The Father Of Post-Colonialism By Edward Said's View Of Orientalism
Orientalism is a book written by Edward Said, the ‘father' of post-colonialism. He is also called as ‘A man of controversy', where his writings influenced many theories, activists, and also changed most of post-colonial studies of the Middle East in the United State and Europe drastically, especially in literary studies, history, sociology, anthropology, and comparative religion studies. His writings have been translated into 26 languages, receives lots of review including critics and enthusiasts, at blogs and published papers. During my reading, I can relate Orientalism to many situations that are still happening in Malaysia. There are numbers of descriptions and interpretations from the West that I find cliché and a stereotypical assumption, yet it still applied to certain race or people in Malaysia. With this, I see most of Said's explanations are rejecting the idea of Orientalism itself and I myself do agree with Said's work. As we can see, at the first page of his first chapter, he quoted from Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Fourier, from Description de I'Egypte, (1809):
"le genie inquiet et ambitieux de Europeens ... impatient d'employer les nouveaux instruments de leur puissance .." (pg. 31, Orientalism). Where it means, "the ambitious and anxious spirit of the Europeans eager to use the new …show more content…
During the colonization, the colonizer brought the ‘us'-‘them' mentality or we can say the ‘knowledge of the Orientals'. For example, British believe that Malays can't rule the country by themselves. The perception of the Eastern is weak still control them at the moment. Although, the West perception about the East may distort when it comes to the far-east such as China and Japan where they can self-govern their country, but it doesn't affect towards the other
"le genie inquiet et ambitieux de Europeens ... impatient d'employer les nouveaux instruments de leur puissance .." (pg. 31, Orientalism). Where it means, "the ambitious and anxious spirit of the Europeans eager to use the new …show more content…
During the colonization, the colonizer brought the ‘us'-‘them' mentality or we can say the ‘knowledge of the Orientals'. For example, British believe that Malays can't rule the country by themselves. The perception of the Eastern is weak still control them at the moment. Although, the West perception about the East may distort when it comes to the far-east such as China and Japan where they can self-govern their country, but it doesn't affect towards the other