The Effects of Orientalism as a Postcolonial Theory - Essay Example

Introduction Edward Said is among the world’s most prolific activists through his book “On Orientalism.” It features an interview with Said and his latest thought in various subjects in the film that is introduced by Sut Jhally from University of Massachutes who expounded on the works of Said. He analyses the book to show the effects of Orientalism as a postcolonial theory. In addition, Said has to answer questions on why people have preconceived ideas and notions about the relationship between US and Middle East. In addition, through the analysis of the movie, Orientalism tries to answer questions such as; why is Middle East important? Why are various individuals different and what makes them different? Why are some people different from us? Through this analysis, Orientalism has gained fame in schools and various parts of the world. The book has been proposed in various school curriculums and it has been translated into many languages. Orientalism has varied sections for instance, American Orientalism, Orientalism today, repertory Orientalism, Orientalism and the empire, Orientalism in action, Orientalism and the Palestinian question and the Oklahoma bombing. 2) Sections of Orientalism Said in his work outlines how the western countries view about the Middle East. Said calls the lens used to show discrimination of the Middle East as Orientalism. He expounds this while attending to interview questions posed by Sut. The film is made more interesting by the manner in which Said responds to what triggered him in coming up with Orientalism. He refers it back to the historical art materials. He asserts that, during the Arab Israel war of 1973, the Israelis were naive and coward during the fight. In addition, the disparity that occurred between his experiences about the nature of the Arab and its representation were the two driving forces for his writing. In the repertoire of images, Middle East is characterized by numerous sensual women, secretes and monsters which are not concerned with the real Orient. They are just mere narratives, extended in description due to experts’ views and are objective knowledge. The images produced indicated that Orients were similar and had little or no history, which made them not to develop further. Furthermore, the Orients were viewed as timeless, placid, eternal, and still. He asserts that this is contradicted by history that had led to creation of ideal in other continents like Europe. Said asserts that the American Orientalism is based on abstractions and politicized by Israel’s presence, which is an ally of the America. In this section, he claims that everything we watch and read is politically colored by the Israel-Arab conflict where America takes on. In the Orientalism of the Palestinian, Said argues that the coverage of the media gave a negative impression, which was unchanged years before writing the book. He explicates this and says that a film where people discuss in Arab would automatically be viewed that they were planning on destruction of America. However, if you understood the language, the discussion did not concern America. Furthermore, in demonization of the Islam, terror is attached to Islamic tradition and culture. 3) The Palestinian question The book allows us to get the in depth historical issues of what really goes on in Palestine. in addition, it deals with the process of Oslo failing and the mediation of the US, the second intifada that concerns the independence of Palestine. In addition, the book deals with Gaza devastation, East Jerusalem and the West Bank after forty military years of action. The last concern of the orient of the Palestinian is to dismantle of the national authority of Palestinian and the massacre of Jews and Palestinian. Said’s valuable contribution is vital in dealing with the Palestinian question. This is because he focuses on the Palestinian standpoint and the outlined history of the inhabitants from Palestine, which focus on the demography and sociological features. He attributes these issues as the core factors before understanding the history and the enlightenment of the ideological continuity. Said insists that philological rigor is vital before documenting and interpreting any writing. Palestine had numerous civil wars, which made England encourage the Zionist movement to topple the ruling regime of Palestine because it had fertile grounds. The Zionist movement is just part of the political strategies in Palestine. This is associated to the major stereotypes about the Jews seizing backward. The radical view about Europe civilization and colonial reconstruction, forced Israel to reign supreme in Middle East because cooperation with indigenous population was not on subordinate level. Therefore, the original sin about the Israel lies in the Zionist nature, which involves the refusal to mingle in peace with the Palestinians and the failure to strategize and manage its hegemony without resort to the colonial and racist practices. The Zionist ideologies are helped by the Holocaust and Anti-Semitic persecution, which has pushed for the conquering of the Palestine. It provides the world with the original Jewish element with the Palestinians being the foreigners. Thus, Zionism is the colonial ruling and conquest from outside. This was a successful and was supported by European states same to other colonies in the world. Therefore, the Zionist culture is the greatest sin that Israel state committed. From the edit of the film, we can assert that basing on the time factor, and music, which defines the film; it fails to take critiques concerning Orientalism. This is just an introductory film that helps students to have a rough feel about Orientalism. The film fails to state why the many people decided to stop reading Said works on Orientalism. Therefore, his works is termed as uninteresting and repetitive because of the reality he presented. In addition, Said’s thesis statement relies mostly on readings from Foucault on the power versus knowledge thesis. Furthermore, Gramsci has asserted that the described history as power quest has left the history unexplained. The understanding of the Foucault compared to Davidson Arnold’s views on the thesis statement could actually lead us towards achieving interesting conclusions, but this is not explored in the film. Said’s thesis has resulted to a more conspiracy theory that is in line with the postcolonial ideas like hybridity proposed by Hommi Bhabha. Spivak proposed that all the theories are just countering about the anti-Orientalist agendas because the future of the area of study is just bleak. Said’s position on anti-theory and the subaltern views is wavered. Thus, epistemology has not benefitted from the orientalism theory as compared to politics. Therefore, the Orientalism thesis about the ‘other’ had racist approach and derogatory approach. Simply the purpose for this center was the focus on power to rule and administer others. In history, such statements have been common among the accounts of the western travelers since the 15th century. The travelers had no intention to conquer and rule but were concerned about exploring the world. This has been proved in the case of India and the evolving of criteria and understands the modern Orientalism. 4) American Orientalism Said states that the American Orientalism is mainly concerned about press conferences, and news coverage. The main theme in this section is barbarism thus the movie becomes more interesting because of its barbaric nature. He recalls his experiences during the Oklahoma bombing in which all the media were concerned with the causal agent of the bombing in the Middle East but discovers that it originated from Christian fundamentals. Thus, despite Saudi Arabia and Indonesia Islamic beliefs, they differ due to the cliché’s on Orientalist discourse. Orientalism of the other is purposely derogatory and racist with power to administrate and rule others as the major purpose. In this case, India is the best example because it aids in understanding the current Orientalism and its progress. American Orientalism is useful because of the convenience in the organization to address diplomatic history. After the introduction of history of the attitudes of the Orientalists in the American culture that were working, back from the insights of Mark Twain in ‘The innocents abroad’ it depicts the true nature of the American Orientalism. Through this, they could cite to popular magazines, specific films and the administrative analysis of the policies of the Middle East. Among the various issues, democratization, oil acquisition, Arab-Israel negotiations, regime change, counterterrorism, and the cold war détente are featured in this Orientalism section. Therefore, each of the chapters overlaps chronologically but it explores in depth different aspects of the Middle East history and its relations with other countries that are not Muslim. Thus, the desired effect that arises from this arrangement is not meant to achieve reinforcement about the details but rather to assert vexing interconnectedness of the various factors that shape US Foreign policies. This convergence is very critical to the understanding of the government perennial missteps during the administration of the Middle East, which is similar to our culture’s imaginations about the simplified Orientals. The Orientals were defined as backward, untrustworthy, monolithic and the oversimplified actions in Middle East by our leaders. However, people have allowed this because of laziness and ignorance. 5) Criticism of Orientalism However, very little was written before the Iraq fiasco on the pains, themes that dealt with arrogance, bullish miscalculations, persistent underestimation, and the well-documented materials fit for every member who cared. In this regard, the policy in the Middle East has been inconsistent and incoherent since the Second World War. This has overshadowed numerous international priorities due to the expensive nature of the treasured lives. Americans involvement in Israel-Arab conflict, the foreign minister of Israel asserted that the Palestinians did not miss any opportunity to miss a vital opportunity. This becomes the behavior of ‘the other’ parties in the region. Work Cited Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Publishers, 1979. Print. Read More