Orientalism: what it is, and how it made it easier to dominate a continent

Orientalism is the way Western media and scholars interpret and describe the Eastern world, from a supposedly objective point of view. It is a concept that is associated with the criticism of how the West came to create a story about Asia that legitimized its invasion and colonization.

In this article we will see what Orientalism has consisted of and in what way it has been the cultural arm with which the West has dominated Asia, especially the Middle East and the Middle East. according to theorists such as Edward Said, famous for making this concept known.

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The origins of orientalism as an idea

Authors linked to the Asian continent and Arab culture have actively denounced both the perspective on Asia that is disseminates in the educational centers of the first world as the stereotypes associated with the East transmitted by the media of communication. Edward Said, theorist and activist, embodied these criticisms in his famous works-essays Orientalism Y Culture and imperialism.

According to Said, Western society has learned to refer to the inhabitants of Asia by appealing to a concept of "the other", the unknown, something that establishes a moral and empathic border between these people and the direct heirs of European culture. Unfortunately, this is the position taken by a large part of the European orientalist scholars.

Missionaries, explorers and naturalists who entered the East to examine it did many new works, but also imposed an external vision on the cultural heterogeneity of Asia Even those called by curiosity about the strange, made it easier than the boundary between us and they turned eastern societies into an enemy to be defeated and conquered, either to protect the West or to save Asians and Arabs from themselves.

The civilizing tale

In a way that escapes any reason, since the time of Roman rule, there has been a certain need on the part of the great empires to "civilize" the eastern peoples, to help the barbarians to develop in order to survive in a optimal. Sadly, the story that has been constructed in the history books of Orientalism since the eighteenth century has been that of domination.

No matter the author or the intellectual condition of the writers or narrators who speak of Asia through Orientalism, they all meet the same descriptive pattern: associate everything that is done there to the bad habits of the foreigner, the savage, the infidel, the underdeveloped... In short, a simplistic description of the peoples of Asia and their customs, always using the characteristic concepts of Westerners, as well as their scale of values, to talk about cultures that are they do not know.

Even if the exoticism of the Orient is extolled, these peculiarities are talked about as something that can only be appreciated from the outside, a phenomenon that is not so much a merit of the Orientals as a trait that has appeared in an unintended way and that is only appreciated since outside. Ultimately, Orientalism separates Orientals from what they could be proud of.

It could be argued that the binary account of the Western vision regarding the Eastern world, the "we" and the "others" has been at least negative for the people of Asia, especially if another race is associated with it. The Western point of view, which proclaims itself as the possessor of truth and reason, cancels any possibility of reply by the observed. It is that imaginary strip between the West and Asia imposed by Orientalism that has allowed a distorted vision of the strange, of the unknown, so that this simplification makes it easy to conclude that it is a culture lower.

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The legacy of the orientalist tale

For scholarly specialists in Orientalism such as Edward Said or Stephen Howe, the whole analysis, exploration and interpretation that emerged from Western encyclopedias, especially English and French, he guessed a leveling of the ground for the legitimation and justification of colonialism of the time. The expeditions to Egypt, Syria, Palestine or Turkey were used to prepare reports favorable to a potential military political intervention in the area: "We have the duty to rule them for the good of the civilization of the East and that of the West above all," said Arthur James Balfour in 1910.

This was one of the speeches that represented the role of England in the colonial era of the 19th century, seeing that her influence in the Maghreb and the Middle East as a result of growing local nationalism (Arab, African, Ottoman) and tensions over economic resources in the area such as the Canal de Suez. What was supposed to be a dialogue between the West and the East, turned out to be a political tool of occupation by the European powers.

Eveling Baring, the so-called "master of Egypt", crushed the nationalist popular rebellion of Colonel Ahmed al-Urabi (1879-1882) on behalf of the British Empire, and shortly after, He delivered another speech of dubious impartiality: “According to Western knowledge and experiences, tempered by local considerations, we will consider what is best for the race submitted ”. Once again, it is incurred without any shame or remorse.

The criticism of Edward Said

A fully Orientalist debate would not be understood without mentioning the Palestinian scholar and writer Edward W. Said (1929-2003) for his work Orientalism. This essay he meticulously describes the clichés and stereotypes that have been built over the last centuries on everything oriental, Arab or even Muslim. The author does not make a study of the history of the East, but he does uncover all the machinery propaganda of "ideological clichés" to establish a confrontational relationship between the East and the West.

Both in the 18th and 19th centuries, the dichotomy of "us and the others" was coined, the latter being the inferior civilization that needed to be controlled by a central power from Europe. The decolonization era was a setback for the interests of the historical powers, being orphaned of arguments to perpetuate interference on the interests of the East.

Consequently, Western conservative propaganda once again confronted two cultures with an unequivocally warmongering term: "the clash of civilizations." This clash responds to the heritage of Orientalism to endorse the geostrategic plans by the United States superpower, especially for legitimize the military invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

According to Said, a distorting and simplifying element of a whole set of cultures was at work again. The value placed on the perspective of Orientalism was well recognized by his fellow citizens. Europeans, who supported any "civilizing" action towards those lands that are so far away remain. The Italian writer Antonio Gramsci makes another assessment of all this "western truth" and proceeds to deconstruct his theories. For the transalpine, American anthropology seeks to create a homogenizing account of culture, and this has been seen time and again throughout history.