Edward Said born in the Philippines and his origin is also eastern but he was a professor at Colombia University.
Said criticizes the western society not only America and also europian society in Orientalism. Discusses the europian part from the 18th century to the 20th century and American part from the 20th century to contemporary.
He says there is a misunderstanding of Europe and later of American towards the Muslims and the Arabic world.
Power and Knowledge
Wester and American Part have the power and the knowledge, therefore they western create Binary Opposition. And always there is someone strong and someone weak. So, when you say binary opposition, you automatically create east and west. This is the first Binary Opposition.
Then, they create Oxidant and Orient.
Then, they create Self and The Other
Then, they have Powerfull and the Weak
Then, they have Active and Passive
Then, they have Superior and Inferior
The one on the left is west and the one on the right is east. They said "We are we, we are us and they are the Others ( others: Muslims, Arabic, Asians, Chines, Indians etc.. ). We are powerful and we are weak, they are passive. We create the knowledge and we know the truth but they don't know the truths and that's why they are weak".
Said criticizes this point of Europe, westerns. He is half right, half not, but his observation is quite challenging in the book, Orientalism.
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| western painters described east with these paintings |
Western Painters paint the eastern culture, sometimes India, sometimes Egypt and also sometimes Turkey.
The women in these paintings, they are half-naked, but when they paint their own cultures we can not see a half-naked woman. Said criticizes this point and he said "it is not true, they create it and it's their prejudice. They show that easterners have sexual desires" They create objects like these but they not true, they don't say all truth and Edward Said criticizes this point. The USA interested in the east but not cause of east culture or exotic places, it's the cause of strategy and economic power, so American Orientalism is about Political. On the other hand, British and French orientalism is about cultural.
A famous quotation from the President of Kenia :
"When they came to our lands, we had our lands and they had their bible in their hands, they taught us to close our eyes and read the bible and we closed our eyes. When we opened our eyes, we had the bible and they had our lands.
But Siad says this is fictional. Orientalism is such prejudice and we have the same oriental of view towards our orient.
* Orientalism has begun with religious reasons but then gained a political identity.
* Some orientalists such as Balfour, Cromer (British orientalists), they ruled the colonies in Egypt. According to the Said cause of the these Orientalist, power of west and weakness of east are emphasized.
* Another Orientalist Henry Kissinger, he makes the wall between west and east.
They learned Asia and Africa's anthropology, history, archaeology, literature, culture and also their language. So, it became easy to rule these countries.
*In the 19th Century, a lot of writers wrote about east but most of them never been in the west, before. They learned east from texts.
* Orientalism is a part of capitalism.
Another Orientalist is the Baran Silvestre who is also a linguist, a French Orientalist, he shows us easterners as lab materials.
* Karl Marx defends easterners and said there is Arabic, Muslims etc..
* The raw materials of Orientalism is the eastern country and their people.
