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A review by savvylit
Orientalism by Edward W. Said
challenging
informative
slow-paced
4.75
Orientalism is an info-dense yet acute deep dive into a Western tradition of anti-Arab, xenophobic, and Islamophobic sentiment in the West. Edward Said traces the history of "area studies" focused on the East from the discipline's early European beginnings to modern American imperialism. From the first, Said reveals that Orientalist studies always focused on proving the entire region as a complete opposite to the West, or Occident. Said carefully analyzes texts that were once considered authoritative on the entire Orient. These texts were exclusively written by Europeans and exclusively obsessed with viewing the East as a dismissible monolith. These "scholars" were also obsessed with quoting each other, preferring the opinions of their "expert" predecessors over any perspective directly from an actual resident of an Eastern nation.
I was sickened to be able to track the way that a handful of racist generalizations became established as fact over the course of a few centuries. What started as a supposed analysis of language or culture eventually became (mis)information used to make devastating global policy decisions. Most disturbingly of all was how eerily familiar I found the stereotypes that Said pulled from Orientalist literature. Though this book was published in 1978, I - as a US citizen who grew up post-9/11 - shamefully recognized the ongoing perpetuation of these racist ideas. Islamophobia and East-focused xenophobia are still such an ingrained part of the Western culture in which I live.
In light of the current genocide of Palestinians, Said's analysis is perhaps as relevant as ever. There is one passage in particular that I keep noticing over and over again in the Western reporting on Gaza: focusing on the Palestinian people as a mass. This idea of a faceless mass allows news outlets to rob Palestinians of their individuality. Which in turn makes it very easy for reporters and viewers alike to maintain racist generalizations. And generalizations in turn mean that those of us consuming the media can look away from the tragedy because it's just something that's happening "over there" to "them."
I was sickened to be able to track the way that a handful of racist generalizations became established as fact over the course of a few centuries. What started as a supposed analysis of language or culture eventually became (mis)information used to make devastating global policy decisions. Most disturbingly of all was how eerily familiar I found the stereotypes that Said pulled from Orientalist literature. Though this book was published in 1978, I - as a US citizen who grew up post-9/11 - shamefully recognized the ongoing perpetuation of these racist ideas. Islamophobia and East-focused xenophobia are still such an ingrained part of the Western culture in which I live.
In light of the current genocide of Palestinians, Said's analysis is perhaps as relevant as ever. There is one passage in particular that I keep noticing over and over again in the Western reporting on Gaza: focusing on the Palestinian people as a mass. This idea of a faceless mass allows news outlets to rob Palestinians of their individuality. Which in turn makes it very easy for reporters and viewers alike to maintain racist generalizations. And generalizations in turn mean that those of us consuming the media can look away from the tragedy because it's just something that's happening "over there" to "them."
Content Warnings
Graphic: Genocide, Colonisation, Racism, War, and Violence