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Edward Said was an influential cultural critic and author, known best for his book
Orientalism, which gave him international academic fame. The book presented his
influential ideas on Orientalism, the Western study of Eastern cultures. Said argued that
Orientalist scholarship was tied to the imperialist societies that produced it. Much of his
thesis is based on his knowledge of colonial literature such as the fiction of Conrad, and the
post-structuralist theory of Foucault, Derrida and others. Said's Orientalism proved
influential in literary theory and criticism, and continue to influence several other fields in
the humanities.

Edward Said's evaluation and critique of the set of beliefs known as Orientalism forms an
important background for postcolonial studies. His work points out the inaccuracies of a
wide variety of assumptions which are accepted on individual, academic, and political
levels.

Orientalism is "a manner of regularized writing, vision, and study based on imperatives,
perspectives, and ideological biases for the Orient." It is the image of the 'Orient'
expressed as an entire system of thought and scholarship.

One of the most significant constructions of Orientalist scholars is that of the Orient itself.
What is considered the Orient is a vast region, one that spreads across a myriad of cultures
and countries. It includes most of Asia as well as the Middle East. The depiction of this
single 'Orient' which can be studied as a cohesive whole is one of the most powerful
accomplishments of Orientalist scholars. The discourse and visual imagery of Orientalism is
laced with notions of power and superiority, formulated initially to facilitate a colonizing
mission on the part of the West and perpetuated through a wide variety of discourses and
policies.

Said argues that Orientalism can be found in current Western depictions of "Arab"
cultures. The depictions of "the Arab" are as irrational, menacing, untrustworthy, anti-
Western, dishonest. “Orientalism was ultimately a political vision of reality whose
structure promoted the difference between the familiar (Europe, West, "us") and the
strange (the Orient, the East, "them").” Just to be clear, Said didn't invent the term
'Orientalism'; it was a term used especially by Middle East specialists, Arabists, as well as
many who studied both East Asia and the Indian subcontinent. The vastness alone of the
part of the world that European and American scholars thought of as the "East" should,
one imagines, have caused some one to think twice. Orientals are despotic and clannish.
They are despotic when placed in positions of power, and crafty and submissive when in
less important positions. Orientals are impossible to trust. Their men are sexually
uncontrolled, while their women are locked up behind bars. Orientals are, by definition,
strange. The best summary of the Orientalist mindset would probably be: “East is east and
west is west, and never the twain shall meet” (Rudyard Kipling).

In his book, Said asks: but where is this sly, devious, despotic, mystical Oriental? Has
anyone ever met anyone who meets this description in all particulars? In fact, this idea of
the Oriental is a particular kind of myth produced by European thought, especially in and
after the 18th century. In some sense his book Orientalism aims to dismantle this myth, but
more than that Said's goal is to identify Orientalism as a discourse .These notions are
trusted as foundations for both ideologies and policies developed by the Occident.
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Said says that The oriental is a myth ,but Said shows that the myth had, over the course of
two centuries of European thought, come to be thought of as a kind of systematic
knowledge about the East. Because the myth disguised as fact, the results of studies into
eastern cultures and literature were often self-fulfilling. It was accepted as a common fact
that Asians, Arabs, and Indians were mystical religious devotees incapable of rigorous
rationality. It is unsurprising, therefore that so many early European studies into, for
instance, Persian poetry, discovered nothing more or less than the terms of their inquiry
were able to allow mystical religious devotion and an absence of rationality.
Said showed that the myth of the Oriental was possible because of European political
dominance of the Middle East and Asia. In this aspect of his thought he was strongly
influenced by the French philosopher Michel Foucault. The influence from Foucault is wide-
ranging and thorough, but it is perhaps most pronounced when Said argues that
Orientalism is a full-fledged discourse, not just a simple idea, and when he suggests that all
knowledge is produced in situations of unequal relations of power. In short, a person who
dominates another is the only one in a position to write a book about it, to establish it, to
define it. It’s not a particular moral failing that the stereotypical failing defined as
Orientalism emerged in western thinking, and not somewhere else.

In Orientalism, the book, Said asserted that much western study of Islamic civilization was
political intellectualism bent on self-affirmation rather than objective study, a form of
racism, and a tool of imperialist domination. Orientalism had an impact on the fields of
literary theory, Cultural Studies and human geography, and to a lesser extent on those of
history and oriental studies. According to Said, the history of European colonial rule and
political domination over the East distorts the writings of even the most knowledgeable,
well-meaning and sympathetic Western ‘Orientalist.

Written and Composed By:

Prof. A.R. Somroo
M.A. English, M.A. Education
Cell: 03339971417