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Chapter 1, Part 2
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Orientalism, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The West’s View of the Eastern World
Knowledge and Power
Belief, Consensus, and Reality
The Persistence of Racism
The Personal as Political
Summary
Analysis
Having briefly sketched the history by which Orientalist discourse organizes and describes the Orient, Said turns to Orientalism’s political projects. At first, these are focused almost entirely on the contest (both spiritual and temporal) between Christianity and Islam, for which there are multiple and complex reasons. But by the mid-18th century, the Orient has expanded beyond the confines of “the Bible lands” and Islam to encompass new places like India—which, crucially, are colonies of European countries.
Orientalism’s ability to expand or narrow based on the political and social circumstances of the societies in which it exists are part of what, for Said, proves that it’s a discourse rather than a discipline. So too is the fact that its cultural currency goes hand in hand with the colonial projects of the British and French, who, by the 18th century, had turned away from their (by that point, largely failed) colonies in North America toward countries south and east of Europe.
Themes
It wasn’t until the mid-18th century that the idea of the Orient began to expand beyond Islam, the Arabs, or the Ottomans and into new places like India. Interest in the Orient expands with translations of ancient Zoroastrian and Hindu religious texts in the second half of the 18th century and by catalogs of Indian laws, customs, and history written by colonial administrators like William Jones. These 19th-century Orientalists feel duty-bound to “rescue” “classical Oriental grandeur” to improve the lot of modern Oriental subjects.
Like their earlier and later counterparts, 18th- and 19th-century Orientalist serve the interests of empire, like understanding indigenous laws as a first step for creating colonial laws that would allow them to better control indigenous people. Nor is it hard to see the blatant racism in the desire to protect the classical Orient from the modern Orient. Orientalist discourse recognizes the value that the Orient has in the context of human history, but it plays rhetorical games to deny this value to modern cultures.
Themes
Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1797 is a crucial turning point because it marks the first—but not the last—time European colonial powers put the Orientalist’s specialist knowledge to use for conquest. Napoleon’s actions in Egypt stand out in three important ways: first, he prepared by immersing himself in the Orientalist scholarship about Egypt. Second, once there, Napoleon carefully positioned his invading force as a friend of Egypt and Islam. He had declarations translated and promulgated in Arabic, and he made a point of flattering Muslim clerics and respecting the Quran. Third, amidst his political conquest, Napoleon established a full-scale academy charged with documenting and describing Egypt.
Said sees Napoleon’s conquest as different from those which went before because it’s an entirely Orientalist project. Napoleon starts with the idea that he wants to invade Egypt—both to disrupt Britain’s trade route with India and as part of his general plan to expand French territory and influence. During the period, he was conducting a series of territorial wars within Europe, as well. From there, he consults experts with the knowledge to furnish him both the rationale (rescuing its ancient, glorious history from allegedly degenerate modern citizens) and the means (knowledge of Arabic language and Islamic practice) to do so. And by aligning themselves with Napoleon’s geopolitical aims, the Orientalists that accompany him gain further access to the area and history they want to study.
Themes
This French account of Egypt is Description de l’Égypte, a 23-volume encyclopedia published between 1809 and 1828. The preface, written by Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Fourier (secretary of the Institut d’Égypte) sets out the stakes for French domination of a country that lies at the confluence of Africa, Asia, and Europe—a country whose undeniably important contributions to human history France wants to assimilate via its annexation of the country. Throughout his account, Fourier stresses that France does everything for the good of the Egyptians themselves, who had plunged from their former glory into a state of modern “barbarism.”
One of the interesting things about Orientalist discourse is that it isn’t even very subtle. The encyclopedia very openly states France’s geopolitical reasons for invading Egypt, even if it tries to defend those reasons as beneficial rather than exploitative. This is part of Said’s argument about the discourse of Orientalism—it’s powerful and seductive because it manufactures consent for the powerful to exploit the vulnerable.
Themes
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Although Napoleon’s Egyptian expedition fails, it sets the model for future colonial efforts in the Orient. It also gives birth to a cottage industry of Orientalist writings (novels, ethnographies, and travelogues) and to scientific and geopolitical attempts to exert control over Egypt, such as Ferdinand de Lesseps’s Suez Canal project, completed in 1868. Said claims that de Lesseps brings it to fruition primarily because he skillfully activates Orientalist theatrics. European Orientalists see this project as the achievement of an ancient pharaonic vision and a stunning example of how the West has “known, then invaded and possessed, then recreated” the Orient as the rightful property of the West.
France’s invasion of Egypt—the very idea that it would be easy for Napoleon to waltz in and claim a country that just declared independence from its last colonial power (the Ottoman Empire)—testifies to the power Orientalist ideas. Especially about the essential weakness and passivity of Oriental subjects, who were too backward to take care of themselves. The discourse also takes over when reality shows its ideas to be false. If France can’t hold on to Egypt in the real world, it will cling to a fantasy of domination in the imaginary realm. When de Lesseps succeeds in constructing the Suez Canal, he casts the project not as an aggressive takeover but as the culmination of Egypt’s own potential.
Themes
