Orientalism: Unmasking the Selfish Goals of the West - Movie Review Example

Orientalism Unmasking The Selfish Goals Of The West Introduction History of the world is a witness to the destruction of human life due to the prejudice and monopoly of one race over the other. The countries from west have tried to dominate and rule the eastern countries by power of arms and manipulation. The western thinking that only white people are superior and hence, worthy of development has led them to dominate the colored people. The lack of an attempt to understand the people from east and their culture and to treat them as inferior has resulted in growing unrest and violence in the world. It is this growing anger and frustration of the orient people (particularly the Islamic countries) and the misrepresentation of the Islamic people in the western media, that led Edward Said to write the book called ‘Orientalism’ (Said, Part 1). Said has defined Orientalism as “ a style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between ‘the orient’ and ‘the occident’,” which makes the western people “deal with orients by making statements about it, authorizing views of it, describing it, by teaching it, setting it and ruling over it. In short, orientalism is a western style of domination, restructuring, and having authority over the orient” ( Boer 9). His study is a look at the root cause of the anger and hatred of the Islamic world towards the western policies. The inspiration, the facts and the psychology behind Orientalism The movie ‘orientalism’, through an interview with Edward Said, explains what led him to study the orientalism and write about it. The four parts of the movie discusses different aspects of how orientalism has led to violence and hatred among the Islamic world towards the west and how western media and government has done nothing to find out the truth and bring it in front of common people (Said, Part 1). Part One: (Said, Part 1) In this part of movie, Said has described two things that led him to write ‘orientalism’. 1)The Arab Israeli war in 1973 which was preceded by the discussions in popular media of how the Arabs are going to lose because of lack of modern weapons, weakness and cowardice . 2) The huge disparity between ‘what’ Arabs are and ‘how’ they are misrepresented in the work of art. Part two: (Said, Part 2) Said says that American orintalism is based on abstract ideas and perception about the people from east compared to the real experience of countries like Britain and France have had with orient people. In this section, Said has described how, due to its selfish interests, America has publicized the Israeli issue by giving a wrong picture that the Arab world is a threat to Israel and their only intention is to destroy the Israeli people. The American people are kept in dark regarding the true picture of the events in Israel as the media is always manipulating the truth by showing that Arabs are only terrorist and nothing else. The focus by media on only one negative aspect of Islamic world, i.e. terrorism, has influenced the American people so much that they now think that every Islamic person is terrorist. Moreover, to justify their huge expenditure on the building of the weapons, America needs a ‘threat’ and that threat is being wrongly imposed on the Islamic world. Part three: (Said, Part 3) This section focuses on the representation of Islam in the Hollywood movies, which is the greatest influence on the minds of adults and children. The two major things that are glorified in the movies are 1)Arabs as villains and 2) by showing lot of Islamic people dying at the hands of the protagonists, the movies indirectly say that the Arabs deserve to die and be punished. Said argues that even if Islamic states have more terrorism than other states, what has led to terrorism is the fact that western countries have always considered them inferior and have used coercion to rule them. Part four: (Said, Part 4) Said has discussed that co-existence in harmony is the only solution to the violent situation in the world. Carrying forward the idea of philosopher Gramsci, Said says that there is a huge influence of the history on the minds of people. Also, there is so much diversity and difference found in the people coming from same culture that, judging a person based on the culture he comes from, is a wrong thing to do. According to Said, through creativity and invention, peaceful and harmonious coexistence is possible. Critical Analysis of two parts Part One: (Said, Part 1) Orientalism changed the perception of the western world towards the east. Said’s interest in orientalism developed during the Arab Israeli war of 1973, where Arabs proved the western speculation wrong by crossing the canal and showing that they can fight a war as anybody else. Said also found that the representations of the orient by well known artists in their novels, poems and paintings, was very different from what he knew as a reality. The important thing is, the western thinking that people of colored skin are traditional and hence, are not capable of being modern, shows that western society not only underestimates them but also have a wrong notion that the people from east will not be able to develop and be modern unless they leave their tradition. According to Said, the literature describing the orient world lacked freedom from prejudice and creativity. Even those western people who visited the eastern countries were so influenced by prejudice that instead of perceiving the reality, they chose to look at, and write about only those things which supported their prejudiced thinking of the eastern world. The eastern world was misrepresented as male dominated, secretive and magical with a touch of mysteriousness to it. This continued throughout the art work of 18th and 19th century and no one really tried to understand the essence behind the traditions of eastern cultures and look at the reality. Said’s study is concrete and not just based on the ideas or theories. Section one of the video strikes the core of the heart with the description of Napolean’s attack on Egypt. Said has given an example of Napoleon’s attack on Egypt and threw a light on the fact that Napoleon studied Egyptian ideology and culture not to understand the Egyptians but to make it easier for himself to conquer and dominate the Egyptian people. Said has described how Napoleon’s conquest of Egypt was not intended to loot but to get the experts in different fields to deepen their knowledge of the Egyptian culture, science, architecture and art , so that they can rule the country by boasting that they can develop this country by modernizing it. This video makes the audience to gain a strong insight into the manipulative power game the western people have played and the prejudiced thinking they have entertained in their minds, just to dominate and rule the orient countries and their people. In this section, Said convinces us that he is talking sense and has evidence to what he is saying. Part three (Said, Part 3) This section supports the fact that the western media has, deliberately and systematically, portrayed Islamic people as violent, inferior, illiterate and evil. The portrayal of the Islamic people as terrorist and villains is so consistent and regular in the Hollywood movies, print media, news channels and entertainment programs, that all the western people have been brainwashed into believing that every person from Islamic culture is their enemy and hence, should be hated and destroyed. Said gives an example of a manipulative and misleading article published in a leading newspaper like ‘The Sunday Times’, which described Dodi Al Fayed’s relationship with Lady Diana as a conspiracy of the Islamic state to dominate the western world. This sort of baseless racist allegations on the Muslim people has become a common thing in the western world. Moreover, due to lack of democracy, the Arab people are not able to raise their voice against the misrepresentation of their culture and people in the media. They do not have the power and the access to the media through which they can show the reality to the European and American people. This section also shows the shallowness of the American journalism through the clips of most of the leading news channel, where the journalists have jumped to the conclusion that middle east was behind the Oklahoma city bombing without even trying to find who really was behind the attack. This shows that media not only hides the truth, but also distorts and manipulate the truth to make people think that Arabs are nothing but villains and hence, America is right in perceiving them as threat to western countries. Said’s ‘orientalism’ and Huntington’s ‘Clash of civilization’ The difference between Said’s ‘orientalism’ and Huntngton’s ‘clash of civilization’ can be understood from the following claim that Huntngton makes in his essay: “In the short term, it is clearly in the interest of the West to promote greater cooperation and unity within its own civilization….; to incorporate into the West societies in Eastern Europe and Latin America whose cultures are close to those of the West; to promote and maintain cooperative relations with Russia and Japan ... to limit the expansion of the military strength of Confucian and Islamic states ... and maintain military superiority in East and Southeast Asia; to exploit differences and conflicts among Confucian and Islamic states;” (Shrestha, and Gray). The above passage shows that Huntington has a ruthless attitude towards other cultures and instead of promoting peace, he wants to promote domination over eastern people. Said’s effort is to promote peace and co-existence by working and living together in harmony, in spite of the differences we have with each other (Said, Part 4). On the other hand, Huntingotn’s essay talks about what the western countries should do to gain and maintain power and domination over the orient countries. Huntington, through his essay, shows that his mind thinks like a ruthless dictator. The conclusion Said says that in spite of differences, people from diverse cultures have assimilated peacefully with each other(Said “The Myth”). In today’s world, we can se that the younger generation is more interested in peace and harmony. The growth and popularity of eastern meditations and yoga in America, growth of Buddhism in western world, popularity of Hollywood movies in east, development of mall culture and western fashion in east, migration of people from one country to another for jobs and businesses etc., show that people are ready to assimilate and lead a peaceful life in spite of their differences. However, politicians and power hungry people are working against the efforts of peace loving people to create unrest and violence in the world. Edward Said has opened our eyes towards the distortion of the truth by media and politicians and his efforts to resolve the conflict can be fulfilled only when the west understands that people from east are not inferior to them but are equal. In fact, America has already started to realize that. Works cited: Boer, Inge, E. After Orientalism: Critical engagements, productive looks. Amsterdam : Editions Rodopi B.V., 2003. Print. Shrestha, Nanda, and Kenneth Gray. "Clash of Civilizations or Cartography of U.S. Global Domination?." International Journal on World Peace 23.3 (2006): 33+. Questia. Web. 18 Nov. 2009. Said, Edward. ‘On Orientalism’ Part-1. Web. 18 November, 2009. Said, Edward. ‘On Orientalism’ Part-2. Web. 18 November, 2009. < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aj39Py-shOA&feature=related> Said, Edward. ‘On Orientalism’ Part-3. Web. 18 November, 2009. < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlF5ED-gE5Y&feature=related> Said, Edward. ‘On Orientalism’ Part-4. Web. 18 November, 2009. < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZLA-mwOdSs&feature=related> Said, Edward. ‘The Myth of the clash of Civlization ’ Part-4. Lecture. Web. 18 November, 2009. < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8djF62Qlmo&NR=1> Read More