The word orientalism has several meanings. It is the science of languages and cultures of the East. It is the trend of British rule in India based on respect for Indian culture. It is also an art movement. But the definition that is most important above all is the definition that Edward Said described in his book Orientalism.
Orientalism and Occidentalism
- Orientalism
- Occidentalism
- Criticism of both concepts
- Positive consequences
Orientalism
As Zachary Lockman writes in his article Contending Visions of the Middle East , the book Said has written about it is very complex and it is very difficult to summarize it in a way that does it justice.
According to Said, Orientalism is a particular view of the Middle East that makes this region the inferior other for the purpose of dominance. To dominate a people you must have a certain vision of its culture. This view implies that the culture is immature or unfinished. So you don’t look at the riches of this culture, but at its flaws. The gaps then need to be filled and this requires overlords. Western projections have become so dominant that it is no longer possible to avoid them. That is why it is difficult to talk about the Middle East in an open-minded way.
It is emphatically a Western image and therefore not a self-image of the Middle East. The discourse is therefore very important in this concept, it indicates the speech of a certain group. How this is presented is critical to its interpretation. Said’s work reflects a major influence from the French philosopher Michel Foucault. In this way, an individual is seen as a product of his or her cultural and social environment.
Westernism
The concept of occidentalism is a lot younger. This is also a word that has had several meanings, but it is mainly used when it comes to portraying the West. The roots of Occidentalism lie in nineteenth-century German Romanticism in which Germany opposed the dehumanized, rational France of the Enlightenment. The writers Buruma and Margalit – themselves Eurocentrists in the purest sense of the word – describe it in their book Occidentalism, the West in the eyes of his enemies , as an extremely negative image of the West. The theory at issue is that there has been a kind of anti-Western hatred for centuries that has been agitating against the West that is misunderstood by the rest of the world. The aversion to Western civilization because of its materialism, frivolity and individualism has thus been given the term Occidentalism.
Occidenta listeners see the city as decadent, ruinous and soulless and they turn against Western ideas of hedonism and materialism. They also see the world from a kind of rural perspective, in which trust, faith and solidarity are of paramount importance.
Enmity against the West is of course not new at all. In Japan, in the 1940s, people were already investigating how modernism could be resisted. This same search can now also be found among anti-capitalists and religious fanatics and that is why the term is very topical.
At present, the main source of Occidentalism according to Buruma and Margalit is Islam. They refer to the writings of Sayyid Qutb, who regarded the West as an enemy of the Muslims. In their book Occidentalism, the West in the Eyes of its Enemies, Buruma and M argalit also attempt to answer the question of how Western liberals can defend themselves against Occidentalism, and thus turn their gaze to the future.
Criticism of both concepts
Looking at historical images, you cannot actually ignore both of these concepts. When you study something, you should also study how it is represented. If we look at world history, and what young people learn from it at school, we can say that they are given an image of the world through Western glasses. Western imperialism has a major influence on how we Westerners view the world.
This can be seen as a point of criticism raised by many orientalists. There is also an important point of criticism to be countered. Said’s representations of the East can also be viewed as ahistorical, unreal, and totalizing. Orientalism is fed from many sides, both from ignorance (such as the writer of Tintin who, out of ignorance, portrays other peoples as strange and clumsy) or from religious groups that consciously do this to convince others of their ideas. For Said, the danger lies in the fact that every representation of the Middle East from the West can be labeled orientalism, which would of course be unjustified.
But Buruma and Margalit also have a knack for picking up everything they encounter and using it as ammunition to attack those who think differently. Their representation of the political thinking of this century is also not always fair. For the sake of convenience, every opponent of a neoliberal world is called an Occidentalist. Neoliberalism itself is perhaps glorified a little too much. It is not without reason that a review of the book Occidentalism, the West through the eyes of its enemies can be found on the VVD website.
Falling into stereotypes is therefore a pitfall for both Orientalists and Occidentalists.
Positive consequences
In addition to criticism, the discussion about these two concepts has also led to a lot of positive things. The first point is that it has led to a lot of new research. Said’s conclusions in particular have been taken into account by many scientists and have led to the refinement of texts and sometimes even reformulation.
One point that much of this new research addresses is the influence of imperialism on Western culture and identity. You could say that Said portrays the Middle East as a victim of Western imperialism. This is a conclusion that is increasingly accepted by other scholars, and is also confirmed by the current unrest in the region, caused in part by US foreign policy, and the support for it from many other Western countries.
The attention to culture at the expense of political economy is in any case a point of gain that this discussion has brought with it. It is not only numbers that play a role, but culture is now also taking an increasingly important position. That is something that will undoubtedly please historians.