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Student Research submissions 2013 (2013 research options) Research Journal |
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Marichia Wyatt
What is Orientalism?
As Americans, we rarely think of colonization as a bad thing.
We tend to idealize the thirteen colonies, as well as the indigenous
population. With Thanksgiving
rapidly approaching I cannot help but remember how it was taught in school:
The Indians saved the Pilgrims by sharing their food, and that is why we
give thanks. That is the first
lesson American children are taught about colonization.
The perfect picture is painted in our heads (and textbooks) of the
colonized and colonizer “breaking bread” in harmony.
Of course we learn later that there is more to the story, but even then
we do not fully understand the concept of the colonization.
Even though it is a part of our history as Americans, it is glossed over
in childhood classrooms. Who wants
to tell kids that their ancestors wiped out the indigenous peoples?
It is a much more flattering if we immortalize Columbus, preach Manifest
Destiny, and give “thanks” for the Native American’s hospitality.
When I signed up for this class I had very
little experience with the East. I
had read Edward Said’s “Orientalism”
in Literary Theory, but struggled with the complex nature of the subject.
I had also studied the mythology of the Mahabharata in an
undergrad class, which I could not get enough of, but that was the extent of my
textual background with “the mysterious East.”
Do to this lack of experience, I had no idea what to expect when I signed
up for this class. I assumed we
would be spending the semester on the American colonies.
I did not even think about the East as the main subject of this class
until I looked at the syllabus and realized I had never heard of the majority of
authors we would be covering.
The books we have read this semester have definitely expanded
my horizon a little further east; yet over the duration of the semester I have
constantly thought back to Edward Said’s assessment that the west produces the
ideal ego through creating the Orient as the other.
As I previously stated, I struggled with this essay when I took Literary
Theory; it was by all accounts a foreign subject to me.
I had no experience with the subject matter, nor had I taken any classes
on post-colonialism; yet this essay stood out in my mind two semesters later.
It simply did not make sense to me.
What is Orientalism actually?
Is it not giving the west too much credit over a rich and ancient culture
by saying they created the Orient?
What are the effects of Orientalism?
Most importantly, what if the text is written by the colonized?
Does it still remain a product of Orientalism?
These lingering questions led me to believe it was time for a second look
at my Literary Theory book.
Even though I had previously read the
biographical information on Edward W. Said, I was still surprised to learn that
Orientalism “is often regarded as
having established the field of postcolonial studies.”
This statement alone speaks volumes about the celebrated professor,
theorist, critic, and political figure.
It also explains why the subject matter is so confusing; it needs to be
studied further.
In his introduction, Said defines his use of
“Orientalism, [as]
a way of coming to terms with the Orient that is based on the Orient’s
special place in European Western experience” (Said, 1866).
Said explains that Orientalism is comprised of two distinctions, “the
Orient” and “the Occident”, and through this distinction both cultures are
defined through the representation of the other.
The Orient is important only in how much it differs from European
culture. He goes on to define
the Orient as “not only adjacent to Europe; it is also the place of Europe’s
greatest and richest and oldest colonies, the source of its civilizations and
languages, its cultural contestant, and one of its deepest and most recurring
images of the Other” (Said, 1866).
As the oldest construct of the European Other, “the Orient has helped to define
Europe (or the West) as its contrasting image, idea, personality, experience”
(Said, 1866). Said contends that in
projecting an other, Europeans define the west by inventing the East.
Orientalist discourse attempts to define
what the East is through the combination of literary anthropology, historians,
politics, artists, archeologists, theologians, scientist, fictions, and poems.
It is only by implementing the European way of learning through discourse
that the west can learn about the east; using Occidental techniques to discover
Oriental ways. Much like any canon,
the works selected are “accepted texts” by the West.
Said states that “[he studies] Orientalism as a dynamic exchange between
individual authors and the large political concerns shaped by the three great
empires—British, French, American—in whose intellectual and imaginative
territory the writing was produced” (Said, 1877).
This follows Said’s theory of the “passive Orient” as opposite of the
“active Occident.” However, Said
believes this to be a depiction of the Orient with several aspects missing, as
nothing ever has only one voice or intent.
There is no single essence of the Orient; there are multiple Orients,
with multiple functions, through multiple periods of time.
It is through the construction of the Orientalist discourse that an
Oriental depiction occurs where it is necessary to “civilize” the East.
This constructed Orient is used to justify colonization through the
civilization of savages. In this
respect, we can see that Orientalism cannot be separated from colonization.
In Said’s view, Orientalism is a product of colonization.
Although this may be in fact true, Said also asserts that “it would be
wrong to conclude that the Orient [is]
essentially an idea, or a creation with no corresponding reality” (Said,
1869). There is a real East, but
like any other product of literature it can only be a representation; not an
exact copy. However, even a
representation cannot be genuine if it is constructed through the lens of a
foreign entity. Herein lies the
problem with Orientalism. How can
something be truly represented as Oriental if it is conceived through European
thought processes? The answer is
simple, it cannot. This is why the
thesis of Said’s work concludes that Orientalism is the construction of an
Oxidental imaginary in a way that justifies the colonization of another.
This allows the justification of overthrowing “local” regimes, and
carving territories in order to create boundaries that only exist for the
European colonies, not the Oriental culture.
The product of Orientalism then becomes a new Orient; a “modern” Orient.
This new Orient can only exist as a product of European enlightenment.
A second (third, fourth, and fifth) look
into Said’s Orientalism did answer a
few of my questions, but certainly not all of them.
I decided to use the University of Houston-Clear Lake, Alfred R. Neumann
Library’s OneSearch to see what else I could find on Orientalism.
In my search I came across Richard King’s “Orientalism
and the Modern Myth of ‘Hinduism’”.
The title alone was enough to catch my attention, even if the length was a
bit long. In reading the summary I
was pleasantly surprised to see that from the start King includes the Indian
people themselves. This was exactly
what I was looking for; a look into what Orientalism meant to the Oriental
people.
Richard
King is the Professor of Buddhist and Asian Studies at Kent University.
In his University bio he describes himself as “an historian of ideas and
a philosopher by inclination but with a concern to explore genealogical
questions of power and representation in the study of Asian traditions and
religious studies in general.” I
found his writing to be incredibly informative, but also very readable.
Like Said, he is extremely intelligent.
However, King is able to present the material in a very understandable
and relatable way. I found King to
be refreshing in this aspect as I could read his journal and not spend too much time looking up terms and phrases in order to understand his point.
Furthermore, King goes a bit further into Orientalism than Said, showing
his reader both negative and positive outcomes.
King believes that there are “two powerful images” used by
the West to characterize the East.
The first image is “the ‘mystical East’— a powerful image precisely because for
some it represents what is most disturbing and outdated about Eastern culture,
whilst for others it represents the magic, the mystery and the sense of the
spiritual which they perceive to be lacking in modern Western culture”
(King, 146). This image is
a product of Orientalism used to define the East as “depraved” and “backwards,”
while also allowing it to be alluring in its mystical elements.
Of course as the Occidental other, the East also needs a second image of
“the militant fanatic” (King, 147).
King contends that this “characterization also has a considerable ancestry,
being a contemporary manifestation of older colonial myths about Oriental
despotism and the irrationality of the colonial subject” (King, 147).
Both of these images are effects of Orientalism.
The East has to be defined in its opposition to Western civilization, and
only through colonization can the East become rational.
The irrational Indian is a common theme used to support
colonization of indigenous people.
King describes this as “irrational in the sense that it requires explanation to
the rational Westerner” (King, 157).
If something needs to be explained to a rational person, it makes the act
in itself irrational, and the person enacting it a savage.
King believes that the same can be said of the religious context of
Heathenism:
“There
were four major religious groups, Jews, Christians, Mahometans, and Heathens.
Members of the last category were widely considered to be children of the
Devil, and the Indian Heathens were but one particular sect alongside the
Africans and the Americans (who even today are referred to as American ‘Indians’
in an attempt to draw a parallel between the indigenous populations of India and
the pre-colonial population of the Americas)” (King, 164).
There is definitely evidence to support this theory.
So what are the rational people to do with the irrational savages?
The answer for colonialists is to modernize the people through education.
In order to educate, the Occident must
translate Indian texts into English.
The English then “established an education system which promoted the
study of European literature, history and science, and the study of Indian
culture through the medium of English” by creating India’s first universities
“according to British educational criteria” (King, 166).
While Sanskrit was still used, it was cultivated to “embody European
learning and science” (King, 154).
It is important to note that while there are still other languages spoken in the
Orient; English is the predominant spoken tongue.
The translation of Indian texts allowed Indological works to become
readily available for the Oxidant to study.
It is with the availability of such texts that the irrational Indian
concept thrives. King believes that
“explanations are necessary because Indian culture is different from Western
culture in many respects; rejecting Orientalist projections of an ‘Other’, will
not smooth over these differences” (King, 157).
It is only through the modernization of India that the people may become
rational. King rather poignantly
points out that “what usually counts as ‘modernity’ seems to be bound up with
attitudes and social changes that derive from the European Enlightenment” (King,
153). It is with this attitude that
the modernization of India began. However, the modernization of India through
Orientalist discourse has been “adapted and applied in ways unforeseen by those
who initiated them… [they] were appropriated by natives Indians…and applied in
such a way as to undercut the colonialist agenda, which, Said suggests, is
implicated in such discourses” (King, 151).
King agrees with Said in most respects of
Orientalism; however there are parts to which King finds his arguments to fall
flat. King believes that Said’s
“stinging critique of Western notions of the East and the ways in which
‘Oriental discourse’ has legitimated the colonial aggression and political
supremacy of the Western world” profoundly omits “the strong tradition of
Orientalist scholarship in Germany, where it was not accompanied by a colonial
empire in the East” (King, 148-9).
Her further surmises that Japan is a subject of Orientalism; yet it too was
never under the colonial rule of the West.
Said himself tells his audience that he is only focusing on British,
French, and American Orientalism, but King feels that this is an omission which
allows Said’s thesis to be overturned by inarguable fact.
Another critique of Said shown in King’s
journal is the lack of an active role of the Indian people by placing “too much
emphasis on the passivity of the native” (King, 150).
King shows his reader that this is not the case as the “indigenous
peoples of the East have used, manipulated and constructed their own positive
responses to colonialism using Orientalist conceptions” (King, 150).
King believes Hinduism to be such a response, as it becomes a national
unifier against Western theology.
Hinduism, according to King, is a colonial invention that was redefined in order
to denounce colonialism. King
provides the following “religious clarion-call” from Swami Vivekananda as an
example of this: “Up India,
and conquer the world with your spirituality…Ours is a religion of which
Buddhism, with all its greatness is a rebel child and of which Christianity is a
very patchy imitation” (King, 160).
King asserts that “the notion of ‘Hinduism’
is itself a Western-inspired abstraction which until the nineteenth century bore
little or no resemblance to the diversity of Indian religious belief and
practice” (King, 162). Before the
time of colonization there was no one unified religion in the East; instead
there were several variants of deities within different tribal communities.
This thought is mirrored by Iqbal in Khushwant Singh’s Train to
Pakistan: “India is constipated
with a lot of humbug. Take
religion. For the Hindu, it means
little besides caste and cow-protection” (Singh, 171).
While Iqbal encapsulates the “modern Indian” with respect to his urban
education, and Western ideals, he too understands that Hinduism cannot be
defined through religion alone.
This assertion is also apparent in Indian law.
King uses the 1955 Hindu Marriage Act, section 2 as his example which
“defines a ‘Hindu’ as a category including not only all Buddhists, Jains and
Sikhs but also anyone who is not a Muslim, a Christian, a Parsee or a Jew”
(King, 163). Are we to then to
ascertain that the Hindu religion can only be defined through negation of other
religions? Maybe at first, but
certainly not after it was transformed into what King describes as “Syndicated
Hinduism” (King, 173).
According to King, Iqbal was correct in his
declaration of Hindu as a representation of caste.
The establishment of Hindu as a national religion was provided by the
Brahmins when “the British found a loosely defined cultural elite that proved
amenable to an ideology which placed them at the apex of a single world
religious tradition” (King, 170-1).
This allowed Hinduism to become a religious tradition accepted by the rest of
the world. Of course as an already
established higher caste, the Brahmana castes were able to benefit heavily in
the transition from tribal and local religions, to a uniformed religion based on
“upper caste belief and ritual with one eye on the Christian and Islamic models”
(King, 172). However, through
several changes made “in response to Judaeo-Christian presuppositions about the
nature of religion” has allowed the new “Syndicated Hinduism” to “transcend
caste identities and reach out to larger numbers” (King, 173).
I cannot help but be fascinated by King’s analysis that Hinduism as a
religion is a direct effect of Orientalism. King also states that “being able to
classify Hindus under a single religious rubric also made colonial control and
manipulation easier” (King, 174).
Whether positive or negative, Hinduism definitely allows for greater unity of
the indigenous people to rise against colonialism “insofar as it refers to the
general features of ‘Indian culture’ rather than to a single religion” (King,
179).
I have found that while I have learned a
great deal about Orientalism, I still would like to learn more.
The subject fascinates me, and I believe that it is necessary to further
my research. By studying Edward
Said, I was able to lay a foundation for understanding the complex concept of
Orientalism. Through Richard King,
I was able to expand my foundation into a coherent understanding of the two
types of Orientalist discourse: “the first, generally antagonistic and confident
in European superiority” and “the second, generally affirmative, enthusiastic
and suggestive of Indian superiority in certain key areas” (King, 184).
I have learned that there are both positive and negative effects of
Orientalism; both of which are propagated by the Occident and the Orient.
There is also the astounding realization that even if a text is written
by the colonized it is still in fact a product of Orientalism.
Although, the one thing that I still cannot pin-point with certainty is
an exact definition of Orientalism. I am able to understand the over-arching
concept that “Orientalism, [is]
a way of coming to terms with the Orient that is based on the Orient’s
special place in European Western experience” (Said, 1866).
However, I feel as if this definition should be expanded to allow room
for Oriental discourse, the effect colonization had for the indigenous people
through education and religion, as well as the New Orient that arose from those
aspects of Orientalism. Perhaps one
day I will be able to define it with these inclusions in a journal entry of my
own.
Works Cited
King, Richard.
Orientalism and the Modern Myth of
“Hinduism”. Numen, Vol. 46,
Fasc. 2 (1999), pp. 146-185.
Leitch, Vincent, et
al. The Norton Anthology of Theory
and Criticism. New York:
Norton, 2001.
