Orientalism and Occidentalism

Orientalism and Occidentalism

Edward Said: Author of ‘Orientalism’, 1978 – Subtle Euro-centric view of the world, seeing ‘others’ particularly the Middle East as a subordinate culture.

* In the book, Said writes that "Orientalism" is a constellation of false assumptions underlying Western attitudes toward the Middle East.

* The unity of the non-West and the East-West dichotomy, are myths created by the West. The myths suffer the defects of the ‘Orientalism’ which Edward Said appropriately criticised for promoting the “difference between the familiar” (Europe/West ‘US’) and “the strange” (The Orient/East “them”). And for assuming the inherent superiority of the former to the latter.

* Us and Them: While one world, expectations appear at the end of major conflicts, the tendency to think in terms of two worlds recurs throughout human history. People are always tempted to divide people into us and them – the in-group and ‘the other’. Our civilisation and those barbarians. Scholars have analysed the worlds in terms of the ‘Orient’ and the ‘Occident’.

* This body of scholarship is marked by a "subtle and persistent Eurocentric prejudice against Arabo-Islamic peoples and their culture.’

* This created perception drives the alienation of Muslims in the West, created caricatures, a failing to understand anything about the Islamic culture. Associating the ‘outside world’ as exotic creates stigmatisations and undermines the sheer depth and history of other civilisations. Napoleon/Kissinger proponents.

* He attaches particular criticism to Bernard Lewis – contending that Lewis treats Islam as monolithic.

* Critique – ‘Orrientalism arguably existed before the imperial age. In addition, Said fails to elaborate on the ‘Orientalist views’ of the Far East towards Islam, for instance – China.

Ian Buruma: Occidentalism: the West in the Eyes of its Enemies: stereotyped and sometimes dehumanizing views on the so-called Western world, including Europe...