Orientalism is a clear study of the fabricated ideologies of the Orient. Political and social ideas that were manipulated and implanted by the British mainly dominated the East during colonization. The author looks deeply into the opinions and propaganda that were fueled in the East by the colonial powers that governed the continent. Orientalism, as traced back as far as three centuries ago, entailed the translation of Oriental materials to the dominant British language, English. The British colonizers deemed it necessary to translate these materials to understand the people they sought to rule over.
The Western colonizers believed themselves to be superior to other races. They saw the Orient as the complete opposite of themselves. The Oriental was the entire Asian continent. It is made up of many nations with completely different cultures. All these cultures were summarized into one culture which created room for deliberate misrepresentation of them. Orientalism played a significant role as the system used by colonial governments in the Orient to amass power, control millions of people and have autonomous control over the East. Even though colonization is somewhat over, the mentality, way of life, and representation that were the pillars of colonial rule are still deeply rooted in the world. Acting as a post-colonial read, it fundamentally seeks to expose the dark sides of colonialism. It exposes why the deliberate assumptions made during the colonial period still prevail some 200 years later.
These false assumptions are still harmful to the Eastern continent. This type of thinking divided people who resorted to conflict to affirm back their culture and way of life. It makes it even harder for a genuinely interested outsider of the culture to see the honest and pure way of the Eastern side of the world. The West deliberately made the people from the East be viewed as irrational, overtly passionate, and stereo typically seductive and exotic. The study of Orientalism did not benefit the Eastern world at all, it only promoted the West’s domination of the world. The colonial masters from the West even went as far as to claim that they knew more about the Eastern landscapes and history than the people who had lived there for generations. The text calls out the grounds on which oriental studies were built. It’s also viewed as a political statement meant to further push the exploitative and controlling ideology of the West.
