On 'Orientalism': Edward Said

Here is my response to Identify 5 concept related Orientalism from the interview of Edwards Said.

5 concepts:-

1]What is Orientalism:

                                 As per the Said's words. Orientalism is not an imagination it is a material thing and genuine theory. Orientalism has revolutionized the study of MiddleEast and also useful to studies post-colonialism and other disciplines like History, Anthropology, Political science, and Cultural studies.

2] The idea of Difference:

The differences between different kinds of Orientalism are in effect the differences between different experiences of what is called the Orient. I mean the difference between Britain and France on the one hand and the United States on the other, is that Britain and France had colonies in the Orient. I mean they had a longstanding relationship and imperial role in a place like India so that there's a kind of an archive of actual experiences of being in India, of ruling in a country for several hundred years. And the same with the French in North Africa, let's say Algeria or Indochina, direct colonial experience. In the case of the Americans, the experience is much less direct. There's never been an American occupation of the Near East. So I would say the difference between British and French Orientalism on the one hand and the American experience of the Orient on the other is that the American one is much more indirect, much more based on abstractions. The second big thing, I think that differs in the American experience from the British and French of Orientalism, is that the American. Orientalism is very politicized by the presence of Israel for which America is the main.

3]Palestine Issue: 

Said talked about the issue of Palestine that what is the condition of the people there, they have not their motherland because of the forceful occupation by Israel. From 1948 to the present time Palestinian are suffering a lot for the peace and their homeland but Western countries do not take any kind of action on this issue. We also can say that why Europe and America built a new state for Jew people surrounding Islamic countries if they have a love for Jew people then why they vanished jew from Europe. So, Said explained this issue through cultural, religious and political views.

4]Idea of history

Every nation has its own history, the way we interpreted the history is quite different. History is not only about to understand our one's self but to understand our self in terms or in relation with the nation. Eg- Palestinian's local complexities, the mixed background of Arab Muslims, Arab and Jews, Arab Christian, Israeli Jews.

5]The authoritarian, hierarchical Model

I say, not all of us say, well they should be thrown out. Because we have been thrown out and so we have another vision, which is a vision of co-existence, in which Jew and Arab, Muslim, Christian, and Jew can live together in some polity, which I think it requires a kind of creativity, and invention that is possible – vision that would replace the authoritarian, hierarchical model. But this idea that somehow we should protect ourselves against the infiltrations, the infections of the Other, is, I think, the most dangerous idea at the end of the twentieth century. Unless we find ways to do it, and there are no shortcuts to it, unless we find ways to do this, you know there is going to be wholesale violence of a sort represented by the Gulf War, by the killings in Bosnia, the Rwandan massacres and so on. I mean those are the pattern of emerging conflict that is extremely dangerous and needs to be counteracted and I think therefore it's correct to say that the challenge now is – I wouldn't call it anything other than coexistence. How does one co-exist with people whose religions are different, whose

traditions and languages are different but who form part of the same community or polity in the national sense? How do we accept difference without violence and hostility?

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