Orientalism :: essays papers

OrientalismTwo great themes dominate his remarks here and in what will follow companionship and power, the Baconian theme. As Blafour justifies thenecessity for British occupation of Egypt, supremacy in his mind isassociated with our knowledge of Egypt and not principally withmilitary or economic power.He describes the appetite for knowledge about the orient as being spawnedfrom the desire to colonialise effectively not to decipher the complexnature of a society which is inherently different, indeed bound to dothings a little differently. By comprehending the Orient, the Westjustified a position of ownership. The Orient became the subject, theseen, the observed, the studied Orientalist philosophers were theapprentices, the overseers, the observers. The Orient was quiescentthe West was dynamic.This is a preferably unfortunate position both for the West and theOrient. The students used their position of perceived understandingto further compel Oriental people into subservience wh ile at the same time justifying their actions. They protected theirconscience by convincing themselves that the Orient was incapable ofrunning itself, thus their territory must be administered for them.It dose not occur to Balfour to let the Egyptian speak for himself,since presumably any Egyptian who would speak out is more likely to bethe agitator who wishes to raise difficultiesSaid makes some vivid, passionate and smasher points however, he seemsto be lacking of a little objectivity. The general tone of his bookOrientalism depicts western Orientalists as persistently reinventingthe near and Middle East in self-serving, eurocentric terms as seen with Western eyes, the Orient emerges as a passive, backwardworld, monolithic in nature and exotic in its alienism, a realm ideallycreated to sustain the Wests daydream of supremacy. Said brutallycharges Western scholars for perpetuating the notion that the Orientshould not be taken seriously but rather be seen as a subject ofstudy.It is in this line that Said builds his argument. Totally oblivious tothe fact that the sheer passion in his discourse may be equated tofavouritism by readers. He makes many hard hitting and vivid points,but the repetitive hammering on the same point posses the power totransform a great piece of work into an opus which skates around adiluted form of reverse racism. As progress is made throughOrientalism several instances are depicted which provoke negativeattitudes from the readerThe European is a close reasoner his statements of fact are devoid ofany ambiguity he is a natural logician, albeit he may not have studiedlogic he is by nature very sceptical and requires establishment before he canaccept any proposition.