The A - Z of isms... orientalism.
The late academic, Edward Said,
developed the term orientalism
to describe how Europeans portray the orient
as inferior, uncivilised and all around weird.
But importantly, Said argued this was also, simultaneously,
about defining Europe as the orient's opposite -
superior, civilised and all around wonderful.
The actual term 'the orient' refers to the rising of the sun in the east
and comes from the Latin word 'oriens'.
So we can think of orientalism as Eastern-ism
or stereotyping of the East.
Orientalism then, is the form of knowledge, in quotation marks,
that authorises and justifies the assertion of Western power
over the East.
But what does this actually mean?
Orientalism acts like a pair of glasses that distort your vision
and exaggerate cultural and religious differences.
With these glasses,
just about everything and everyone seems highly exotic and strange
or worse, fanatical and dangerous.
Women in the Middle East, for example,
appear only as exotic - a belly dancer -
or oppressed - a 'veiled woman' -
with no nuances in between.
And in the early 20th Century,
you might have seen men portrayed as exotically romantic
or more recently as crazy and fanatical, a terrorist,
and miss all the ordinary human beings along the way.
Many Arabs, Muslims and Asians embrace this controversial term
to describe the unique kind of racism they experience.
Orientalism encapsulates, for many,
how their culture, religion and ethnicity
are so often reduced to a stereotype,
causing their humanity to be overlooked and culture misunderstood.
Isn't this just a form of stereotyping then?
Well, yes and no.
Orientalism is about a much broader set of power relations.
When the US government views the Middle East
through orientalist glasses
it creates policies with far-reaching consequences.
From outright war waged on other countries
to imposing a travel ban on whole groups of people.
Perhaps the trickiest thing about orientalism
is that it's not fuelled by ignorance or a simple lack of knowledge,
just the opposite.
It has historically been produced as knowledge
by those in positions of power,
whether government officials, religious figures, or the media.
For example when President Trump stated,
"I think Islam hates us,
we can't allow people coming into this country
who have this hated for the United States."
He effectively characterised the 1.6 billion Muslims worldwide
as anti-American.
Even today,
orientalism continues because it is so ingrained
in how we see other peoples and cultures that it goes unnoticed.
Even the term, 'The Middle East' is considered to be orientalist,
because it standardises a Western viewpoint
by referring to West Asia and North Africa as the middle of the East.
Much of what counts as knowledge about the Middle East
and parts of Asia
is still produced through those distorting and reductive glasses.
And just like in the 18th and 19th Centuries,
orientalism remains powerful because it shapes,
not just how people in the West view the East,
but also how they view themselves.
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