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"Inscrutable" Orientals
By Stephen Herold
Mar 28, 2002 -- When we were little kids the hot things, in movies and our games, were pirates and "Cowboys and Indians." "Cowboys and Indians" was touchy since the Indians were always bad, always lost and were made up of the left-over kids. Popular kids were cowboys who rescued the livestock, killed the bad guys and had smiling and swooning maidens on their arms. It was years until we realized how vicious a stereotype this was, but it governed our games and awareness as we grew up.It has taken even longer to appreciate how many other stereotypes skew the basic foundations of our judgment about people, things and events. The thought of eating caterpillars grosses us out, but to the Matabele "maputo" is a delicacy whose season is anticipated with gusto. During the Second World War we demonized the "Japs" and "Nazis" into scowling caricatures of human beings who wore funny clothes, strutted like peacocks and did only evil. During the Korean War we played at killing "Chi-com gooks" like the government encouraged us to.
To any Moslem his neighbor is another fellow human who honors God and is a man "of the book," but to us they were once exotic and mysterious and are now dangerous and evil. Perhaps of all preconceptions it is this one of the "Oriental" in all his forms and cultures that has exercised the mind of Western man for centuries. The Greeks looked with awe at the magical learning of the Chaldeans and Egyptians, the Three Wise Men came "from the East," the Crusaders sought religious perfection of ancient faiths in the East, and through the Renaissance rare spices, jewels, texts and other desirables came from this distant area we didn't understand. As our culture has grown rich and material and Asia turned Third World we have shifted our "oriental" image to that of scheming, violent men stuck in an irrational past (but loaded with oil). All of these, of course, are equally wrong and destructive of rational judgments.
The topic of the Orient as a figment of our imagination has been wonderfully dealt with in Edward W. Said's book Orientalism (Vintage Books, $15.00). In three thoughtfully composed sections, he analyses the nature and boundaries of the Orient of our imagination, shows how it even bedevils scholars and twists the possibilities of their choices, and demonstrates how it continues to shape our options today. An "Afterword" added in 1994 re-examines the purpose and validity of the book and brings his arguments up to date. The book is written in clear prose and carries one along with well-developed arguments, although it is not a book for the lazy reader of the latest thriller. Perhaps the strongest feeling after reading it is in having the comfortable veil of illusion ripped off our faces, followed by a splash of cold reality. If we see things wrong; if we limit our choices to a narrow set of pre-determined options, then we can never arrive at truth. Said shows us the need to clear our minds before looking at the world.
In his first section, "The Scope of Orientalism," Said gives a historical discussion of the varying definitions and boundaries of the Orient, and how Westerners have imagined it. We hear Disraeli, while visiting Egypt, saying: "My eyes and mind yet ache with a grandeur so little in unison with our own likeness;" or Lord Cromer (the English ruler of Egypt for 25 years) quoting Sir Alfred Lyall: "Accuracy is abhorrent to the Oriental mind." How would that piece of bombast limit Cromer's dealings with his Oriental subjects?
The second section is more complex but more damning, as Said reveals the conditioning blinders that made great Orientalist scholars incapable of a balanced view. In this one study Said devalues and exposes the shortcomings of the entire canon of centuries of scholarship.
The final section, "Orientalism Now," brings us up to contemporary events and the need to truthfully see the events of so essential a region of our modern world. The "Orient" and the "Oriental" is a wide range of people and places; multifaceted, complex and different from us and our world, but certainly no less real and valid. We will never understand each other or work together in harmony until we see without distortion and judge without preconceptions.
Stephen Herold is a scholar, poet and calligrapher who spends his life creating books and running wonderful bookstores. He currently runs Books AtoZ, a digital publishing service company, and Wit's End Bookstore & Teashop in Fremont.
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