Orientalism And The Form Of Orientalism In The Middle East

The primary source that I have chosen is “Turkish Embassy Letters” written by Lady Wortley Montagu and edited by Malcolm Jack. In this reading the author describes her journey in the Middle East. She gives her perspective on her adventure, which is very important because it can help eliminate orientalism and the negative views about the Middle East. It also gives us an idea on how the Middle East looked like during the 1700s. Orientalism still exists today and I will be showing examples from the text on how Montagu’s trip proves how orientalism is wrong. Edward Said stated that, “American understanding of the Orient will seem considerably less dense (Orientalism Pg. 2).” Everyone has their own assumptions and I believe this reading can help eliminate the assumptions of the Middle East and to improve awareness of orientalism.

Disney’s Aladdin is a fit example of misrepresentation of diverse cultures from a Westernized perspective. Disney is famous for lending representations of world from a Western viewpoint. According to Edward Said, orientalism is a way of expressing Arab peoples and Islamic cultures as compared to Western or European society (Palestine Diary). Said’s explains orientalism is the framework that we use to

Orientalism, as termed by Edward Said, is meant to create awareness of a constellation of assumptions that underlie Western attitudes towards the Eastern societies. While some of these opinions show the cultures in a positive light, the majority of them are biased and emphasise on depicting negative aspects as perceived by strangers to the Eastern culture.

The term orientalism was first founded in the 19th century, specifically 1978, and is connected with colonialism and that the middle east is backward in time and corrupt. This thought started back with European expansion where the ideas of Islam were developed, and the relationship changed. Initially, the ottoman empire is the most powerful empire of this time and with that, the Europeans begin to fear of the ottoman empire. Yet over time, they started to think they wanted to be more like the ottoman empire and become more powerful. But as European expansion spread this started to change and see the dark side of the empire. The side that was thought to be defective, and horrible and it is something that they actually do not want at all. This is pre-industrialization and could have been fear of invasion but in the end, Europeans wanted democracy. They ended up not wanting to be like the ottoman empire because of flaws like a

He frames the sketch of this imagined community of ‘civilization’ through Orientalism concept, where the superior ‘civilized world’ is being threatened by ‘enemies’. As he puts it, this ‘Civilization’ will be defended by ‘We’ who are waging a war to save it. Therefore, the two actors are the traditional components of ‘us’ and ‘them’, as can be deduced from the following statements by him:

Said explains that the orientalism first occurred when the Europeans started to imperialize lesser developed eastern countries. Therefore Said argues that the reason the Europeans divided into the East and the West or into the civilized or the uncivilized was because this led to the concept of the Europeans (West) who are superior over the Middle Eastern countries (East). (Said 2) Orientalism is ubiquitous. For example, ever since the 9/11 attack, people have looked at Middle Eastern people in a different light and viewed them as all terrorists-the enemy. Orientalism is not only about stereotypes based on race but also by gender as well.

Throughout history the Middle East has been a significant influence on the Western World, and being the cradle of civilization it has a history and culture with great depth. The Western World has also influenced the Middle East, however in modern times it’s influence has been less positive.

Stuart Hall’s The West and the Rest and Edward Said’s Orientalism both explore notions of power and discourse with regard to the dynamics of the Western world and the non-Western world. The works engage with the concept of a worldwide binary of two unequal sides, and how certain discourses, namely that of “the West and the Rest”, and Orientalism, have both stemmed from this idea and worked to maintain it. While Hall engages with the idea of “the West and the Rest” – the Western world and how it has been defined in opposition to the non-Western – Said analyses the relationship between “the Orient and the Occident” (2). Said’s work reflects in a more concrete way what Hall proposes in his, using the example of “the Orient” as part of “the Rest” against which the Western world positions itself. Both pieces convey significant ideas about how power informs perceptions of difference between societies, and in turn how discourse forms and maintains global hegemonic power.

Orientalism is the homogenizing of eastern cultures through the western lens and depicting those cultures in a stereotypical way. An example of orientalism is the children’s movie Aladdin which takes place in Saudi Arabia and depicts a very limited range in character arcs. Filled with mysticism of genies and magic carpets, the characterization of women in the orient as seductive and depicted in minimalistic clothing and the manifestation of a harsh judicial system in which you receive extreme punishment for something as simple as stealing and apple Aladdin is filled with western stereotypes of Middle Eastern life.

Arabs, as part of the Eastern world, have been and are continually othered by the West. In fact, the continuous process of vilification and negative portrayals has created some kind of general opinion and understanding of Arabs and Islam both in the United States and in the rest of the world. According to some sweeping generalizations, an Arab should be someone coming from the Middle East. An Arab should necessarily be a Muslim. An Arab should be either a rich sheikh with a beard and a long robe or a Bedouin roaming the deserts with his camels and flocks of sheep. An Arab should be a terrorist driven by the heavenly promise of angelic women in the afterlife and who coldheartedly kills innocent people, mainly Americans and Europeans,

I want to research whether portrayals of Orientalism in the media are used to retroactively justify decisions such as imperialism or the Vietnam War. I chose this topic because I found Edward Said’s theory of Orientalism very thought-provoking and wondered if it can apply to contemporary society. In addition to that, I have not seen a lot of contemporary analysis on Orientalism of Southeast Asia. My initial inspiration was when I watched the film No Escape, which seemed blatantly racist and problematic. I narrowed and refined my topic by further researching the concepts of Orientalism and otherness, and considered how they could be applied to this film. Sources that have been key in defining my research topic include scholar articles on Orientalism

Chinese culture and Arab culture are very different yet similar in some aspects. Both cultures have not been influenced by Canadian culture.

Edward Said described the western way of seeing others as Orientalism, which western people believe that they are superior to the rest of the world and that the rest of the world move backwards. Although Orientalism is a misunderstanding concept of the west, it is recognised worldwide.

Middle East considers one of the most studied areas in the world due to its rich history of politics, social, economic, and its culture and civilization. Its borders are still arguable geographically, generally in the west it starts from morocco until Iran in the east, however, many scholars don’t agree on including Turkey either as a Middle Eastern or as a European country (Milton-Edwards, 2006. P: 4). The origin of the name was invented by the colonies as a necessity to describe the place geographically, which was the era of bringing “Middle East” the language of academic writings and political scientists. Changes, innovations, and new ideologies create gaps between the transformations of any perspectives to a different

Orientalism is a study of language and traditions of the people and their culture in the Middle East. These studies are mostly done by people outside of the culture that is being looked at, and mostly the studies are being performed by white western men. Edward Said believed that there was a problem with the way in which other people were studying and writing about his culture. He was upset and spoke up when he wrote a booked called “Orientalism,” in his book he points out many reasons why the study of orientalism is hurting the cultures in which they are studying. The study of other cultures and countries better known as the Orient has become a popular discussion since Said’s book on orientalism was published. This paper will take a look