Page 210 - Memory of the East
P. 210
The photographs, the writings of travelers, the novels, the paintings, and other
methods of representation of the world were essential elements in the production
of Orientalism. Through these methods, the western culture has attributed to the
eastern culture, especially the Middle Eastern one, the characteristics of exoticism,
savageness, and barbarism, providing another "different" and less valuable description
of those cultures. Edward Said wrote in his book about Orientalism in 1978 that
Orientalism is a way of coming to terms with the Orient that is based on the Orient's
special place in the western European experience. The Orient is not only adjacent
to Europe; it is also the place of Europe's greatest, 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.
Thus, Orientalism represents a bilateral paradox between Europe and the East.
In such a paradox, negative characteristics are attributed to the East and positive
ones are attributed to the West. These perspectives still exist not only in politics
but also in the cultural representations, as in some forms of contemporary popular
culture, for instance, the movies that portray Arabs as terrorists and Asian women as
very sexually attractive. It is also seen in the advertisements that present stereotyped
images of other peoples living in absolute happiness or in absolute misery for the
purpose of marketing goods, political trips, and others, the so-called now selling the
difference and the ethnic differences (glamor of the East and charm of the West) as
one of the key aspects of marketing that image, and since consumers, as tourists, are
promised with original and rare experiences to enjoy there.
In the light of Edward Said's analysis of Orientalism, the western description, in arts
and cultural studies on the East, not only was an ideological distortion convenient
to the emergent global political order in Europe during the nineteenth century and
beyond, and perhaps earlier, but also it was a sort of densely imbricated arrangement
of forms of expression, imagination, and knowledge that organized Orientalism and
its production as a political reality.
There were fixed features that defined this Orientalist reality and attributed what
is positive to the West and what is negative the East, especially the Arab and Islamic
worlds. These features are passive rather than active, static rather than mobile,
emotional rather than rational, and chaotic rather than ordered. The East or the Other
208
methods of representation of the world were essential elements in the production
of Orientalism. Through these methods, the western culture has attributed to the
eastern culture, especially the Middle Eastern one, the characteristics of exoticism,
savageness, and barbarism, providing another "different" and less valuable description
of those cultures. Edward Said wrote in his book about Orientalism in 1978 that
Orientalism is a way of coming to terms with the Orient that is based on the Orient's
special place in the western European experience. The Orient is not only adjacent
to Europe; it is also the place of Europe's greatest, 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.
Thus, Orientalism represents a bilateral paradox between Europe and the East.
In such a paradox, negative characteristics are attributed to the East and positive
ones are attributed to the West. These perspectives still exist not only in politics
but also in the cultural representations, as in some forms of contemporary popular
culture, for instance, the movies that portray Arabs as terrorists and Asian women as
very sexually attractive. It is also seen in the advertisements that present stereotyped
images of other peoples living in absolute happiness or in absolute misery for the
purpose of marketing goods, political trips, and others, the so-called now selling the
difference and the ethnic differences (glamor of the East and charm of the West) as
one of the key aspects of marketing that image, and since consumers, as tourists, are
promised with original and rare experiences to enjoy there.
In the light of Edward Said's analysis of Orientalism, the western description, in arts
and cultural studies on the East, not only was an ideological distortion convenient
to the emergent global political order in Europe during the nineteenth century and
beyond, and perhaps earlier, but also it was a sort of densely imbricated arrangement
of forms of expression, imagination, and knowledge that organized Orientalism and
its production as a political reality.
There were fixed features that defined this Orientalist reality and attributed what
is positive to the West and what is negative the East, especially the Arab and Islamic
worlds. These features are passive rather than active, static rather than mobile,
emotional rather than rational, and chaotic rather than ordered. The East or the Other
208
