Academic research and development have led to the development of both the contemporary and renaissance concepts and lexicon, which can be used to describe life situations or explain other nested concepts or situations. The academic discipline has churned a lot of important concepts that are highly applicable in everyday human life. One of these concepts is ‘orientalism” which has a deeply entrenched meaning and relevance in human life. In this essay, the meaning of orientalism will be broadly covered, with a critical focus on its origin, application to human life, levels of critiques that have been advanced against the concept, and the various limitations associated with orientalism as both a concept and a school of thought. The last part of the essay will tackle the relevance and application of the concept in human life, on overarching human matters like global politics among others.
Origin and Etimology of Orientalism
Orientalism was first fully described in postcolonial studies by Edward Said, who conceptualized the idea as a hybrid between theory and practice, and the concept primarily orients shapes how the East used to see the West during the colonial times and vise vasa. The post-colonial period was characterized by attitudes that were anchored upon social classification and stratification (Osterhammel, 1999). The West was the oppressing side, which viewed the East as hunger and famine-stricken, weak, susceptible to environmental and natural vulnerabilities, weak, non-integrated, and locked out of progressive development. On the other hand, the West viewed itself as rational, powerful, and ahead of the pack in the human race. It viewed itself as more industrialized, technologically and policy-wise advanced, productive, and wise. These conceptualizations would reflect across all frontiers of human life, across customs, language, norms, and even religion. While the West was concerned with impacting the world with religion or the “new way of the world” as it was often referred to, the East was trying to solidify its culture, cement its norms and protect its integrity and moral fabric from being plundered by the western influence through alienation.
In his seminal works of literature published in 1978, Said noted that there was a special way that the West viewed their East counterparts, and similarly, there was a special way that the East understood and perceived their colleagues from the West, leading to massive profiling of humanity along geographic and ethnic lines. According to Mishra (2013), the Western powers were after remaking the East, and Asia was one of their lucrative targets. Therefore, the origin of the concept of Orientalism was deeply entrenched in the interactions between the East and the West, which spread a long way in history. The ideology was strongly grounded in racial differences, which said lightly generalize as imperialism (Said, 1978). Additionally, the existence of this concept was much aided by historically relevant events that earmarked the 19th century such as the great Egypt expedition by Napoleon, and the defeat and capture of Algiers territory by the French forces (Said, 1978). These events were witnessed by various people, including scholars, scribes, and Renaissance-era writers, who conducted maiden journeys to Africa to witness and document these word-changing historical events.
According to Said who is the originator of this concept, the West profiled the East out of contempt and attitude, and it was not based on any tangible empirical conviction or evidence. It was a way for the West to justify their colonial suppression, the plundering of rights, alienation, and nullification of African freedom. Therefore, orientalism was a vehicle that was used to promote imperial policies by the colonialists. The attitudes were biased and majorly driven by deeply entrenched stereotypes, prejudicial articulations, and mindsets as well as fantasy, that were prefabricated to condemn and paint the Eastern way of life in a rather retrogressive light, hence making it less appealing to the Easterners. These stereotypes were motivated by many interconnected factors such as biased literature, artistic ideologies, and impressions skewed against the East, anthropology, and the social-political ravages that had been created by the discipline of political science.
Critique and Limitations of Orientalism
Said’s work on orientalism has been praised as one of its kind in understanding the etimology of the rift that formed between the East and the West, and the sponsor conditions that surrounded this ideological and attitudinal separation. However, his work has attracted both applause and criticism in equal proportions, and there are mixed reactions concerning Said’s findings. The critique of Said’s work was based on other seminal works by Bickers (2016) who focuses on an expanded horizon beyond Africa and deeply explores the Chinese post and pre-colonial cultural and leadership architecture One limitation associated with Said’s orientalism is that the ideology is too simple, general and essential, covering only a small portion of the interaction between the east and the western powers. Said’s works are majorly based on the occurrences of the great historical events of colonialization and imperialism in the African country, while other works by prominent political science scholars like Bickers (2016) focused on how eastern countries like China interacted with British and European powers, leading to the weakening of the Qing empire. In the eyes of most analysts, orientalism is a simply predictable concept.’
Another limitation associated with this concept was how Said depicted the West, as an immovable entity which was not a true assertion. The idea also neglected the social and community diversities associated with Western societies. Said missed important aspects of Western societies such as complexity, diversity, and social integration. Therefore, orientalism, as painted by Said, was rather an outdated conceptualization of the world, which was somewhat outdated and did not account for the social-cultural aspects of the West. Said perceived the entire world in a rather Eurocentric view, which is a weak perspective when it comes to the real-time visualization of the complexity, organization, and diversity of Western communities (Hein, 1990). Critics argue that by taking this approach, Said, through his concept, missed capturing the actual rationality of the Westerners and his viewpoints were not well informed. The basic facts were too obvious and generalizable, which meant that Said was less exposed to the two cultures simultaneously. He did not have a common meeting point for articulating the two cultures and some thinkers were convinced that Said relied on speculative cultural estimations and pooled together facts about the Western world, but ideally, he was under-exposed to the Western way of life. For instance, at no point does Said mention the guilt of horror experienced by the Western communities living in Asia and Africa, due to the pain they inflicted upon Africans and Asians in the colonial period (Mishra, 2013). Neither does Said critique or compliment the contemporary way of life followed by Indians and Africans after escaping from the Western stronghold.
Relevance of the Concept in the Contemporary World
Orientalism has caused a tussle of war between scholars, with some arguing that Said’s conceptual understanding of the interactions between the West and the East needs to be relooked in a more ethical and contemporary overview, and if it helps, redefine and reshape the application environment of the concept. Another school of thought has suggested that there was much that Said could do since the definition and understanding of the concept all rest upon the accuracy of historical events, and as a political scholar, there is nothing he could do to alter history. So his ideological frameworks supporting orientalism should be taken at historical value and when need be, the concepts will be reshaped and restructured in further works by other contemporary scholars in the field of political science to incorporate new insights associated with both the Western and the Eastern communities, which developed much after the concept was first defined and documented. Orientalism has a great bearing on the modern world, as it is considered the very first attempt to demystify the colonial and imperialist doctrines propagated to brainwash Eastern society and rally them towards alienation.
Despite the heavy criticism, the concept has great relation to the contemporary world. It has been used to explain great movements like the rise of the Korean civilization and islamophobia, which is a straight manifestation (Hwang, 2010). In world history, the Muslim faith has come under backlash for various crimes and atrocities against humanity like terrorism and misogynists. The Muslim backlash and profiling by other denominations have been fueled by Orientalist tropes, which were used in the past to promote and justify the perpetration of social and communal injustices by Western imperialists. In the same way, Westerners used culture to target and annihilate the Eastern social and political structures, the West is again using terror extremism and Muslim radicalization to propagate islamophobia. In many Western countries, there is low religious and social tolerance against Muslim citizens, who are often associated with jihadists and propaganda. Many of them have been illegally arrested, tortured, and detained without trial. Since the 911 attack in the United States, the country picked a different attitude against Muslims and they were at the receiving end of all terror suspicions. This scenario shows orientalism, by indicating how stereotypes conceived and perpetrated by Western powers can be used to destabilize and disorient the peace of minority selections, like the fractions of Muslims, Africans, and Asians living in the West.
Furthermore, there is a great geopolitical tussle between the East and the West in the current international space, as each strives to become a kingpin and a world superpower. Geopolitical tensions between China and the United States are mounting, with frequent military and policy agitations that have made the atmosphere between the two states charged (Fenby, 2019). China is one of the most advanced and developed countries in Asia representing the Eastern power while the US is the, most advanced country in the West. The two countries are now locked in a mighty clash of powers with each trying to weigh down against the other and reign as the world superpower (Mitter, 2005). While the US has been at the top of the global charts since the 19th century, China is an upcoming country whose economy has been extensively built through industrialization and modern technology. The rapid upcoming of China into the global common table was interpreted as a threat by the US, leading to an orientalist discourse where the rise of China has been misinterpreted as a challenge to Western global dominance.
Another relevance of orientalism in the modern world can be seen in the actions of non-west societies against the social, religious, and political intimidations by the West. Post-colonial researchers have concluded that the targeted East societies have evolved a counter-discourse to revoke and challenge the perceived orientalist portrayal of the East by their Western rivals. The counter ideology is also known as “Orientalism with a difference” and its main intention is to set records straight and recover the plundered dignity of the Western communities, which has been spoilt by the malicious Orientalist discourse propagated by the Westerners. Also, the counter-discourse intends to fully match the west orientalist speculations, hence fully challenging the Western hegemonic influences in the current global frontier. The pro-east discourse intends to provide a cushioning counter strategy to protect the cultural identity and heritage of the East against plunder and stereotyping by assuming a rather defensive and intimidating stance against the West.
Political Implications of Orientalism
Orientalism is one concept that has shaped the international political arena in many ways, especially in terms of international relations. Orientalism is used to explain the balance of power dynamics between the Western and the Eastern worlds, and how the West has propagated Orientalist notions to justify its assertion and domination in the world. The concept also underscores the essence of both cultural as well as linguist diversity as they apply to the diversity of global politics. From the prevailing orientalist insights, there is a need to rally respect for the non-western social identities as well as the people. Also, there is a need for western countries to adopt independent modes of governance, that are not affiliated with and controlled by their Western colonial masters. Western-centric models have proven to be biased in the East, since the colonial masters still have a huge influence on the governance of their former subjects, leading to manipulation. Orientalism also has an implication in shaping the cultural, economic, social, and political transactions between Western and non-western systems of governance, as it helps both sides to identify and set holistically inclusive ground rules for engagement.
Conclusion
Orientalism is a hotly contested concept among scholars and political science researchers alike and it has been subjected to various schools of thought and understanding. The concept has been criticized and appreciated in equal measures partly due to its non-inclusivity of all the insights from the East and also due to its heavy emphasis on essentialism and Eurocentric model of governance that does not allow full autonomy to former colonial slaves, making it somehow autocratic. A complete understanding of the concept from its first principles is integral for a more nuanced conceptualization of the modern world in terms of social cultural relationships and politics.
Reference List
Bickers, R., 2016. The Scramble for China: Foreign devils in the Qing Empire, 1832-1914. Penguin UK.
Fenby, J. (2019). The penguin history of modern China: The fall and rise of a great power, 1850 to the present (3rd ed.). National Geographic Books.
Hein, L.E., 1990. The Cambridge History of Japan. Vol. 6: The Twentieth Century. Edited by PETER DUUS. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. xx, 866 pp. $89.50. The Journal of Asian Studies, 49(4), pp.933-935.
Hwang, K. (2010). A history of Korea. Palgrave Macmillan.
Mishra, A., 2013. From the ruins of empire: The revolt against the West and the remaking of Asia.
Mitter, R. (2005). A bitter revolution: China’s struggle with the modern world. Oxford University Press on Demand.
Osterhammel, J. (1999). ‘China’, in, Brown, Judith, M., & Louis, William, Roger, eds., The Oxford History of the British Empire: vol. 4: The Twentieth Century. Oxford, O.U.P.
Said, E. (1978) Orientalism. London: Pantheon.
write