A devastating internal critique that demonstrates the absurdity of implicitly seeing the world through self-absorbed rose-colored glasses.

The narrative about the narrative becomes the truth and the experts create our reality such that we trust their story as if it correlates to reality. Today RFK becomes an expert on health and half the country believes vaccines are dangerous, fluoride in water is unsafe, Trump won the 2020 election, and so on. Just as Edward Said showed the madness within ‘Oriental studies’, the madmen today are creating reality by ignoring reality.

The real strength in this book is when the reader realizes that the book is about all mythmakers who pretend to know the Truth, but are masters at perpetuating the great myths of their day creating a background of lies with no foundation while coloring our foreground into believing the absurd.

[academic text][read for: Post-Colonialist Theory and Representation]

When Palestinian-American thinker, Edward Said, published Orientalism in 1978, he absolutely shook the world of Western academia into chaos. Through his seismic work, Edward Said — a key founder of what would be known today as “post-colonial studies” — illuminated the insidious interplay between knowledge and power in the Western world and its artistic and literary canon. Today his work stands as one of the most important texts in helping reshape the intellectual landscape of the late 20th century, mainly through Said’s devastating critique of how the West has historically viewed/misrepresented the East, constructing the East as a fabricated “Other.” This legacy of “Othering” the East, Said argued, was designed to position the West as superior (and to justify their actions as a world power). Said’s Orientalism became key in establishing post-colonialism as an area of study, one that continues to influence things like literature, history, and cultural criticism today. Said’s arguments in Orientalism not only exposed the political and economic systems of colonialism, but also revealed the deeper (far more treacherous) cultural frameworks that underpinned them.

Colonialism, Said argued, was not merely a project of political domination or straightforward resource extraction — it was also a way of seeing and categorizing the world. Said introduced his idea of "Orientalism," a concept where Western powers constructed a view of the East and its people as inferior, exotic, mystical, and irrational (thus contrasting themselves and being able to claim all the superior qualities for themselves). This worldview, pervasive in culture through literature, art, etc., justified and sustained colonial rule, presenting it as a “civilizing mission” rather than its reality as an exploitative enterprise. Crucially, Said demonstrated how this ideology extended beyond politics into other areas like academia, literature, and art, creating a pervasive system of thought that influenced how entire cultures were represented and understood.

A Palestinian-American intellectual, Said wrote Orientalism from a uniquely dual perspective. Born in Jerusalem and educated at elite Western institutions like Princeton and Harvard, he combined intimate knowledge of the Middle East with the analytical tools of Western literary criticism. This position gave him the ability to trace the origins of Orientalist thought back to even the “beginning”, through the writings of the ancient Greeks, medieval travelers, and even Enlightenment philosophers. Said showed how these early depictions of the East — from the ancient Greeks’ depiction of Persia as barbaric to the Romantic period of literature and its obsession with the mysterious, mystical East — evolved into the racist stereotypes of the colonial era, where entire regions were reduced to caricatures and dehumanized, paving the way for colonialism and its atrocities and injustices.

The power and lasting impact of Orientalism lies in its interdisciplinary approach. Said can write and move seamlessly between discussing literature, art, history, and politics to build his logical arguments — he examines how European (with a focus on British and French) writers/scholars/thinkers of Near Eastern studies contributed to a system of knowledge that both reflected and reinforced colonial hierarchies. For example, he critiques a few authors like the British writer Kipling and French author Flaubert as examples of how literature can systematically reinforce colonialist and imperialist ideologies. Rudyard Kipling (one of the most famous writers of the British Empire), was known for his stories that romanticized and justified colonialism (The Jungle Book is a notable example). Said argued that Kipling’s writing (along with other works of literature from this colonial period), was part of a broader cultural and intellectual agenda to depict the "Orient" as this backwards, primitive, and inferior "Other" in need of European governance and civilization. Said also critiques French literature, for instance though the example of 19th-century French novelist Gustave Flaubert. Flaubert’s portrayal of the Egyptian courtesan Kuchuk Hanem in Voyage en Égypte is an imperialist depiction that reduces her to a voiceless symbol of sensuality and passivity, reflecting the Orientalist trope of the exotic and submissive "Other." Said argued that such representations were not isolated artistic choices but rather part of a broader cultural project that dehumanized Eastern subjects, presenting them as objects of Western curiosity, to justify the West's crushing colonial domination. Said was particularly concerned with how ostensibly “objective” academic work collaborated in this process and helped this agenda, lending a veneer of legitimacy to insidious imperial ideologies.

For context, Orientalism focuses on the Middle East and the Muslim world, but its insights resonate far beyond these regions. Said demonstrated that colonialism was not just a physical act of occupation, but an all-encompassing way of structuring knowledge and asserting cultural superiority (something that is unfortunately still highly relevant today, Palestine being one example). Even after formal colonial rule ended, he argued, these attitudes persisted, particularly when the United States emerged as a global power of its own, with its own "Orientalist" vision of the world.

Unsurprisingly, the book was controversial. Orientalism sparked fierce criticism and discourse upon its release. Said’s critique of Western academia definitely struck a nerve with academics, particularly among scholars of Orientalist disciplines who saw their fields under attack. Other critics, who did agree with his ideas, pointed to what they viewed as gaps in his analysis, including his decision to limit his focus to critique of British and French scholarship/literature, leaving out German, Russian, Dutch and other colonial powers whose authors also participated in Orientalist, colonialist writing. Critics also point to the book’s focus on the Islamic Near East, which largely excludes East and South Asia. Said himself acknowledged these limitations, maintaining that his narrower scope was deliberate, designed to address the most influential colonial powers (British and French) and their enduring cultural impact.

Despite the hot debate that raged on in the years since publication, Orientalism has had a profound and lasting influence. Its ideas have shaped fields as diverse as literature, history, art history, and other cultural studies. Toni Morrison’s Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination echoes a lot of Said’s analysis through an American lens on race in the country’s literary canon, examining how American literature constructs racial identities and perpetuates Blackness as “Otherness” in order to define whiteness as "superior." In its central premise — that knowledge production is inseparable from power dynamics — Orientalism challenged generations of scholars to reconsider how they approach non-Western societies, urging them to question the language, frameworks, and assumptions that underpin their works.

At its heart, Orientalism asks a pretty important and fundamental question: how do we study and represent non-Western societies without perpetuating the inequalities of the colonial past? Said’s answer, rooted in Michel Foucault’s ideas on discourse and power, was to interrogate the systems of representation themselves. By emphasizing the ways in which language shapes perception, Said gave us a framework for understanding the enduring legacies of empire — one that given current events and the modern political climate, remains as urgent and relevant today as it was in 1978.

More than four decades later, Orientalism stands as a cornerstone of post-colonial theory and a powerful critique of cultural hegemony. It compels us to examine not only the past but also the narratives we continue to construct about the world. Said’s work remains essential reading for students of post-colonialism and for anyone seeking to understand the complexities of colonialism’s cultural aftermath.

هذا الكتاب جزء من ثورة جديدة في الدراسات الإنسانية جذورها ضاربة في الماركسية والثورة الألسنية و البنيوية،و مايكاد يكون مدرسة جديدة من"التاريخ الجديد" تنتسب بعمق إلى أعمال ميشيل فوكو بشكل خاص.

ليس كتاب سعيد دراسةً للاستشراق بوصفه تاريخًا، ،شخصيات، وأحداثًا، وليس بدراسة للشرق كما خلقه الغرب أيضًا، بل هو اكتناه صارم، مشبوبٌ أحيانًا، لكنّه دائمًا على درجة مدهشة من حدة اللمعة الفكرية لديه..
يطرح أسئلة جذرية حول مفاهيم الحقيقة والتمثيل..القوة وعلاقاتها، وعي الذات والآخر، دراسة في الآلية التي تتَصلب بها هذه التصورات والتمييزات وتتحول إلى معرفة..

يطرح ادوارد سعيد منظومة أساسية عن الشرق ككيان مشّكل مكون، وليس حقيقة من حقائق الطبيعة وأن مفهوم وجود فضاءات جغرافية ذات سكان محليين،مختلفين جذريًا و يمكن تحديدهم على أساس ديني أو ثقافي أو عرقي خاص ومتسق مع ذلك الفضاء الجغرافي هومفهوم قابل للنقاش المطول..

في نهاية الكتاب يستعيد سعيد الأسئلة التي حاول طرحها في كتابه بشكل مختلف: كيف يمثل المرء الثقافات الأخرى؟ماهي الثقافة الأخرى؟هل مفهوم وجود الثقافة مفهوم مفيد أم أنه ينتهي دائما إلى ان ينشبك إما في تهنئة الذات او في العدائية والعدوان؟وهل تهم الفروق الثقافية والعرقية والدينية أكثر مما تهم الفُصلات الاجتماعية او الفصلات السيا-تاريخية؟!

هذا الكتاب صعب، محير، ويحتاج لعدة قراءات كي تستطيع الإلمام بكافة تفاصيليه
الترجمة جيدة،وليست ممتازة ، واعتقد ذلك بسبب طبيعة الكتاب الشائكة

Phew, dat viel niet mee.

This is a great example of a paradigm shift in the social scientist's perspective. Something like "orientalism" was so taken for granted over the centuries that it took someone like Said to simply take a step back and say "dude, what the fuck." As I read it, I found myself trying to step back from the orientalizations in my own life and in the cultural/social life around me. For the life examined.

Wenn das Wissen zur Erniedrigung verführt?

“Orientalism” is a giant monster swallowing up all the concrete human experience to dehumanize a particular region. Always a cultural prejudice or what anthropology calls ethnocentrism resides in human heart. A ferocious fear of the unknown region or culture makes us tremble,after being trembled we project hatred towards them. “We” are we,“they” are they. A cultural representation awaits our own culture, a sodomy. Though Edward Said in this book never argued that there can be anything called the true culture or the true “orient”,he at least argues that we can overthrow the sociopolitical propaganda of a certain culture towards another. But how can Edward Said say a lot about the western representation of Islam and Middle East, but not about the problematic things in Islam that gave rise to some extent a general hatred against Islam? That was such a weak analysis by him on this regard. Otherwise his grasp on the pre-imperialistic situation was brilliant and illuminating. Since Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1798, Orientalism as a Scholarly vision got a new twist, and how Napoleon’s method of archiving the culture as a vast sea of knowledge gave rise to a modern orientalism and imperialism. But even for Napoleon Egypt was first and foremost a textual field heavy with symbolism,metaphor, exaggerations and all. So Orients are what the Orientalists say about them. Hence a particular discourse called Orientalism. And orientalism as a subject was in the making through the use of power,let it be scholarly or militant. This rather Foucaultdian method of Edward Said may seem to many readers exaggerated.

But we need a depth, a philosophical understanding beneath all these discussions of Edward Said on Orientalism. Representation is always evil(not in a moralistic sense),so is Identity and opposition. The moment someone represent a culture, they always assume some preobtained knowledge about them to be true,they always detach themselves from others,and observe as an alien. Thus render so many value judgements on their particular customs and habits. And it becomes their knowledge. As if only they could make that culture organised and developed through their knowledge. This knowledge gives them a source of power through which they oppress that particular culture. French and British imperialism are the common examples of this behaviour. Their scholars,political leaders,poets,novelist--all have been the part of that particular discourse. The Division or opposition between West and East, Us and them.

Edward Said also discussed on the latest phase this Oriental knowledge took. And this time rather than Europe, it is United States. Now through advent of advanced technologies or what we call globalization the orientals are orientalizing themselves. As if they themselves are happy to study themselves as a curious subject. The socioeconomical dominance of the west also making it possible to handle orientalism as a new weapon. Now even the social scientists are being employed to study orientalism as curious scientific object. Since then so many things or methods have changed,but the underlying theme of orientalism is unchanged.

فتح مبين تحقق لأدوارد سعيد من خلال هذا الكتاب ، حيث تمكن بواسطة حججه القوية من وضع المنهج العلمي المفترض المسمى بالاستشراق في مكانته الطبيعية بوصفه خبرة تاريخية تراكمت بشكل خاطئ لا أكثر ولا أقل .

شكل الاستشراق ظاهرة سياسية واجتماعية ألبست زورا لباس البحث العلمي امتد تأثيرها الى التيار الرئيسي للتفكير على مستوى العالم كله عبر حقب تاريخية متفاوتة مشكلة هيكلاُ معرفيا كاملاً انخرط في تشكيله كبار الأدباء والكتاب والمفكرين ، استهدف الكتاب الطعن في هذا التشكيل وتسليط الضوء على حقيقة أن الثقافات مهحنة ومتعددة العناصر وبأنها تتصل ببعضها البعض وتعتمد على بعضها الى درجة يصعب معها وضع توصيف لكل منها على حدة .

أقول ان الكتاب يعتبر فتحاُ مبيناُ في هذا المجال لسببين الأول انه أقام الحجة على أساس نفس المعايير والاساليب التي يتبعها العلماء والمفكرين الغربيين ، فكان له أن يترك أثرأ ما زال مستمرا لمسته شخصيا عند القراءة لكتاب أوربيين لدى طرحهم مواضيع تتعلق بالشرق حيث يشير بعضهم صراحة الى تأثير ادوارد سعيد في منهج تفكيرهم أما البعض الآخر فتستطيع استشعار ذلك التأثير من خلال ما يكتبون .

والسبب الثاني ان الكتاب جعلنا نميز بين مرحلتين وبتنا الآن في مرحلة ما بعد الاستشراق كما اعاد تعريفه الكاتب ولفظة " بعد " لا تعني التجاوز كما أوضح ادوارد سعيد في كلامه عن ما بعد الحداثة نقلا عن الباحثة " الا شوهات " في مقالها عن ما بعد الاستعمار ولكن تعني مظاهر الاستمرار ومظاهر الانقطاع .

رزين هو صوت اداورد سعيد ، ثقيل هو قلمه والجميل أنه لا يستغل هذه الرزانة والمهابة والثقل في تحقيق انتصارات او الدفاع عن قضايا ضيقة ولكنه يقدم دراسة من خلال هذا الكتاب بنيت على دعوة الى اعادة النظر في مقولات جاهزة اكتسبت منزلة المعرفة أو الممارسة كاملة الرسوخ في الوجدان العالمي .

خلاصة القول أن الاستشرا ق كان صرحاً من خيال فهوى ، فاسقني واشرب على أطلاله .

Ce livre est un pamphlet écrit au siècle dernier par un professeur de littérature américain, dans lequel l'Orientalisme est dénoncé comme une imposture pernicieuse qui véhiculerait depuis deux siècles une fausse image négative et raciste des habitants de l'Orient, qui masquerait un dessein caché de domination et d'asservissement, et aurait conduit, du fait de son vain prestige de prétendue science, hier les gouvernements d'Europe au colonialisme et aujourd'hui celui des États-Unis à une politique injuste. Cette prétendue science, au lieu de se baser sur l'observation, la rigueur, la probité, les faits, serait en fait la répétition éternelle et stérile de poncifs aussi odieux qu'imaginaires, créés de toute pièce par la malveillance de ses fondateurs.

Sitôt couchés par écrits, les thèses de ces hommes malfaisants acquirent un pourvoir extraordinaire : ceux qui ingénument les lisaient étaient soudain sous l'empire d'un maléfice. Devenus totalement incapable de juger par eux même, ils ne faisaient plus que répéter ce qu'ils avaient lu, et leurs opinions prenaient bientôt la force de dogmes. Ainsi, même lorsqu'ils partaient voyager en Orient, ce que leurs yeux et leurs oreilles auraient du leur enseigner pour les détromper ne parvenaient plus à leur entendement ensorcelé : ils ne vivaient qu'a travers un prisme déformant qui ne faisait que confirmer leurs erreurs, comme si un éclat du miroir de la reine des neige s'était logé dans leur œil et avait refroidi leur cœur et leur intelligence. C'est pour délivrer le monde gémissant sous l'emprise de ces opinions infâmes que l'auteur se propose de les confondre en mettant sous nos yeux les écrits coupables, xénophobes, condescendants et essentialistes des savants, géographes, écrivains, agent secrets et politiciens occidentaux. Ainsi, ayant brisé la pierre de rosette et les tablettes cunéiformes, brulé les rouleaux de papyrus, les dictionnaires et les grammaires, chassé les docteurs et les étudiants des universités, et s'étant désaltéré dans l'onde purifiante du Léthé, les hommes détrompés de leurs erreurs pourront enfin se jeter dans les bras les uns des autres, unis par l'amitié et la concorde, rendus enfin capables de comprendre l'autre dans sa différence et sa singularité.

Mais avant d'entamer la danse de Saint Guy à ces airs de pipeau et de fifrelin, examinons par acquis de conscience l'âme noire de celui qui le premier - selon lui, car en réalité, il y en a eu un nombre incroyable - a eu l'idée de s'intéresser à l'Orient contemporain, celui qui a précédé l'expédition de Napoléon en Égypte, Constantin de Volney. Or bizarrement, loin de voir dans les orientaux un type unique, Volney nous brosse au contraire le portrait d'une foule de peuples aux mœurs et croyances diverses, là où Said parle uniquement d'Oriental, d'arabe et de musulman comme si ces termes étaient de toute évidence synonymes. De même, loin de considérer comme supérieur moralement ceux qui sont riches et puissants, c'est chez les plus pauvres des nomades bédouins du désert auprès desquels il vit que Volney trouve le plus de sagesse et d'humanité. Loin d'avoir le cœur sec, il ne cesse de gémir contre les désastres de la pauvreté et des malheurs qui frappent la population, et cherche la cause dans le régime politique, les mœurs, l'éducation, et non pas la race ou le climat : il a les mots les plus durs contre la théorie des climats de Montesquieu. Enfin, loin de méditer une invasion après avoir constaté la faiblesse de l'armée ottomane, il exhorte ses compatriotes par les arguments les plus forts à ne pas tenter d'aventure militaire qui ne serait souhaitable pour personne. Au contraire, de retour en France, il devient député du tiers état des états généraux, et s'engage résolument et activement pour une révolution qui proclame les droits universels de l'être humain. A aucun moment Volney ne profère la moindre idée raciste ou impérialiste, bien au contraire. Mais où est donc le croque-mitaine ? Pourquoi l'auteur brosse-t-il du premier des orientalistes un portrait si contraire à la réalité? Quelles sont ses motivations ?

A mon avis, le grand péché originel de Volney est de décrire un Orient qui ne correspond pas à ce que Said voudrait qu'il soit. Au lieu de décrire un lieu idyllique où règnent la justice, la prospérité et la tolérance, protégeant les pauvres et les minorités, chacun vivant en bonne intelligence, il brosse plutôt le portait hideux et triste des ravages du despotisme, de l'ignorance et de la rapine sous le gouvernements non pas des Européens, mais des Turcs, et où la religion est un instrument de domination au mains d'hommes injustes. Comme c'est insupportable, il ne faut pas que cela soit. Et pour cela, Said le répète ad nauseam, l'Orient réel n'existe pas, il ne peut être qu'imaginaire, et issu de la malice de personnes mal intentionnées. Il ne peut pas y avoir un empire Ottoman critiquable, car seuls les orientalistes occidentaux peuvent être impérialistes, mauvais, coupables, exploiteurs et responsables des malheurs du monde. Il faut donc, selon lui, détruire toute possibilité d'étude, l'ensevelir sous un tombereau d'opprobre, afin que pétrifié par une terreur quasi-mystique, personne n'ose plus étudier l'Orient ancien d'avant la colonisation. Car étudier, c'est prendre le risque de parfois porter des jugements négatifs sur ce que l'on découvre. Et communiquer ces découvertes, c'est servir un carburant potentiel à l'erreur du racisme, et à l'injustice du colonialisme. Mais l'auteur va plus loin puisqu'il fait de l'étude de l'Orient non pas simplement la belle couleur dont se sert hypocritement l'injustice pour déguiser ses méfaits, ou l'instrument qu'elle utilise perfidement pour parvenir à ses fins, il en fait carrément le moteur et l'âme pensante d'un dessein maléfique. Il faut donc pour lui stopper l'étude, ou la faire plutôt par une méthode plus correcte, c'est à dire en partant du résultat souhaité qui doit être une admiration sans bornes ni réserves.

La démonstration est aisée et très convaincante. Elle consiste à projeter une accumulation d'éléments soigneusement choisis sur un spectre très simple : dès qu'il y a une injustice commise ou une erreur affirmée, le persécuteur ou menteur est nécessairement un savant orientaliste occidental, et l'oriental est forcément la pauvre victime innocente. Il est facile de choisir parmi la foule des personnages réactionnaires et bornés, demi-savants, falots qui ont hanté l'Orient dans des voyages oiseux au XIXème siècle pour trouver dans leurs écrits des poncifs éculés. Un peu d'ironie facile permet toujours de leur donner une teinte franchement malveillante et odieuse. Flaubert est un bon candidat pour cet exercice. C'est peut-être un écrivain avec des qualités, mais certainement pas celles de quelqu'un d'ouvert et de compréhensif. Quasiment trainé de force dans ce voyage par un ami, il ne fait que s'y ennuyer, dauber sur les gens, et courir les bordels. Or le fait est qu'il se comporte exactement de la même façon chez lui. Mais ça, Said ne le dit pas : il en fait plutôt un symbole typique de l'orientaliste vicieux et lubrique qui vient chercher ailleurs le frisson prétendument interdit chez lui et trouver la confirmation de sa supériorité. En réalité, Flaubert se sent tout autant supérieur au pauvre oriental, qu'au bourgeois croisé dans une étape ou à Paris, qu'au prolétaire français qui lutte pour la justice : c'est son instruction qui lui fait sentir directement sa supériorité sur l'ignorant, et non pas sa race ou ce qu'il a pu lire dans les orientalistes comme le suggère Said. L'auteur n'a de toute façon aucune espèce de compassion pour les prolétaires occidentaux, ce n'est pour lui dans l'ensemble qu'une vile canaille que l'Europe envoie pour peupler ses colonies et sur les malheurs desquels il ne verserait pas une larme. De toute façon, ni Flaubert, ni Lamartine, ni Nerval, ni Chateaubriand ne sont des hommes de sciences, ce sont des littérateurs privilégiés qui jouissent du loisir et de leur fortune pour écrire des mémoires personnelles sans intérêt ni prétention scientifique orientaliste. Fonder une démonstration sur leurs états d'âme est une plaisanterie, mais voilà ce qui arrive quand la littérature prend le pas sur l'histoire.

Enfin, que des agents des gouvernements instruits des choses de l'Orient aient pu être les instruments du colonialisme, c'est évident. Il est clair que l'étude de l'Orient est un expédient utile et un prétexte commode. Mais comment peut-il en être la cause et l'origine ? Comment le but de l'étude ne peut être nécessairement que la domination ? Pourquoi ne pas indiquer qu'il y eut pour soutenir le projet colonial besoin d'une propagande forte? Que beaucoup se sont élevés contre cette direction prise? Comment ne pas parler des luttes révolutionnaires qui agitent l'Europe du XIXème ? C'est laisser entendre bien trop clairement que ce projet a été unanimement soutenu depuis toujours par les savants occidentaux obsédé par la peur de l'Orient et la volonté frénétique de le détruire. Il remonte jusqu'aux grecs, qui pour le besoin de la cause, sont mis avec l'Occident, au mépris de la géographie et du plus élémentaire sens commun!

Ainsi, lorsqu'au bout de cinq cent pages d'exposition de turpitudes et d'extravagances bien choisies et rendues bien odieuses, presque sans aucune nuance ni contrepoids, on en vient à croire, pour peu qu'on fasse confiance à l'auteur qui en impose par ses titres universitaires et son apparente modestie, que la démonstration est faite: la science est à retirer des mains des orientalistes, car elle ne peut leur être utile à rien d'autre qu'à corrompre leur sens moral. A mon avis, la preuve est plutôt faite que s'il est un prétendu orientalisme qui est réducteur, essentialiste, partiel, aveugle et biaisé, l'auteur en est le véritable chef de file. Il cherche la paille dans l'œil du voisin sans voir la poutre dans le sien: on aurait préféré qu'il ne se livre pas aux mêmes erreurs qu'il dénonce pour accueillir son ouvrage avec une meilleure estime. On reste abasourdi après avoir l'avoir vu attaquer tel un sycophante sur un angle particulièrement simpliste une question complexe, souhaiter benoîtement avoir contribué à la paix et la compréhension entre les peuples. C'est plutôt abonder dans la thèse du choc des civilisations, attiser le ressentiment des anciens pays coloniaux, galvaniser la colère suscitée par les frustrations.

Dans la postface, écrite longtemps après la première édition, l'auteur prend heureusement des distances avec son écrit, et explique que les fondamentalistes, qui s'inspirent depuis de son livre pour rejeter en bloc l'occident, l'auraient mal compris. C'est bien plaisant! Je crois plutôt qu'ils l'ont fort bien compris, et que Said, finalement gêné de voir les beaux fruits de son travail, se réfugie dans la déni. Détruire la science est une folie, c'est en elle et non dans nos préjugés qu'il faut réguler nos opinions, nos mœurs et notre conduite. C'est bien l'ignorance qui est, avec l'envie, la source de nos maux. Il faut bien au contraire corriger les erreurs en les identifiant, et non bâtir des échafaudages branlants de procès d'intentions et d'erreurs, pour rendre le savoir dans son ensemble odieux et suspect. En somme, un livre franchement irritant par son ignorance et sa malveillance.

4.5 stars
This is a classic. If you're at all interested in international studies or anticolonialism, you should definitely read some Said. I've recently been compiling a list of international studies essentials that I've gotten into (or at least heard great things about) as an undergraduate in the major, and this was the first book I thought of.

With that said, this is a dense book. Said really only gets to the point by Part 3, "Orientalism Now." I definitely understand how the background of parts 1 and 2 is important for building his argument, particularly in the academic landscape of 1979, when it was published. But it is really hard to get through, and if you're not used to reading heavily academic texts, it might not be worth it. I consider myself fairly good at working through dense academic writing, and it still took me about nine months to get through it.

I think you could probably get the idea if you started around part 3, or just picked a few select chapters to read. So if you just want a general idea of Orientalism theory, that might be a better option. Still, I'm glad I personally read the whole book because I was able to learn about the whole background of the field that used to be called "Orientalism" (and that changed largely because of this book!), and having put in the effort to read all of it, I do think my understanding of Edward Said's brilliant ideas is much better.

In his conclusion and his 1994 Afterword, Said says part of the purpose of this book is to teach people to recognize orientalist trends and tropes in the scholarship and media they consume. I absolutely feel much more equipped to do that now, so for that, this book is quintessential.

Particularly in an era where we're seeing many orientalist tropes rising to the surface (for example, in the language of apologists for the genocide in Gaza), I absolutely encourage people to become aware of these ideas and how they influence our language and perceptions. A definitely must-read for anybody in/interested in academia, especially the humanities or social sciences.

It’s become a total cliché to say this, but I’m gonna anyway: This work is more relevant than ever. If you want an inexpensive, at-home university course on the history of Islam phobia and ways in which the West has appropriated, marginalized, and re/presented (and consequently colonized) the East, this is your book. This is also a scintillating example of literary analysis and how important and germane deconstruction can be in illuminating power dynamics and seemingly benign discourse which is actually damaging and demeaning. Said impressively deconstructs western hegemony and the countless manifestations of an us vs. them (occidental vs. Oriental) mentality.

And not to sound sanctimonious or whatever, but I would take some excerpts from this work and teach them to high school and college kids if I were in the classroom right now. I’d quote it to anyone who actually thought Sex and the City 2: Arabian Nights in Abu Dhabi was a quality film. And it would be my pleasure to force this on backward hicks in both Europe and the United States who are scaring the bejeebus out of people about THE MUSLIM THREAT! Ohmygodthemuslims! I mean, I still know some people who use the word “oriental” to describe Asians. And don’t even get me started on the everyday treatment of Turkish immigrants here in Germany.

I know there’s a whole slew of academics and others who seem to have some pretty legitimate critiques of this work, but regardless of some errors (and boredom), this is powerful and enlightening reading. Said primarily examines writing and scholarship from the big 3 Eastern imperialist superpowers: Britain, France, and the United States. His major analyses begin in late 18th century Britain and France and span the years through the early 20th century with a focus on the USA, though he goes further back in a few places and further ahead as he discusses orientalism up through the 1970s (and post 9/11 with his 2003 preface). He disassembles hundreds of Orientalist motifs in writings from Disraeli, Flaubert, Kipling, a bit of Homer and Dante and a whole bunch of other DWMs* I’ve never heard of, but Said also gives us ways of thinking about scholarship in general.

He posits in there somewhere that this work can be applied to women’s studies, black studies, and various area studies. If anything, this work constantly calls into question any supposed objectivity we may have, as we’re all products of our histories and cultures (and race, gender, class etc etc). And this is pretty standard thinking , but it really began to bother me that Said makes it seem impossible to escape the smothering effect of all this Orientalism. I realize that a solution isn’t really within the purview of this work, but I need some alternatives. I also wondered as I was reading how anyone could possibly write about or study anyone else without some sort of cultural positioning or superiority taking over. Said actually does briefly addresses this issue at the very end, and gives some examples of acceptable scholarship and ways of avoiding being trapped in an “ideological straightjacket.” But sometimes Said is soooo heavy handed. I’m almost afraid to be critical of aspects of the middle east and Islam for fear of being labeled an Orientalist or essentialist.

This work isn’t purely comparative literature or pure academia, though. Said chronicles the political impact of Orientalist thinking and looks at everything from Henry Kissinger’s polarizing foreign policy analyses to Napoleon’s swindling and pilfering in Egypt to Britain’s liberal -utilitarian colonial administration in India. Scholars often work hand in hand with governments to form imperialist policies, Said points out, and even the most neutral sounding essays serve to further reinforce differences between east and west and create literal or ideological battle lines.

Michel Foucault's ideas about power and discursive formations (though he rejects the idea that individual authorship is irrelevant)form a framework for Said's study and he depends on Antonio Gramsci’s ideas of cultural leadership and consent(hegemony). So you’re also getting all sorts of refreshers and perhaps some new lessons from sociology and philosophy here. Honestly, though, I think to fully grasp the entire work, like every last little citation and reference, one would need some formal academic training in oriental studies, postcolonialism, or transnationalist studies, because Said is quite a challenge at times. I still have no idea who some of the more obscure authors or great 18th century philologists he mentions are and I‘m not sure I’m motivated enough to look them up on wikipedia. (This might be a good argument for an e-reader: instant explanations for unknown allusions.) Chapter 2 Part II (“Silvestre de Sacy and Ernest Renan”) gets especially stuffy and slow and recondite and I had to force myself to keep reading.

Things begin to sound the same after a while; there are only so many metaphors one can use for how the West subjugates and oppresses the East. And I found the writing challenging not because Said uses lots of big, sophisticated words, but because he jam packs every paragraph full of ideas and analyses and philosophy. I wanted to underline too much.

I do think this should be read, all or in excerpts, by most everyone with the intellect and willpower because it forces westerners to confront what have become ingrained collective notions about the East. I've grown up with Orientalism crammed into the unlikeliest of places. Indiana Jones, children’s books and movies, Jane Austen, the Louvre and Bristish museums, all of these things have furthered Orientalism’s aims of “otherizing“, creating, and marginalizing a rather large group of people. Said ends up coercing us into examining ourselves and our own culture and pushes us to call into question all essentialist views. That may just be the most dangerous/radical aspect of all.


*dead white males, acronym borrowed from DFW, David Foster Wallace

“My dear Kepler, what would you say of the learned here, who, replete with the pertinacity of the asp, have steadfastly refused to cast a glance through the telescope? What shall we make of this? Shall we laugh, or shall we cry?”
-tGalileo in his Letter to Johannes Kepler

The above quote had a huge impact on me when I first read it. I always thought that even if those learned men so faithful to the Christian ideas they were married to, would have looked through the telescope and saw how the Earth moves around the Sun, they still would have dismissed it as sorcery or witchcraft. But comes in Said and corrects me, “One of them did look through the telescope,” he tells me, “and he still saw that it was the Sun going around the Earth” And I am like, “But how is it possible. “That is just what happened” Said answers nodding wisely, “and the guy wasn’t lying.”

Some of the racist stuff like ‘White man’s burden’ – looks likes a justification of imperialism but in reality the racism predated imperialism. It began first as a European effort to understand the rise of Islam. It begin with earliest travel accounts –people trying to be honest but also trying to be interesting about their visits. It is a tendency among the travelers to generalize their experience as the truth of the whole region.

In fact, whenever we don't share some sort of identity with people by whom we feel wounded, we always run to worst ever generalised judgements about those 'others' - so 9/11 was followed by Islamophobia which generalised the fear of terrorists to all muslims. It didn't generalise to all men because there were men in white Americans (who were ones making judgements) - it didn't generalise to all gun carrying people because white Americans carried guns too. So it was religion that became the identity prejudiced. Sheriyar and Hamlet jump to similar conclusions. So a prejudice based on regional identity is equally possible - and for centuries, Europeans thoughts were sure that those living to the East of Caspian sea were somehow not human in same sense as they were. May be there is something in soil.

... Then some intellectuals followed in same vein as travelers. There was now a systematic education available in this increasingly organised pseudo-knowledge. This image of Arab World in particular (and what is called ‘Eastern civilization’ in general) is what author means by Orient. But believe me, it gets worse. While those first travelers were lazy in their generalizations the later were worse, they simply depended upon accounts of those old travelers for their purposes. The first intellectuals even with their preconceived ideas at least studied the language and read the original texts, their successors need do neither but only read commentaries. And so – a terrible game of Chinese Whispers got started, and you know wonderfully good such a game is at preserving information. No one ever thought of checking the truthiness of the taught information (or they saw what they hoped to saw, rather than what was.)

That is always the thing with prejudice – it always goes hand-in-hand with laziness. In fact, it is born of lack of willingness to think critically of one’s own views.

“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.”
― Stephen Hawking

But there were subsequent travelers and colonists, didn’t they correct those accounts? No they were very well taught in this ignorance before they reached in colonies and like that guy who only confirmed Sun’s orbit around Earth after glancing through telescope, these new travelers only saw what their education taught them to see even after having a more intimate contact with real people of East. A general image of what Orientals are supposed to look like remained in their mind and overruled what they saw. If sometimes truth made itself too obvious to refuse, it was called a case of rare exception. If some great mind really did overcome the illusion of knowledge and found and spoke the truth, he would only be ignored by others for not knowing what he is talking about.

Moreover this image didn’t change. It has remained more or less the same throughout the centuries since the Orient is supposed to be simply incapable of change. This is convenient because 'we' (Orientalists) need only read a book or two written by them a couple of centuries ago to know them.

The image, if we can call it that, is created through use of overloaded words to describe everything. So there is an ‘Islamic warfare’ 'Hindu way of life' etc.(but not Christian warfare) – the generalizations were so fantastic that for a time Jews and Muslims were grouped in same category.

Orientals supposed to be largely homogeneous mass of people; who show high similarity in behavior – they mostly look alike, are just clever enough to make good slaves and have most sensual women. Another things about Orientals is that they can’t speak for themselves. They must be spoken for – they need their Conrads and Naipauls.

But then what is true Orient? There is no real Orient, just as there is no real Occident, and no real Western or Eastern world, ‘White’ or ‘Black’ people. If you want to travel from U.S.A. to China, you will travel westwards not eastwards, Africa is in South of Europe not East They are only social constructs. And the only reason that good people go on using these words is to fight back the discrimination done on their basis.

What the author has done in the book is look at how orient is represented by a score of big authors – which might not seem so big a thing but we must remember that those were the books that formed the world view of Europeans. And that is worrying – as it shows how even the best of the minds can fall prey to racism.

You may also think, like I used to, that it is about a subject of past. But it isn’t. People in west still prefer reading account of their own people travelling to East or immigrants coming from East; rather than people who have lived and continue to live in these regions. They also seem to promote a particular world view. People of a country might still be thought of as carrying a certain common characteristic or other. Often people of East are shown in Hollywood movies as caricatures of Western idea of them (Indiana Jones movies). A score of adjectives come to mind - spiritual, introvert etc.

And people in the East and everywhere shows similar tendentcies of prejudice.

Also the author is not saying anything about the countries orient is supposed to represent. Because such a representation might not be possible - particularly in terms of generalisations. Where we must, I guess, we should notice the diversity of people. Unfortunately most of us are too lazy to make an effort to understand such diversity, so we are happy with generalisations and ignoring what doesnt suit us. So human rights activists working in Middle-East never find a mention in western media unless they get killed or exiled, in which case their fate is often given rightful importance, but nothing is done to avoid further such tragedies.

P.S. See the first comment below if you haven't yet seen the stupidity of review.