Misrepresentation and Resistance

A significant issue in Orientalism is its being a representation of the Orient. Representation, in this sense, is a sort of control. As Said argues, representation very often turns to misrepresentation. For instance, Islam has been fundamentally misrepresented in the West. Said ultimately decides that Orientalism overrode the true Orient and negated its truth. As far as Orientalism is concerned, the Orient cannot speak and it needs to be represented. Said quotes Marx’s statement: “They cannot represent themselves, they must be represented.” This statement is used as an epigraph and quoted twice in Orientalism.

Thus “the real issue is whether there can be a true representation of anything.” To put it simply, is it possible to make true statements? There are two major traditions, one denying such a possibility while the other responds positively to this question. As for the first, Nietzsche believes that true representation is not possible, since the nature of human communication is to distort fact. On the other hand, the Marxists claim that true statements are possible. Said’s position is more intricate. He asserts that the line between representation and misrepresentation is always very thin. But he further contributes to this argument by concluding that the distinction between representation and misrepresentation is “at best a matter of degree” and that “we must be prepared, to accept the fact that a representation is eo ipso implicated, intertwined, embedded, interwoven with a great many other things besides the truth, which is itself a representation.” In general, Orientalism is a discourse of misrepresentation. So Said argues against the possibility of true representation, at least in regard to Orientalism. Misrepresentation is the key concept in this book.

Said’s Orientalism is divided into three main sections. The first section introduces the term while focusing on the wide and shapeless scope of Orientalism. Here Said raises the question of representation; he points out that different Western conceptions of the East such as Oriental despotism and Oriental sensuality are ultimately similar. In the second section, Said exposes “Orientalist Structures and Restructures.” He introduces some of the writers of the nineteenth century who exploited knowledge to re-construct and subjugate the Orient. This was of great help towards establishing colonial rule in the colonies. The third and last section examines “Modern Orientalism.” Said connects the traditional Orientalism of Britain and France on the one hand, to that of the United States on the other. He postulates that the same age-old legacies of Orientalism are reflected, for instance, in American foreign policy. Orientalism is the first among a series of Said’s books that attempt to expose the Orientalists and their tenets. It shows Orientalism as a complex web of representations about the Orient. Throughout this process the textual Orient is created first, and then Orientalism is used to control the Orient.

But it isn’t Said’s aim only to prove the ill intentions of Orientalism; he also attempts to talk about the need for an alternative for this kind of scholarship.

He recognizes that there are a lot of individual scholars engaged in producing such knowledge. Yet, he is concerned about the ‘guild tradition’ of Orientalism, which has the capacity to wear down most scholars. He urges continued vigilance in fighting the dominance of Orientalism. Said’s own solution to the problem is to break with the prejudiced position of Orientalism and to adopt a “secular” desire to express the truth via questioning and protesting. So Said does not abandon the reader with mere questions in his book. He rises above that level by affording an answer. He invites us to be:

sensitive to what is involved in representation, in studying the other, in racial thinking, in unthinking and uncritical acceptance of authority and authoritative ideas, in the socio-political role of intellectuals, in the great value of skeptical critical consciousness.

It is unfair to accuse Said of inattention to resistance to the imperial problem; rather he offers practical and highly intellectual ways of resistance.