The Sociology Book

80

T H E O R I E N T I S T H E

S T A G E O N W H I C H

T H E W H O L E E A S T

I S C O N F I N E D

EDWARD SAID (1935–2003)

T

he idea of “the Orient”

evolved from Western

colonial powers and is a

politically dangerous and culturally

biased idea that continues to infect

Western views of the Eastern

world. This powerful argument

is made by Edward Said in his

influential text, Orientalism (1978).

The concept of Orientalism, he

says, works in two important

ways: it presents the East as one

homogenous region that is exotic,

uncivilized, and backward; and at

the same time, it constructs and

fixes the West’s idea of the East

in a simplified, unchanging set

of representations.

European “experts” (historians, scientists,

and linguists) report on what “the Orient”

is like, from their own perspective.

Their ideas are reduced still further into stereotypes and

representations that construct and fix Western views

of “the East” and its peoples...

The Orient is the stage on which

the whole East is confined.

...and fuel and perpetuate Western fears about the East,

especially Arabs, as dangerous and “other.”

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

Orientalism

KEY DATES

1375 Chaucer refers to the

Orient as the lands lying

east of the Mediterranean.

Early 19th century French

academic Silvestre de Sacy

sets out the terms of modern

Orientalism.

1836 Edward William Lane’s

book Manners and Customs

of the Modern Egyptians

becomes an important

reference work for writers

such as French novelist

Gustave Flaubert.

1961 Franz Fanon writes

about the dehumanizing

forces of colonialism in

The Wretched of the Earth.

1981 Sadik Jalal al-’Azm

argues that Orientalism tends

to categorize the West in the

same way that Said says it

packages the East.