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Edward Said’s book Orientalism (1978) has extensively explored and discussed various issues related to the knowledge of the Orient which the west created in its history, art, and media. He gives several definitions to Orientalism related to different historic and geographical contexts about the oriental world. Based on Said’s theory and study of Orientalism, this essay will discuss the concept of the created knowledge about the Orient, the Middle East, particularly that knowledge dealing with the Arab and Muslim world. Iraq as a Middle Eastern Arab and Muslim country will be taken as an example of the creation of knowledge by the west. However, the discussion of Orientalism related to Iraq will not review history of events, but will apply the theory of Orientalism on a media work (No End in Sight) which was produced about War on Iraq in 2003. The essay will examine and give analysis of the film in relation to the Oriental knowledge which the west has always been creating and arguably still. Furthermore, it is worth presenting an overview about Orientalism with focus on the religious and ethnic background of the region (Middle East), as that is not in isolation from the history of Orientalism. The essay will also use other literary and academic works and writings which they deal with Orientalism. Discussing and examining how the Orient, particularly the Near Orient represented in the Middle East has been presented and portrayed in western literature will be the core of the essay
Said gives definitions and presents arguments about the Orient in the knowledge which the west created. He points out that the orient in the first place is culturally and historically the origin of Western nations and countries, and its resource of civilizations; “the orient is not only adjacent to Europe; it is also the place of Europe’s greatest and richest and oldest colonies, and the recourse of its civilizations and languages, its cultural contestant, and one of its deepest and most recurring images of the other”. He goes further than that by claiming that “the orient has helped to define Europe (or the west) as its contrasting images, idea, personality, experience’’, (Orientalism 1978; 1). This claim can be a starting point to explain and explore the theory of Orientalism and its various definitions and key elements.
Orientalism was defined and described by Said in different ways and perspectives. One of his explanations of what Orientalism mean is of an academic nature, he states that “anyone who teaches, writes about, or researches the orient- and this applies whether the person is an anthropologist, sociologist, historian, or philologist- either in its specific or general aspects , is an Orientalist, and what he or she does is Orientalism. This is a comprehensive definition of Orientalism which may include other definitions. However, another meaning of Orientalism is more with an intellectual nature, in which Said argues that Orientalism is based on the western-made distinction between the orient and the west; “Orientalism is a style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between “the orient” and (most of the time) “the occident.” And on this style of thought, a whole academic and literary knowledge was created about the oriental world; “a very large mass of writers, among whom are poets, novelists, philosophers, political theorists, economists, and imperial administrators, have accepted the basic distinction
between East and West and the starting point for elaborate theories epics, novels, social descriptions, and political accounts concerning the orient, its people, customs, ‘mind’ destiny, and so on” (Said, 1978:2,3). Orientalism then, in its two previous meanings, the academic and intellectual, cover almost everything has to do with the Orient and dealing with it over a long period of history of relationships of different kind with the West, relationships of confrontations and imperial tendencies.
Here one comes to a third meaning of Orientalism that Said presented, which is of a historical nature as he argues that the west has always created knowledge towards the Orient in order to deal with it, and control it; “taking the late eighteenth century as a very roughly defined staring point Orientalism can be discussed and analysed as the corporate institution for dealing with Orient-dealing with it by making statements about it, authorizing views of it, describing it, by teaching it, settling it, ruling over it: in short, Orientalism as a western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient.” It is obvious that Orientalism can be seen and analysed as a discourse which governs and directs political discipline of constituting the Orient by the West. This discourse outlines the image of social, cultural, and political life of the Orient, and serves as a strong basis of the created Oriental knowledge. This is to say that when studying and dealing with the Orient, one finds it difficult to do that in isolation from the created knowledge about the Orient. Said stresses in this respect; “I believe no one writing, thinking, or acting on the Orient could do so without account of the limitations on thought and action imposed by Orientalism”. He adds to that; “because of Orientalism, the Orient was not (and is not) a free subject of thought or action’’, (Said, 1978; 3).
However, understanding the historic and political background of Orientalism require considering the relationship between the West and East. Britain and France greatly dominated and lead the Orient and created knowledge about it in the nineteenth century until the Second World War. And Since the Second World War, the United States of America started to dominate and ‘orientalise’ the East. So the political and strategic relationship between the West and East created Orientalism. Said states that; “the relationship between the Occident and the Orient is a relationship of power, domination, of a varying degrees of a complex hegemony’’, (Said, 1978;5). Orientalism then has been influenced largely by western colonialism and imperialism.
Orientalism as a system of knowledge that operates to introduce and define the Orient covered historically countries such as “India, Japan, China, and other sections of the far east”, and also largely covered and presented the Middle East region represented in Arabs, Islam, and Arab Muslim countries. Orientalism meant the representation of the Muslim world for hundreds of years as the west confronted and fought with, invaded, and occupied the Arab-Muslim states. Said described it in his book Orientalism as “the Anglo-French-American experience of the Arabs and Islam, which almost a thousand years together stood for the Orient’’ (Said, 1978; 17). This experience has not been of ordinary peaceful and mutual relationships between the West and the Middle East, but marked by conflicts and prejudice. However, There are several reasons made the perception of Arabs and Muslims greatly negative in the West, Said points out that ; “three things have contributed to make even the simplest perception of the Arabs and Islam into a highly politicized, almost raucous matter: one, the history of popular Anti-Arab and Anti-Islamic prejudice in the West, which is immediately represented in the history of Orientalism; two, the struggle between the Arabs and Israeli Zionism, and its effects upon American Jews as well as upon the liberal culture and population at large; three, the almost total absence of Any cultural position making it possible either to identify with dispassionately to discuss the Arabs or Islam’’, (Said, 1978; 26,27). These factors formulated a sort of negative stereotypical knowledge about the Arabs and Islam, which makes it almost impossible to objectively and fairly think of the Arabs, Muslims, and the Middle East. Said argues that “it hardly needs saying that the Middle East is now so identified with Great Power politics, oil economies, and the simple-minded dichotomy of freedom-loving, democratic Israel and evil totalitarian, and terroristic Arabs, the chances of anything like a clear view of what one talks about in talking about the Near East are depressingly small’’. However, from early times the West seems to have not been able to understand and deal with the Middle East; “Europe understanding of one kind of Oriental culture, the Islamic, was ignorant, but complex’’. (Said, 1978;27).
Europeans fear from the religion of Islam which emerged in the Arabian Peninsula in early times can explain why and how Muslims and Arabs were pictured and described by Orientalists. When the Prophet of Islam Muhammed died, Islam has witnessed a large spread in many parts of the east creating much of material for Orientalism. The spread of Islam on all scales scared the west, and made the east, especially Arab Muslims, a traditional other for the West; “after Muhammad’s death in 632, the military and later cultural and religious hegemony of Islam grew enormously. First, Persia, Syria and Egypt, and then Turkey, and then north Africa fell to the Muslim armies; in the eighth and ninth century Spain, Sicily, and parts of France were conquered’’ (Said, 1978;59). These events explain somehow why Orientalists created the very negative knowledge of Arabs and Muslims, especially that Islam was seen by Europe as a threatening religion, which made the West work on creating knowledge towards it and its followers.
It is worth stating here that it is very difficult to compare “the movement of westerners eastwards’’- since the eighteenth century- with ‘’the movement of easterners westwards’’. The West went largely to the near east (Middle east) creating a massive knowledge about Muslims and Arabs; “it has been estimated that around 60,000 books dealing with the near Orient were written between 1800 and 1950; there is no remotely comparable figure for Oriental books about the west’’(Said, 1978;204). Obviously, one can link that with the picture of Muslims and Arabs that is viewed with much uncertainty and ambiguity. The created knowledge about the Middle East was tremendously massive, and its negative influence is still apparent today. Another significant figure of western stereotypes of Arabs, Muslims, and the Middle East in media is quite huge as almost 1000 movies were produced by Hollywood portraying people in the Middle East, particularly Arabs and Muslims as villains, terrorists, and violent people according to a documentary called (Reel Bad Arabs) produced by Education Media Foundation based on Dr. Jack Shaheen’s book Reel Bad Arabs How Hollywood Vilifies a People 2001. It seems like Orientalism is the firm basis of many western media works about the Middle East, and later In the essay, a documentary which was produced about war on Iraq in 2003 will be analysed and discussed as a work of Orientalism dealing with an Arab-Muslim and Middle Eastern country.
Ziauddin Sarder and Marryl Dvies in their book “why people hate America” outlined several issues that can be related to Orientalism as a way of thinking of the other and creating false knowledge particularly about the Middle East in recent events such as invading Iraq. He states that the political discourse towards war on Iraq was affected by “historic narratives’’ and national American myths which are basically created depending on the difference from the other. Furthermore, he uses the example of a veteran CBS news anchor Dan Rather when he was interviewed in Britain. In that interview Rather acknowledged that during war on Iraq “it seemed that as if American and British audiences were watching and hearing about a different war’’. However, and as mentioned previously, this whole knowledge about the Middle East has its historic roots in western history. Orientalism, or knowledge about the Middle East in the today’s telecommunications world, might not be taken for granted as correct and accurate as people tend to know more about each other doubting what institutions, governments present. What Robert Fisk, Britain’s veteran Middle Eastern correspondent who is an outspoken critique of US policies said when he made a lecture tour of America is a good example. Robert Fisk “chose a talk with a deliberately provocative title; September 11: ask who did it, but for heaven’s sake don’t ask why’’. And for the first time in a decade of giving such lectures, he was shocked to encounter packed audiences who expressed ‘an extraordinary new American Refusal to go along with official line, the growing angry awareness among Americans that they have been lied to and deceived’ ’’, (Sardar, Davies, 2002: 5). In general, there is an indication to that there was a created knowledge about the Middle East before and after war on Iraq, but this knowledge was questioned by people in the west.
The following paragraphs will examine and analyse, based on the theory of Orientalism, a documentary (No End in Sight) which presents analysis about War in Iraq and the knowledge produced about it. But before that, it is worth giving a brief historic view about Iraq which is related to colonialism, as an important element of creating knowledge about the Middle East. Iraq “was one of the new states created at the end of World War I to suit the needs of the British Empire. Its strategic location at the head of the Persian Gulf and its extensive oil fields made the nation one of great Britain’s most prized middle eastern holdings”, (Peretz, 1963:367). The country has witnessed since then many events mostly military conflicts and wars, the last war started in 2003.
The documentary No End in Sight starts with statements of the former US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld made after invading Iraq. His statements emphasis and reflect the typical mysterious and ambiguous image of the Middle East and events there, related to the created knowledge about Iraq, he said; “In this little understood, unfamiliar war, the first war of the twentieth century, it is not well known, it was not understood, it is complex for people to comprehend’’. Most of the words he used were obviously negative and indicate to ambiguity and uncertainty towards the war and probably Iraq and its people as typically that part of the world is unknown, mysterious, and difficult to understand. The statements he made can be interpreted and perceived as an Oriental knowledge based firmly on the theory of Orientalism. In other words, he simply tried to explain invasion of Iraq by picturing it as complex and difficult to understand by people. The sequence of scenes right after Rumsfeild’s statements shows and portrays clearly the typical negative image of the Middle East in western literature and media. The following scene includes the well known Saddam Husain’s statue being destroyed with people cheering around it. Right after that, a following scene shows an Iraqi child greeting an American soldier, then an Iraqi woman carrying a board written on it ‘Thank you USA’. Then, a following scene shows the picture of George Bush followed by a large number of Iraqi Muslims praying in the mosque. The following images show large number of Muslims doing prayer, a close up of an Iraqi woman walking down a destroyed street, wearing a black traditional dress. In the next scene a close up image of a gun seemingly carried by an Iraqi police or military personnel is displayed. Then a group of images which are played in sequence showing fire, a religious leader with supporters walking around him in slow motion stressing his angry looks, images of the destroyed city of Baghdad, and finally the white house. Looking at this group of images and scenes, one can see the amount of negativity they carry using children, women, Muslims praying, destroyed streets, fire, weapons, and religious people. This type of image emphasises the validity of the claim of Orientalism, in which it stresses that the Middle East is portrayed as violent, terroristic, different, and complex in the West.
In a following part of the film, a subtitle appears saying “This is the story of America’s invasion of Iraq. It is a story in which many people tried to save a nation’’. The language used here is obviously related to what the theory of Orientalism claims, that the West takes the position of superiority towards the East based on the notion of being different from it and accordingly better and more civilized, and democratic. Therefore, it’s a duty to change it and as was used in the documentary ‘save’ it. The film is more or less dependent on the typical image of the Middle East which Orientalists have created since early times. This is very obvious through the practical production element of the film represented in the use of the mentioned negative images, and the idea which the film is generally based on, the idea of dealing with the war as ‘a story of which many people tried to save a nation’. The film as will be examined in the following paragraph does not discuss at all the legality of war on Iraq, the ethical side of the whole destructive invasion which killed and wounded millions of innocent people both Iraqis and Americans. Instead, the film presents the war as a mistake, a shortage in military planning and performance. Yet, the film discusses openly the circumstances in which the war started, showing how the US government committed terrible mistakes. Again, the film is some how based on tendencies which Orientalism stresses such as, the West can change others, the West has the right to go and change regimes of other countries and spread democracy, the West is dealing with people who are mysterious, violent, and unpredictable. All these tendencies seem to be taken for granted by Western viewers as the created knowledge he or she has always perceived is immense.
A following part of the film shows the destruction of the twin towers in New York, followed by images of events took place right after the invasion; the looting that broke out in the city of Baghdad and Iraq. These images were used and played again and again by Western media emphasising the stereotypical oriental image of Arabs and Muslims being villains. However, the looting was allowed by US government according to the US Ambassador to Baghdad Barbra Bodine who was interviewed in the film. She said that she received a call from US government when she was in Charge of Baghdad for the US Occupation, telling her ‘we are not going to stop the looting’ stressing that there were political explicit instructions from Washington DC not to do anything regarding the looting. She particularly confirmed this when she was asked by the interviewer. This might suggest that the images of looters and other violent events were allowed to be used later to match them with the stereotypical oriental knowledge towards the Middle East which has been created to justify and legitimise political Western ambitions in the East since early times.
Though the film was discussing events based on facts such as the situation in Iraq which was very bad on many levels, and US government committed great mistakes, yet it used a type of images which are stereotypically based on the created knowledge of the West towards the East, the Middle East. The same kind of common images used in western history, media, and popular culture. The whole film concentrates on the practical mistake which the coalition forces led by the US committed in Iraq, rather than discussing the issue in a broader legal and humanistic context. The film can be considered a work based on Orientalism. What enhances this is how Iraq was generally pictured in the film as a country which is out of control, with violent people, religiously extreme, fire everywhere, and destroyed cities. All the interviews that the film included were discussing the shortage of US politicians and military forces as if the issue of how legal and ethical to invade a foreign country is not of a great attention and importance. This is represented more clearly in the conclusion of The film, which was concluded by an interview with a lieutenant in the US Marines Forces saying with tears in his eyes “ Don’t tell me that this is the best America can do’’. One can argue and say that this film deals specifically with the shortage of coalition forces in War on Iraq, but yet, the typically negative images it used, the idea of saving a nation, the concentration on the practical shortage rather than the ethical and legal side of the invasion, all these elements are in the context of Orientalism. The general portrayal of the Middles East, Arabs and Muslims are as almost the same as images were used in western media and popular culture.
In conclusion, Orientalism as a created knowledge towards the orient has always been there in western mind and literature, and in different times, it takes different forms and shapes, but generally rely on the same typical idea based on the negative, ambiguous, suspicious, violent, ignorant, and complex image and nature of the Orient for the west. The Middle East particularly its Arab Muslim peoples, have been a rich material for Orientalists since early times and that is obviously still affecting the image of the religion in today’s western mind, media, and popular culture. However, as the world is changing due to telecommunication and globalisation, the typical gap between West and East might not be as large as before. Yet, the long history of Orientalism will keep its negative effects on the image of the orient, the Middle East in particular.
By Walid Abudhair
29.08.2009. 07:11