Orientalism Chapter 3 - Afterword

Said begins the last chapter of the text by describing the different kinds of Orientalism that were practiced, and names Latent and Manifest Orientalism. He explains that Latent Orientalism represents the ideas conceived in the 18th and 19th century, and how these ideas continued to influence the later development of orientalism. On the other hand, manifest Orientalism is based on Latent Orientalism, but unlike Latent Orientalism, it changes with time and adapts with changes in knowledge and information. Said points out that a study of Latent Orientalism helps us understand why the Occident has always been seen as a rescuer of the Orient, or responsible for its redemption. The theories related to manifest Orientalism are what led the English and French colonials to believe that they had come to possess the orient, for these theories were based on the supposed premise of racial inequality. Said puts forward two processes through which the idea of colonialism gained traction, and the first had to do with the wide dissemination of information about the East. The second was the increasingly reduced distance between the orientalists and the orient, both physical as well as metaphysical. Said goes on to explain the conflict between Latent and Manifest Orientalism, as Orientalists were included in the planning of policies and began to be consulted by the government. This conflict between the actual orient and the ideas of latent orientalism culminated with the rise of manifest Orientalism.

Said then discusses an archetype that he labels Kipling’s white man, and explains that the archetype represented a European white man that held a specific view of the orient. His duty is to the colored races of the orient, and he seeks to help the Orient by the knowledge that he possesses but the people of the orient lack. In such a narrative, the Orient is thoroughly dehumanized and individuals of the orient are grouped together. The Orientals are seen to possess the same qualities and deficiencies without any consideration for individual differences. The ethnicity of the people of the East was ignored, and the people were first seen as belonging to that ‘other’ group of Orientals before being thought of as people. Said mentions the sub-categories of the Orientals, including groups like Arabs and Semites, however, he argues that these distinctions made between groups were ill-conceived and not backed by legitimate scientific methods so that groups were divided into categories that did not accurately fit them. The Oriental people were in a way capable of disputing these categorizations due to the hegemony of the west, and the Europeans supported their claims through the veneer of scientific arguments that classified races into different categories.

He goes on to explain how the Orientalists' knowledge of the East turned into political power at the beginning of the 20th century. As western governments began to consult the Orientalists for the formation of public policy, and the Orientalists began to be perceived as a representative of the Oriental people while the actual people of the orient remained voiceless. To support his argument, Said cites T. E. Lawrence, a British Military officer, specifically his discussion of the restoration of the Orient after the conclusion of WWI. Said believes that Orientalists like T. E. Lawrence were hindering the process of understanding the Orient, and working against the liberal attitude that they claimed to espouse.

In the third section of Chapter 3, Said highlights the differences in attitudes towards Orientalism that existed before and after the first world war. Before the war, the Orietnalist’s view was that the West had to lead the Orient towards the path of enlightenment, but after the war, the calls for Independence by Eastern nations led to a recasting of the Orientalist’s role. These demands for Independence brought in a new shift in Orientalism, as the logic behind the Orientalist mindset was re-examined but the underlying assumptions about the Orient remained intact. Said makes these points by delving into the work of two prominent Orientalists of the 20th century, Magnuson and Gibb. He argues that in addition to the work of Gibb and Maginson, the orientalists of the time were in some way estranged from the religion of Islam, and generally imbued with a sense of European superiority over the Orient. This attitude of the Orientalists prevented the people of the East from progressing beyond the ideas of the west that they had from earlier times despite the advancement in other fields like science. In discussing the works of Gibb and Maginson, Said explains that although both scholars came from disparate backgrounds, and had a distinctly different approach in studying the Orient, yet they were both influenced by the assumptions of Oriental study which had remained unchanged throughout the 19th century and up to the 20th century. Said tempers his argument against Oriental scholarship and explains that not all scholarship pursued about the East was necessarily malicious by the west, but since the East was never given a voice, the end result was nearly always counter to the interests of the actual people of the East.

In the final section of the book, Said discusses the state of Orientalism from after WWII and up until the present day. A time period by which England and France had been unseated from their Orientalist position and the mantle was taken up by America. Although America’s only concern with the East was about how it related to the formulation of public policy, and by this time the terminology had shifted from Oriental to terms like Japan, India, Indochina, and Pakistan. He enumerates the major ways in which America affected the Orient. Firstly, he believes that America changed the manner in which the Orient was perceived by the masses, and redirected the study of the Orient from literature to the social sciences. In terms of representation, the Orient’s image began to change after the Arab-Israeli war in 1973, and when the demand for fossil fuels begin to grow rapidly. These factors led to a perception that the Arabs or the Muslims would overpower the other nations of the world. Said explains the change of attitude that was inspired by America, as the Orient became an important subject for the Orient’s administrative policy. Scholars now turned away from the traditional literary texts about the Orient and instead relied on facts derived from supposedly objective texts and subject experts.

America’s ascendance to the world order also meant that Orientalism was no longer a merely scholarly pursuit, but one with real political potential. Said further claims that the American’s were responsible for perpetuating the myth about the arrested development of the Semites that consequently formed the basis upon which the West involved itself in the management of their affairs. Lastly, Said explains that America was responsible for establishing that the false premises upon which Orientalism was founded were indeed valid. Said then concludes the text by explaining that in all of its development, Orientalism failed to treat Orientalism as a human experience, an attitude that continues until the present time.

In the afterword, written 15 years after the publication of the book, Said defends himself against some of the criticisms that had been directed towards him as the political climate changed. He addresses the charge that his work is rife with anti-western language, and explains that his opposition of the west’s treatment of the East does not equate with support for Islamism. He clarifies that the false ideas the west has conceived about the East are not unique in that all cultures create such false ideas about the “other”. However, Orientalism is more harmful than other such myths because policymakers used such outdated and inherently discriminatory ideas to deal with the orient.

Said believes that are two primary reasons why Orientalism has been misrepresented as being anti-Western. The first begins with the simple reason that stereotypes are difficult to shed, and the second is the changes in the political climate that have taken place since the initial publication of the book. He argues that at the time, the general sentiment of the public, as well as the academia, was severely against the Arab world. Ultimately, Orientalism is a text that seeks to support multiculturalism, and he believes that the relationship between the Orientalists and the Orient can be found in other groups as well, like those that study Native Americans or African Americans. Said states that cultural groups should not be formed based on geography and language, moreover, even when such categorizations are formed caricatures of the people should not be used for the formulation of public policy.

Analysis

Said explains the division of Orientalism into Latent and Manifest forms to explain how Orientalism’s core tenets have remained unchanged while political forces have been able to manipulate its details to suit their agendas. Said blames the development of latent materialism for leading to the categorization of races and cultures as well as concepts like ‘Social Darwinism’. In talking about Kipling’s white man, Said explains that it was a manifestation of latent oriental views. Although Rudyard Kipling had brought the persona to life through his work, the sentiment that the character embodied had always existed in the West about the Orient.

Said moves the discussion towards the changes in Orientalism that occurred after WWI, and explains how the Orientalist framework remained intact while only the arguments cited for its conception changed. Said believes that Orientalism during this period of time was actually in decline when compared to the progress made in other disciplines, and Said believes this was because Orientalism continued to be linked to its biblical background, as well as a fear of Islamic teachings and culture. In the afterword of the book, Said attempts to clarify that his position was never anti-western and that he had written the book chiefly because he wished to free scholars from the false and erroneous Orientalism framework that had remained in use for several centuries. Said’s work proved beneficial in the treatment of other cultural groups of the world, and it was particularly useful in the development of postcolonial anthropology, a field of anthropology that seeks to empower populations that had been trodden down by imperial powers like Britain and France.