Orientalism and Edward Said

Edward Said gained recognition with his controversial ideas and his most notable theory: Orientalism. Before understanding what Orientalism is, one must understand the terms. Below is a breakdown of the terms used to describe the ideology that is Orientalism.

Breakdown of the terms:

Orientalism, in our words is the divide between the western world and the east which aims to maintain the western world and all its cultures dominant and everything else as the weaker. Orientalism is apparent through social barriers, media discourses and nationalism. By instating that the east is the “other” and “exotic” the western world believes that they are the dominant and cultural norm that can save the east of it slow. Racial, ethnic, cultural and religious stereotyping and negative discourses are some of the ways Orientalism exists today.

Orient: The “weak” East, needs saving by the West (discourses of women who look oppressed, stories of women forced to wear hijab”

Occident: The dominant culture which is the West (strong powerful white male, white female)

Oriental: The oriental is the representation of the “other” or the exotic east. Examples of this include women represented as exotic, helpless women who need saving (by the strong, powerful west).

Orientalism according to Edward Said...

"Orientalism is a style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between the Orient. The East and West are starting point for distinction."

“Orientalism is not a mere political subject matter or field that is reflected passively by culture, scholarship, or institutions; nor is it a large and diffuse collection of texts about the Orient; nor is it representative and expressive of some nefarious "Western" imperialist plot to hold down the "Oriental" world. It is rather a distribution of geopolitical awareness into aesthetic, scholarly, economic, sociological, historical, and philological texts; it is an elaboration not only of a basic geographical distinction (the world is made up of two unequal halves, Orient and Occident)”

Information Credit:

http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Orientalism.html

1978 Edward W. Said Orientalism: An introduction

Did you know? ...

- Edward Said was exiled from both Israel and Palestine for his activism.

- His office at Columbia University was set on fire.

- Has been called “ the Professor of Terror”.

Facts provided by:

http://americanswhotellthetruth.org/pgs/portraits/Edward_Said.php

Case study: Aqsa Parvez killed

Media has spun this story to focus on the hijab and religion.

The case is about murder and domestic violence but the media has focused on hijab, a discourse related to Islam.

Once again the story places the west as the Occident and religion and the use of the “hijab” as the oriental.

Video credit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpV_cJ5E0wQ

Discourses post 9/11

Many images seen of women in the media post 9/11 reflect a much oppressed state for them. Women from the Middle East are mostly shown fully veiled and looking unhappy. This is a way that through the media representation of the “other” the west remains the superior culture.

FBI Involvement in Edward Said's Life

The FBI has had a long lasting reputation of taking an active involvement in monitoring intellectuals such as: William Carlos Williams, Martin Luther King and even Albert Einstein. Why should it be any different for the writer, activist, theorist and critic Palestinian-American Edward Said?

David Price, on behalf of CounterPunch (http://www.counterpunch.org/) filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act to release the FBI file on Edward Said. In response Mr. Price got 147 of the 238 pages of the actual file. There were unusual gaps in the records, which might be explained partly because of USA's Patriot Act where it allows the FBI to negate the existence of certain records.

The majority of the documents describe Said's public work with the American-based Palestinian or Arab organizations. These records also show extensive monitoring of his other Palestinian-American contacts.

As it turns out to the Said family, it was no surprise to find out the secret activities of the FBI, as Edward Said's wife Mariam says :

“ We always knew that any political activity concerning the Palestinian issue is monitored and when talking on the phone we would say ' let the tappers hear this'. We believed that our phoneswere tapped fro a long time, but it never bothered us because we knew we were hiding nothing.”

Despite the varied background of knowledge and involvement not only politically but also culturally of Edward Said, all of his FBI records revealed so farm, were classified under “ Foreign Counter-Intelligence”, and related to “IS Middle East”, which is the Federal Bureau category for Israel.

The records start in 1971 , followed by an in depth background check of Edward Said's citizenship, banking , credit and even voting records, in 1972 after the Munich Olympics.

The Munich Olympics marked the unfortunate event of the murder of the Israeli Olympic Team, by the Black September Organization. Scholar Steve Niva who specializes in the Middle East affirms that “ looking back, this post-Munich period may have marked a historic turning point when statements in support of the Palestinian cause became routinely equated with sympathies for terrorism.”

From 1972-1973, the FBI fuelled an investigation purely from reading up on an older article from the Boston Globe, titled “Columbia Professor Blames Racist Attitude for Arab Israeli Conflict”

After the Yom Kippur War ( Oct 1973 ), the records show several of Said's newspaper articles that summarize his view that Palestine and Israel have been set up to fight against each other throughout history, instead of putting up a fight against the Imperial powers of the time.

In 1978, after Said's published book titled Orientalism no records were kept. The following year, the FBI records showed extensive entries about the 1979 Palestine American Congress (PAC)where thirty six names that were attending were blacked out.

The PAC was the most democratic effort displayed by the Palestine-Americans , in regards to the Palestine issues.

Oddly enough the FBI sealed the rest of the records from 1983 to 1991 as “Secret” until the year 2030. Interestingly enough, the remaining years from 1991 to present have no records either.

In a blatantly obvious conclusion, no matter how many times Edward Said made clear his intentions and theories, and his disapproval for all kind of terrorist actions, the US government continued to invade the Said family's privacy.

-Black September Organization Info

<http://www.paperlessarchives.com/black_september.html >

- Information Credit: A CounterPunch Exclusive Investigation : How the FBI Spied on Edward Said, Jan 13 2006

David Price author : Threatening Anthropology: McCarthyism and the FBI's Surveillance of Activist Anthropologists

- Photo Credit: http://secularpakistan.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/edward-said_001.jpg

Disney/ Aladdin/Arabian nights

Disney movies have been recognized around the world by children and many people use the Disney stories as a platform for teaching children lessons through the stories of the princesses.

In Disney’s Aladdin, there are many Orientalist ideologies clear through character portrayals and subliminal messaging through the setting and the song, Arabian Nights. (Lyrics posted below)

Princess Jasmine is portrayed as a victimized prisoner in the Midde East and her responsibility is to obey her father and care for him she is oppressed by the males in her life, which is a common belief surrounding women who live in the middle-east, a theory which keeps the west superior.

In this case the West is automatically the Occident.

Jasmines appearance is interesting as her character appears oppressed by men yet she is dressed like a belly dancer, an exotic discourse used in the media representing the Middle East. The images have changed since 9/11 to women being veiled.

In the song Arabian Nights the setting for the film is set in a land that is considered “Barbaric”

I come from a land, from a faraway place where the caravan camels roam, where they cut off your ear if they don't like your face it's barbaric, but hey, it's home.”(1992)

It is clear the message that the movie sends compares the Middle East to the West and the comparison is showing that the west is modern and liberal where people are treated as equals, though we know that is not the case as patriarchy and racism exist in every society.

Photo credits:

http://www.ahiva.info/public/galeria/jafar.gif

http://disney-clipart.com/Aladdin/jasmine/Disney-Princess-Jasmine3.jpg

http://jerkmag.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/veiled-women-of-afghanistan_73331.jpg

Title: *Aladdin - Arabian Nights lyrics*

Artist: Aladdin Lyrics <http://www.lyrics007.com/Aladdin%20Lyrics.html>


Oh I come from a land, from a faraway place
Where the caravan camels roam
Where it's flat and immense
And the heat is intense
It's barbaric, but hey, it's home

[Original first verse (1992-93):]
Oh I come from a land, from a faraway place
Where the caravan camels roam
Where they cut off your ear
If they don't like your face
It's barbaric, but hey, it's home

When the wind's from the east
And the sun's from the west
And the sand in the glass is right
Come on down
Stop on by
Hop a carpet and fly
To another Arabian night

Arabian nights
Like Arabian days
More often than not
Are hotter than hot
In a lot of good ways

Arabian nights
'Neath Arabian moons
A fool off his guard
Could fall and fall hard
Out there on the dunes

The Middle East and the Media (1)

Photo Credit : http://revousa.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/gaza-strip_540.jpg

The caricature shows that there are people that notice through all the different views that this conflict can be one sided and unfair one could say.

Edward Said's Daughter Talks about visiting Gaza

History of Palestine and Israel : A conflicted past

1897 – Basel Switzerland : First Zionist Congress ( Zionism : search for Jewish homeland) promoted Jewish immigration to Palestine

1914 -WW1 started, the Middle East was an oil asset to the rest of the world

1917 – Balfour Declaration , which supported a Jewish establishment in Palestine

1933 – Haavara Agreement – Nazi Germany allows the transfer of funds to Palestine in turn allowing Jewish immigration to increase

1937 – Peel Commission Report recommended that Palestine be a Jewish State and an Arab state part of the Transjordan, while Bethlehem and Jerusalem are of British rule.

1940 – The British recruited volunteers both Jewish and Arab to fight amongst the British in Italy in 1945

1947 – UN General Assembly opted for the separation of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states

1948 - Violence between the two grew, so President Truman made a complete 180 degrees in his decision and wished for the land to be fully under Israel rule.

1949 – Israel and Arab states agreed to keep a state of peace , while Israel gained 50% more of Palestine's land than originally planned

Orange : Jewish State

Yellow: Arab State

Photo Credit: http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/maps/1900s/1947-67israel.jpg

1953 – Israel launched an attack on the Gaza Strip

1964 – Palestine Liberation Organization was founded to eliminate Israel ( National Charter of 1968 called for it)

1971 – Black September Organization assassinated Wasfi al-Tal, Jordan's prime minister ( after Jordan evicted the Palestine army , after working together to prevent Israeli expansion into the East Bank)

1973 – Yom Kippur War , Egypt takes back the Suez Canal, Israel pushed back the Syrians and threatened Damascus. UN Security Council resolving negotiations between Israel and Arab neighbours.

1979 – Peace treaty between Egypt and Israel

1981 – Israel destroyed a nuclear reactor during a rain in Iraq, while Egyptian president Anwar Sadat was assassinated while celebrating the victory

1989 – UN Security council allowed Palestine to speak directly as its own nations as a UN member. Yasser Arafat : first president of Palestine

1990 – USA refused to grant Yasser Arafat a visa to enter, to adress the UN General Assembly. When the assembly moved to Geneva, Arafat asked for forces to be deployed to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

1999 – Israel elected Ehud Barak as president and opened the “safe” passage routes between the Gaza strip and the West Bank

2001 – Ariel Sharon was elected Prime Minister replacing Barak. Israel and Palestine agree to cease fire, to no avail, the agreement was not followed.

2003 – Israeli PM Ariel Sharon returned for another term

2004 – International Court of Justice decided the Israeli Security barrier was in violation so it was taken down. Palestinian Authority president Yasser Arafat dies.

As it has been noted throughout the academic and political world, Edward Said has been involved through activism in the Israel vs. Palestine conflict. This time line is here to give a brief historical background, which helps to understand Said's theories. Some of his theories talk about the Imperial powers of the time that made decisions that are still rippling through history all the way up to 2010. It is a valuable lesson to learn not to point fingers as it instigates more conflict, and pain. (Blog Editor's Opinion)

Information for this summary provided by :

http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/for/israel.html

Edward Said talks about Israel

Video credit to :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0_sQZm_39o

-EdwardSaidTeam