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STUDENTS, TEACHERS, and EDWARD SAID: TAKING STOCK of ORIENTALISM by Joshua Teitelbaum and Meir Litvak,* Translated from Hebrew by Keren Ribo

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STUDENTS, TEACHERS, and EDWARD SAID: TAKING STOCK of ORIENTALISM by Joshua Teitelbaum and Meir Litvak,* Translated from Hebrew by Keren Ribo STUDENTS, TEACHERS, AND EDWARD SAID: TAKING STOCK OF ORIENTALISM By Joshua Teitelbaum and Meir Litvak,* translated from Hebrew by Keren Ribo Since the publication of Orientalism in 1978, Edward Said's critique has become the hegemonic discourse of Middle Eastern studies in the academy. While Middle Eastern studies can improve, and some part of Said's criticism is valid, it is apparent that the Orientalism critique has done more harm than good. Although Said accuses the West and Western researchers of "essentializing" Islam, he himself commits a similar sin when he writes that Western researchers and the West are monolithic and unchanging. Such a view delegitimizes any search for knowledge--the very foundation of the academy. One of Said 's greatest Arab critics, Syrian philosopher Sadiq Jalal al-Azm, attacked Said for the anti-intellectualism of this view. Since German and Hungarian researchers are not connected to imperialism, Said conveniently leaves them out of his critique. Said also ignores the positive contribution that researchers associated with power made to the understanding of the Middle East. Said makes an egregious error by negating any Islamic influence on the history of the region. His discursive blinders-- for he has created his own discourse--led him before September 11, 2001 to denigrate the idea that Islamist terrorists could blow up buildings and sabotage airplanes. Finally, Said's influence has been destructive: it has contributed greatly to the excessively politicized atmosphere in Middle Eastern studies that rejects a critical self-examination of the field, as well as of Middle Eastern society and politics. The study of the Middle East, or learning that was not integrated in the wider "Oriental studies," as this discipline was discipline of history. once referred to in the past, has faced Leading the charge of critics ha ve been increasing criticism since the 1960s by Edward Said's writings, and above all scholars both in the region and from the Orientalism (1978).2 Indeed, academic West. Indeed, in any comparison of the scholarship on the Middle East has been accomplishments of Middle Eastern studies profoundly altered by this book. Its success with developments in the writing of was a combination of several processes, European and American history, the former including a great enthusiasm for the Third is found wanting, particularly in the area of World in the American academy, increased methodology and in the subjects studied.1 criticism of America's policies following There are several reasons for Middle the Vietnam War, 3 and generational as well Eastern studies' relative stagnation; some as ethnic changes in the research have to do with the nature of historical community--expressed mostly by the sources in the Middle East, and others have entrance of many new researchers of to do with the development of the Middle Eastern origin to Western and discipline, which had its beginnings in the especially U.S. institutions. Edward Said philological tradition as a branch of expressed the bitterness of academics Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 10, No. 1 (March 2006) 23 Joshua Teitelbaum and Meir Litvak toward previous research approaches and hegemony. "5 "Orientalism" --once a school the United States itself. of art but since turned Said's neologism for According to Martin Kramer, the this unique combination of knowledge and Orientalism critique gave these researchers power--is simultaneously the source of an apparent advantage over their Western perception and its product, since it is colleagues, since they were, presumably, strongly related to European identity as free from the limited Western ethnocentric superior to all non-European peoples and perspective and could interpret and examine cultures, and to the oppression of the it in a more reliable way. This orientation Middle East by the Europeans. was reinforced by the collapse of the Said defines Orientalism in several modernization theory, which was perceived ways: First, "Orientalism is a style of rightly as a reflection of an empirically thought based upon an ontological and flawed Western ethnocentric perception, epistemological distinction made between and the rise of other theories in the field of the 'Orient' and (most of the time) the social sciences, such as the dependency 'Occident.'" This distinction, which Said theory, which blamed most Third World argues can be traced from the days of problems on Western imperialism. Homer and Aeschylus in ancient Greece Moreover, the development of historical and up to the present, emphasizes the and social science res earch proved that the supremacy of the West versus the traditional, philological method had been inferiority of the East. Second, it is a field found wanting, and, at times, even of academic research that includes everyone misleading.4 who writes and teaches about the Orient. The purpose of this article is to analyze Third, Orientalism is a "corporate and put in perspective some of the institution for dealing with the Or ient " debates which resulted from Said's book beginning in the eighteenth century. In and its hegemony in the American short, Orientalism is seen "as a Western academy, as well as to point out some of style for dominating, restructuring, and the negative results which arose from this having authority over the Orient. "6 criticism. According to this perception, the Middle Said 's starting point is that the existence East is static, unchangeable, and cannot and development of every culture compels define itself. The West, therefore, through the existence of a different and necessarily Orientalism, took it up on itself to represent competitive "other" or "alter ego." the Orient and by that means to open it to Therefore, as part of a process of exploitation. The very essence of constructing its self-image, Europe created Orientalism is to take control of the Orient the Middle East (the "Orient") as the and take away from it any ability to speak ultimate "other," as a counter-image in all for it self. European science first started to possible aspects. The Middle East (the "represent " when it began to "classify, to "Orient ") and the West (the "Occident") type the world and its inhabitants into the "correspond to no stable reality that exists stronger and the weaker, backward and as a natural fact," but are merely products advanced, superior and inferior types. " Said of construction. Still, "[t]he relationship maintains, therefore, that it is the idées between Occident and Orient is a reçues and prejudices that determine the relationship of power, of domination, of representation. Hence the knowledge 24 Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 10, No. 1 (March 2006) Students, Teachers, and Edward Said: Taking Stock of Orientalism created by the representation is "never raw, principle of control and the production of unmediated, or simply objective. "7 discourse. It establishes the limits of Said describes Orientalism as a discourse by the play of an identity which discourse, a definition he takes from the takes the form of a permanent French philosopher-historian Michel reactualization of rules."11 Said argue s that Foucault. According to Foucault's without "examining Orientalism as a definition, discourse is a system of thought discourse, one cannot possibly understand that governs the knowledge one may obtain. the enormously systematic discipline by This knowledge, which is inspired and which European culture was able to oriented by the discourse, is a paraphrase of manage--and even produce--the Orient, ideas and preconceived notions.8 A politically, sociologically, militarily, discourse is the result of interaction ideologically, scientifically and between knowledge and power, which are imaginatively during the post- connected to each other in a never-ending Enlightenment period." He continues: circle. Foucault thinks that knowledge is "Moreover, so authoritative a position did power and that it is the way of gaining Orientalism have that…no one writing, power: thinking, or acting on the Orient could do so without taking account of the limitations No body of knowledge can be on thought and action imposed by formed without a system of Orientalism."12 communications, record, Said, like Foucault, denies the concept accumulation and displacement, of knowledge and scholarship for its own which it itself is a form of power sake; according to his method, knowledge and which is linked, in its existence is always connected to political, and functioning, to the other forms sociological, economic and other power of power. Conversely, no power can systems. It is formed by interactions with be exercised without the extraction, political power (such as colonial or imperial appropriatio n, distribution or institutions), intellectual power (such the retention of knowledge. On this dominant sciences, and among them level, there is not knowledge on one comparative philology), and with cultural side and society on the other, or power.13 science and the state, but only the With these ideas as the foundation of his fundamental forms of thought, knowledge ("Orientalism") and knowledge/power.9 power (imperialism) are presented as two central themes in all of Said 's books and Scholarly exercises in analysis and articles on the Middle East and on Middle research, purported to be objective, are Eastern studies. The first is the European "founded in and aid in the maintenance of a interest in Islam, which result ed not from certain system of dominative social curiosity but rather from the fear of a relations and political practices."10 In the powerful monotheistic competitor in the words of Foucault, "one is only in the truth cultural and military field. This by obeying the rules of a 'discursive police' combination of fear and animosity lasts that must be reactivated in each one of until today: Said argues that he had "not these discourses. The discipline is a been able to discover any period in Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol.
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