Can the West truly understand the East? This identical query may also be posed in reverse. Is it possible for a person to adopt an objective viewpoint of the other while assuming one of these two positions?
Since the publication of "Orientalism" by Palestinian-American social scientist Edward Said in the late 1970s, the notion that these two seemingly geographical ideas are predicated on a cultural, political and even philosophical divergence has gained acceptance.
Said was not the first to assert that there are inherited divisions between the East and West and that an "ontological wall" stands in the way of the West's perception of the East. Many academics have suggested that these geographical areas have actually been rooted in a political economy of a difference since the turn of the 20th century. Said's initial position in literary history – that is, what makes it – was because it popularized a reading of the texts side by side.
The notion that a person's perspective of the East is influenced by their intellectual background assumes that the West has had political hegemony over the East for many centuries. Around the time French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte conquered Egypt in 1800, European states established a de facto zone of political and economic dominance that stretched from northwest Africa to Afghanistan. Because of its dominance, the "West" was able to define the "East." This definitional practice was surrounded by the new meaning of the specialty area Orientalism, which had roots in the Middle Ages.
A clear picture of how the "superior" Westerner sees the "needy" Easterner emerges when one reads the extensive accounts of the Eastern journeys of literary pioneers from the West, such as Alphonse de Lamartine, Gerard de Nerval, Gustave Flaubert and François-Rene de Chateaubriand. According to one of the finest French poets of the modern era, Nerval, in "Voyage to the Orient," the author writes: "The Arab is a dog that licks the hand outstretched to him but bites the afraid. He isn't even aware of your legal authority to treat him this way while he is munching on the stick." In the middle of the Syrian desert, Lamartine scribbles the following lines as he considers how to save his Christian "brothers" in Lebanon and Palestine: "Europe should seriously contemplate the idea of a colony that will naturally be subordinate to it. A Christian and hardworking nation can help Syria rebuild.”
The East was a fantastic geography that existed before the Western romantics of the 19th century even arrived, and they only had a vague notion of it thanks to spectacular images. The stereotypes that developed in their minds when they traveled to the East, such as the "harem" and the "Arabian Nights," are represented in travelogues as a reworking of previous ideas rather than as actual realities. These made-up representations of the East, which are frequently employed to describe it, are created at the expense of "destroying" the actual East.
In reading between the lines of these books that "describe" and hence "constitute" the East, Said's "Orientalism" excels as a comparative literature study. But in the 19th century, Westerners who were drawn to the East were more than just romantic poets and wanderers consumed by the desire for "inner purification." As Said once more noted, linguists, anthropologists and historians like Ernest Renan, Silvestre de Sacy and Edward Lane were also creating content under a specialist field that could be dubbed technical Orientalism. Said's concept of Orientalism is closely linked to colonialism. He argues that Orientalists served as the "exploration arm of colonialism," providing technical knowledge to European colonial powers.
Said's Orientalism is a groundbreaking idea because it emphasizes the inherent relationship between colonialism and Orientalism. It also highlights the mental frameworks that shape the Western perspective of the East. However, it would be inaccurate to assume that the story of the East and West is completely illustrated by Said's argument. Many Western scholars, including renowned Orientalists like Bernard Lewis, disagree with Said's assertion that any Westerner who makes a statement about the East is limited by Orientalist discourse. They argue that Westerners can study the East for intellectual curiosity as well as for practical and political reasons.
This debate between modernism and postmodernism about the possibility of objective knowledge underlies this argument. The idea that every Westerner who seeks knowledge about the East is an imperialist is undoubtedly misguided. Although it is true that the West has constructed an imagined geography of the East through literature, this does not necessarily mean that all Westerners seeking knowledge are driven by imperialist motives.
The story of East and West is not just about historical, cultural and political entities, but it is also dynamic and flexible. Said's claim that Dante and Thucydides were early Orientalists is not accurate, nor is the assertion that Muslim thinkers in the early Middle Ages had an objective view of other geographies. However, one can detect an aerial perspective in the works of Ibn Battuta, the famous Muslim explorer who visited several regions of Africa, the Middle East and the Far East in the 14th century. Furthermore, it is questionable if the Ottoman elite had an Orientalist perspective on the peoples in its "East," as scholars like Ussama Makdisi have noted.
The concepts of East and West are highly dynamic and flexible, rather than static and fixed. It is therefore misleading to view them as a singular, cohesive unit, which is one of Said's most significant errors.
For instance, in their respective eras, are Babylonian Iraq, Phoenician Lebanon and Pharaonic Egypt representing the East or the West? Doesn't the West, represented by Nazi Germany for one time, demonstrate that military and technological superiority does not translate into cultural dominance?
In the 21st century, globalization has created new indications that traditional barriers between East and West may shift and loosen, but they will likely not dissolve entirely. Statuses and hierarchies are likely to persist as the world transforms into a vast global village.
Despite the continued existence of political-economic hegemony, which creates a rigid border between the East and the West, it is erroneous to suggest that any Westerner who seeks knowledge of the East is fundamentally misguided, as Said implies. Some argue that if the West were to return to its traditional roots, the opposition between the East and the West would be resolved. According to this argument, the opposition only arose as a result of the West's deviation from its own cultural traditions.
