yo homies, the Arabs don’t like you guys much, you’re feeling butthurt on their behalf will get you nowhere. Word.
LikeLike
^ Ah, above we have quite a fascinating specimen of Whitus non-CLueus
1) Note the false bravado and mockery with the fake 1980s era ebonics.
2) The great White knowledge of how other races see like Black people
3) Then the dismount with the 1980s Fresh Prince of Bel-Air ebonics again.
And all in a single sentence. Brilliant!
Judges score it a 9.3 !!!
LikeLike
@ Bulanik
Excellent question. The Near East/Middle East/Far East thing never made sense to me. I am doing a post on it. Hopefully it will be up within the next day or so.
LikeLike
The British during colonization coined the term”middle east,” but the term was not widely used until 1902,when an American naval officer, Alfred Thayer Mahan popularized the name.
LikeLike
@Bulanik Pakistan is between Central Asia and South Asia, not all of Pakistan was historically part of India, infact the Western parts of Pakistan(Kyhber Pakhtunkwha and Baluchistan) have been a part of Persia and the roman name for Afghanistan and western pakistan is “Ariana” not India, since most of pakistan’s territory is in the western portion of the country it makes it more “central Asian or middle eastern” than Indian.
India was not always been one United country, it was made up of 532 principalities before the British amalgamated them into one big country called “india” just for administrative purposes.
The subcontinent is so diverse and heterogeneous that using the term “indian” is more ambigous than the term “European”.
Pakistanis are still categorized as Asian by the U.S bureau eventhough Iranians are categorized as White, which is confusing because there are more Baluchis in Pakistan than in Iran.
LikeLike
LOL @ King
@ Bulanik
“Yep, only so-called “sub-Saharan Africans” get to be Africans ethnically ”
And don’t you forget it! LOL. But that’s because the minorities who live on the N. African coast and the majority inhabitants of the Sahara are often forgotten and/or ignored.
@Abagond
“The Middle East is hardly the great Other. European civilisation grew out of the Middle East.”
Well put, but of course that doesn’t fit the paradigm that Western civilisation is something unique.
LikeLike
@ Bulanik
You’ve supplied some excellent commentary and information here. I especially liked this easily forgotten history:
What I meant by “colonial anthropology”:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2013/01/14/sub-saharan-africa/#comment-160066
LikeLike
““Yep, only so-called “sub-Saharan Africans” get to be Africans ethnically ”
And don’t you forget it! LOL. But that’s because the minorities who live on the N. African coast and the majority inhabitants of the Sahara are often forgotten and/or ignored”
As probably the only person who held the opisition point of view in the debate on that thread, that had absolutly nothing to do with my points over there at all what so ever…
I hate the term “Arab Spring”…its one of those meant to be catchy phrases made up by western jornalists and tries to wrap up a bunch of seperate incidents in differant places into one catch phrase..it shows a real ignorance of the dynamic in each one of the places that was going through some inner conficts…
LikeLike
Europeans “fear” the Middle East. MmHmm. Whatever, history is more complex than the black anguish narrative. Sometimes that narrative backfires:
http://washington.cbslocal.com/2013/04/04/police-va-minister-painted-racial-slurs-on-house-before-setting-it-on-fire/
Oh Lawd-uh! Can I get a witness?
LikeLike
Reblogged this on Shapeshifters and commented:
This post gives me much much to think about. How many languages are spoken on the Indian continent? What was the process did Great Britain use to dissolve and blend the separate cultures on the Indian Continent? Is India a real name or a creation of Great Britain?
LikeLike
“This post gives me much much to think about. How many languages are spoken on the Indian continent? What was the process did Great Britain use to dissolve and blend the separate cultures on the Indian Continent? Is India a real name or a creation of Great Britain?”
– – –
Here’s another thought: is there any validity to the notion that there was no Aryan invasion of the ancient Indus Valley region…that the idea of an invasion of white skinned outsiders was invented by the colonizing British to attribute the creation of the millennia old Indus Valley civilization to members of the white race …that these darker skinned people (as well as all the rest of the people of the world) couldn’t be allowed to think that a grouping of non-whites working alone created such a civilization, not to mention the language Sanskrit, that is the actual foundation for most of the languages spoken today by millions upon millions of whites / Europeans?
LikeLike
@Fiamma
You’re barking up the right tree…
LikeLike
@Bulanik and Fiamma
I had a discussion with an Indian about this, and he was under the impression that Aryans predated Dravidians in India. I argued the opposite, and I agree with Fiamma’s supposition that it was probably the British who introduced this notion in the first place.
And we can point to a Briton, Max Muller as the first known to misuse the term in reference to some Indo-European white race, when it really means “noble” in Sanskrit.
As Bulanik points out, the lighter skin people organised themselves at the top of the caste system, but they weren’t called “Aryans” until the British came along, and there’s certainly no evidence to suggest they were the progenitors of Indus Valley civilisation…
LikeLike
Excellent question. The Near East/Middle East/Far East thing never made sense to me.
I’ll hazard a guess and suggest the named that area thusly; They went the wrong way as they did when the discovered the ‘West Indies’, when they thought they ‘discovered’ China or was it India?. The same reasoning can be applied to the naming of the ‘Near and Far East. Not to be made to look like the idiots they actually were, they called it the ‘Near East’ and the ‘Far East’ respectively. Wrong way Mulligan had nothing on these fools!
LikeLike
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India
LikeLike
havin ap modern european history flashbacks… not good
LikeLike
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/brits.html
palestine too…
LikeLike
Orientalism tends to see the Middle East as exotic, threatening, backward and highly religious.
It is all those things. I don’t see the problem with the West viewing other regions through a prism of ‘whiteness’ or European values as it is totally natural for all humans to do this, that is, view other regions through their own cultural lens.
I also don’t see a problem with Europeans judging other regions inferior, the ‘West is best’ argument as it is clear that by most metrics the West is far superior, whether that be morally, scientifically, technologically, politically. This is an objective fact borne out by the thousands of people from the middle East and elsewhere who come to live in the West.
LikeLike
@ Brengunn
While everyone tends to be ethnocentric it is not something a thinking person would give into or play down.
As to “metrics” and “objective facts” the West picks those that make it look good and plays down or shuts its eyes to those that make it look bad. You do this yourself. For example, you say:
What you leave out is that America has helped to make the Middle East into a violent, screwed-up part of the world while making billions in arms sales. Meanwhile it closes its doors to the MILLIONS it has helped to uproot, like Iraqis and Palestinians.
LikeLike
@ Abagond
“What you leave out is that America has helped to make the Middle East into a violent, screwed-up part of the world…”
Let’s also note that the US is much more violent than many countries in the Middle East. In fact the murder rate in the US is higher than every “Middle East” country except Sudan (if you want to put Sudan in the Middle East).
LikeLike
@ resw77
Right. And historically the West has been far more violent – genocides, world wars, etc. If Orientalism was honest in seeing the Middle East as the opposite of the West, then one of its qualities would be “peaceful”!
LikeLike
Your “objective fact” is, at best, a half truth.
You must admit it was a nice try though!
LikeLike
@Abagond,
No doubt America and Britain have contributed to some of the middle East’s current woes but it would be disingenuous to believe they were ever safe havens. You’re also incorrect to say that the West was violent because that is only part of the truth. It is true that various European wars were waged and they were no doubt violent, but on a personal, public order level the West is and was remarkably non violent in comparison to other regions. The violence in Europe also had several other contributory factors that were unique to the region e.g. the technological advantages that allowed for great numbers of deaths and the struggle for colonial dominance which was a high stakes game which guaranteed bloody wars.
I still say that through any part of the last several centuries it would be much preferable to be a citizen of Europe than to live in the middle East.
I’m curious to know on what metrics you would judge the middle East superior to the West?
I used to be against the sales of arms and military equipment to dictatorships but I’ve come to the uneasy conclusion that not doing business with these nations is nothing but idealism, that the better course is to be pragmatic. They will get the weapons anyway, so I’d rather we profit than the Russians or Chinese.
@resw77,
Let’s also note that the US is much more violent than many countries in the Middle East. In fact the murder rate in the US is higher than every “Middle East” country except Sudan (if you want to put Sudan in the Middle East).
Except, that the violence is most concentrated in one particular demographic in the US. European Americans have a far lower rate of violence than both the Arabs and the Sudanese.
LikeLike
@Herneith,
Your “objective fact” is, at best, a half truth.
Could you point out the the incorrect part of that statement I made?
Just to add a little colour to this debate: Saudi Arabia is at this moment planning to paralyse a man from the waist down for stabbing a friend when he was 14 years old. He has a deadline to pay the victim around $170,000 or they will sever his spinal chord and he’ll never walk again. This is a truly barbaric society.
LikeLike
Reblogged this on oogenhand and commented:
Does Orientalism relate to Islamophobia, the way Anti-Semitism relates to Anti-Zionism? That would be an interesting question, one that the Anti-Germans would be well equipped to answer.
LikeLike
@Brengunn
“Except, that the violence is most concentrated in one particular demographic in the US European Americans have a far lower rate of violence than both the Arabs and the Sudanese.”
Not true. The white murder rate in the US is still about 3.5 per 100K, which is still higher than almost all the Middle East countries BTW. If we look at all violent crime, then the white American rate is FAR higher.
In addition, the biggest European country, Russia, has a murder rate twice as high as the US and therefore far higher than the Middle Eastern countries. When we look at all violent crime, then 8 of the top 10 most violent countries are European, led by Britain, Austria and Sweden.
So your implication that whites are less violent doesn’t cut the mustard.
LikeLike
@ Brengunn
Homicide rate per 100,000: White America compared to Middle Eastern countries (using the Wikipedia’s definition of “Middle East” and using the latest figures):
0.6 Bahrain
0.7 Oman
0.8 United Arab Emirates
0.9 Qatar
1.0 Saudi Arabia
1.2 Egypt
1.7 Cyprus
1.8 Jordan
2.0 Iraq
2.1 Israel
2.2 Kuwait
2.2 Lebanon
2.3 Syria
3.0 Iran
3.3 Turkey
3.4 WHITE AMERICA
4.1 Palestine
4.2 Yemen
Sources:
Click to access htus8008.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East#Territories_and_regions
LikeLike
What barbarians! (I mean the Americans of course).
LikeLike
It’s interesting how the white western world likes to tell everyone who and what they are and we all just follow along.
RIP Chinua Achebe, may more Africans and other aboriginal people take up the pen and start speaking for themselves.
The Chinese are also guilty of pushing their “racial” agenda.
Here is a clip about a Chinese scientist who wanted to prove that the Chinese evolved as a separate species but Uh, Oh…. all roads lead to Africa.
LikeLike
and this right here just proves that majority groups that take it upon themselves to “name” other people (as though they have the right) doesn’t mean that these names are correct or true….it only confirms that “racial” classifications are a Joke.
The Chinese in South Africa were “reclassified” as black so that they could have more economic opportunities.
LikeLike
Bulanik, yes bitter pill to swallow for sure 🙂
Isn’t it interesting how the white western world turns every tan/ brown-skinned ethnic group into Caucasoids whenever they wish to claim these people’s ancestors achievements as though it was “invented by white people” but those same tan/ brown-skinned “white” people are now called “wogs” or “Paki’s”, “Muslims”, “others” — who need to go back home because they aren’t white “just like us”
I think there is a disconnect between the intellectual academic world and media versus the everyday average white joe who doesn’t look at an Egyptian, Indian, or Saudi as “white”
LikeLike
“Bulanik,
If memory serves, the Chinese used to classed as “Coloured” or “non-white” at one time, but the Japanese were always considered honorary whites, and enjoyed white privileges.”
You know I heard that said before — Hitler called the Japanese “honorary Aryans” to explain the partnership.
were they considered “honorary whites” prior to Hilter? How did that come about if they were? Was it the rice-powder makeup that fooled the Europeans :-)?
I know the Japanese did consider themselves to be the original “white” people but which European academic / government official in their infinite wisdom made the decision to keep the Chinese as “coloured” and actually honour the Japanese self-identity as “white” people?
LikeLike
Another explanation for the Japanese status under the apartheid regime may have to do with some, er, “ideological affinities” between the white ruling class in SA and the imperial regime in Japan. If you catch my drift…
LikeLike
This is interesting, I think we need another post about the race relations in South Africa pre- and post- apartheid — this is getting further and further away from the original topic of this post.
LikeLike
Said’s book is still one of the most influential and relevant works on the subject, and the one that had inspire many other works and made authors explore various phenomena, such as applying these ideas to other parts of the world (there is something called Balkanism, for example) and also westernism.
There is also a very important concept of “nesting Orientalism”, that is, when cultures who are seen as the Other do the same to other cultures who are more “Other” (by the Eurocentric standards) than themselves. It happens on the Balkans all the time. It happens all the time, everywhere, and not just in relation to Orientalism. For example, different POC groups often don’t display any unity because they, themselves, internalize white, Eurocentric and racist ideas (so this is how you have the whole “I’m not X, but at least I’m not like those dirty, savage Y”).
And another interesting note about Said’s book: traditionally, East and West were seen in a masculine vs feminine terms. But it’s interesting to note that the West was seen as masculine, while the East (including what is considered as Middle East today) was seen as feminine. This is not the type of distinction people make today, where the East, especially Middle East, is seen as aggressive and not feminine at all. It’s also important to note that, according to Said, westerners were unable to make a distinction between various Eastern cultures. Orientalism applies to everything from Egypt, to Arabia to India, China and Japan.
This is another common tendency, that is, to see different cultures as “basically the same”.
LikeLike
[…] Orientalism (abagond.wordpress.com) […]
LikeLike