Orientals Through the Lenses of USA and UK Authors
ENGL 256D
Wednesday, April 29, 2020
Assem Abou Ali
Malek Shreim
Tarek Raidan
Submitted to: Dr. Najla Jarkas
- Orientalism Definition
Orientalism is a way of seeing that assumes, emphasizes, exaggerates and distorts the differences of Arab people, cultures, and traditions as compared to those of the West. It often views the Arab culture as exotic, uncivilized, and at times even dangerous.
As per Edward Said, Orientalism is the Western attitude that looks down at the East and views its societies as primitive and inferior. According to him, an Orientalist mindset centers the Western world and views the Eastern world as “the other”, referring to the Eastern people as “them” while referring to the Western people as “us”.
This mindset has allowed, and continues to allow, the Westerners to justify the imperial conquest (such as colonization) of the Eastern world throughout history.
He also mentions the following stereotype in his book “Orientalism”: “Westerners, and on the other there are Arab-Orientals; the former are (in no particular order) rational, peaceful, liberal, logical, capable of holding real values, without natural suspicion; the latter are none of these things.”
- Goal of the Project
The main goal of this project is to try to identify the attitudes of the Orientalists towards the Orient. More specifically, we narrowed down our project scope to Orientalists originating from either the UK or the US, aiming to compare their word choices and patterns and the attitudes that those reflect towards the Orient and the Orientals. Furthermore, we focused on texts written strictly before the year 1860 and those written after the year 1910, forming a time gap of 50 years which would be enough for word trends to change and attitudes to vary.
- Research Questions
These goals that we set led to the following research questions:
- Did UK and USA writers look at the Orientals from the same perspective? (i.e. Could Orientalism be regarded as a consistent movement?)
- What different words/vocabularies were used by these authors in their writings during the given time periods that would reflect on their attitudes?
- How did the attitudes of the Orientalists change with time?
- Methodology
First, we decided to read a few orientalist writings to come up with words that could help us determine the attitude of the Orientalists towards the Orient.
To extract these words, we primarily focused on Edward Said’s book, Orientalism, in which Said criticizes the Orientalists and the Westerners for being biased and looking down at the Orient. He defines the Orient and the Occident (as in the West) as two unequal halves of the world. He also mentions some of the views that the Orientalists have of the Orient as racist, politicized, and dehumanizing.
Additionally, we extracted some words that reflect those attitudes from the book Representing Difference in the Medieval and Modern Orientalist Romance by Amy Burge, which touches on the topic from a different aspect such that it highlights the essence of what is known as “sheikh romance” and the difference between this kind of romance and medieval romance and along the way sheds a light on the attitude towards Orientalism from the relationship, culture, and artistic aspect.
Finally, we read Before Orientalism by Kim M. Phillips to back up our attitudes and extend our research horizon. In this writing, Kim Phillips addresses how Europeans have always looked at their culture as privileged, and at other cultures as somehow inferior. She also refers to Edward Said’s book and comments on many of his points regarding the attitudes of the Westerners towards the Orient, agreeing with his concepts, but also arguing against the extent to which he described those attitudes. She thinks that Said exaggerates the extent to which Westerners look down at the Orient and condescendingly describe it.
For example, Said (1978) mentions the following view that Westerners, and specifically Lord Cromer’s, have of the Orientals: “Orientals or Arabs are thereafter shown to be gullible, “devoid of energy and initiative,” much given to “fulsome flattery,” intrigue, cunning, and unkindness to animals; Orientals cannot walk on either a road or a pavement (their disordered minds fail to understand what the clever European grasps immediately, that roads and pavements are made for walking); Orientals are inveterate liars, they are “lethargic and suspicious,” and in everything oppose the clarity, directness, and nobility.” (p. 46).
After coming up with our list of words, we searched for those words on Antconc in our main corpus and used the hits it yielded to come up with attitudes of the Orientals towards the Orient and to validate the claims of Said that we have extracted earlier. The list of word is found in the table below as well on this document.
| Disdain Problematic Despised Primitive Barbaric Degenerate Exotic Ethnic Religious Monstrous Pervasive Pejorative Monstrosity Superiority Racism Discourse Imperialism Domination Stereotypes Supremacy Unkindness Liars Story telling Irrational Depraved Hegemony Guilty | Childlike Inferior Unnatural Poems Poets Poetry Inferiority Weakness Crime Doctrines Tradition Dominating Restructuring Cultural Unchanging Dogmatic Imperial Superior Amorphous Unequal Racist Mysterious Dehumanizing Cunning Gullible Lethargic Suspicious |
Finally, we analyzed the word trends that have appeared in our sub-corpora accompanying the word Arab (using Antconc’s collocates tool) and used those hits to further back our results concerning the attitudes as well as compare our sub-corpora (USA vs UK & before 1860 vs after 1910). The following tables summarize these words, which are also found in this document.
| Frequent Words vs Corpus | Collocates of the Word “Arab” | |
|---|---|---|
| Before 1860 | Madinah – Meccah – princess – shaykh – lord – sir – appearance – mohammed | shaykh(s) – tribes – horses – women (&woman) – village(s) – poets (& poetry) – merchant – dress – costume – pagans |
| After 1910 | Turkish (turk, turks) – german – british – enemy – war – attack – infantry – fighting – prisoners – empire – against | Shatt (shatt el arab) – provinces – woman – empire – turkish (grouped with arabs and persians many times) – horsemen – nationalist – girl – dress – army – against |
Word trends in texts written before 1860 and texts written after 1910
| Frequent Words vs Corpus | Collocates of the Word “Arab” | |
|---|---|---|
| USA | Moslem – Islam- Knights – Islamic – Mohammedan | Empire- Provinces- Writers- Tradition- Tribes- Chiefs |
| UK | King – Allah – Prince – Meccah – Pasha | Shatt (shatt el arab) – Tribes – Caliph – Sheik- poets – Bedouin – Persian – Noble |
Word trends in texts written by US Orientalists and texts written by UK Orientalists
- Results
Most of the hits we got from Antconc actually backed Said’s claims. Although, we agree with Kim Phillips, that Said may have exaggerated to some extent and overgeneralized, it is still very apparent that most Orientalists had a condescending, callous, judgmental, and sometimes malicious, attitude towards the Orientals. For example, the below screenshots from Antconc show the concordance plot tool results for the words “Superior” and “Inferior”. It is clear from these few plots that these words were used very frequently in their writings, mostly in the context of comparison with Orientals, which verifies that westerners view themselves as superior to the Orientals. More results are found in the same document of the word list in the form of screenshots from the hits we got on Antconc that would further back Said’s claims to some extent.
Additionally, the below screenshot from Antconc, shows an excerpt from The New World Of Islam by Lothrop Stoddard which shows but one of the numerous definitive examples of the condescending look Westerners have towards Orientals, viewing them as inferiors.
Nevertheless, we still found some results in which the westerners were kind in their writings, recognizing the skills of the Oriental culture & arts, appreciating their poetry, distinguishing the Arabs’ prowess in storytelling and poetry, and comparing Arab poets and story tellers to the European artists of the renaissance. The below screenshots from Antconc, which show the concordance plot tool, show the number of times the words “Poetry” and “Poets” were mentioned in various books from our corpus which sheds light on the fact that Orientalists appreciated and viewed poetry as the main talent or art form that Arabs possessed. These results are also found at the bottom of the same document linked; however, it is worthy to mention that they were not a lot, especially that we were mainly looking for the attitudes specifically mentioned in the resources we have read.
The below screenshot from Antconc shows an excerpt from Zigzag Journeys in the Camel Country by Amy E. Zwemer, which shows that the Arabs’ eloquence and poetry skills were highly regarded to the extent of being viewed as part of God’s gift to humanity.
The below screenshot from Antconc, shows an excerpt from Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Meccah by Sir Richard Francis Burton, which shows the appreciation and value that philosophers, specifically Voltaire, had for Arab Poetry, saying that love’s origin should be attributed to it instead of Medieval Christianity.
The below screenshot from Antcon shows an excerpt from Mystics and Saints of Islam by Claud Field which shows that orientalists did not only see the tribal barbaric side, but also saw the distinguished Arab poets, philosophers, and thinkers and thought of them with high regard.
Now for our final analysis using Antconc and our collocates involving the word “Arab” or “Arabs”, we found the following, with the results from Antconc in the form of screenshots found in the same document with the word trends:
In our texts written before 1860, the orientalists wrote about the Arabs/Orientals mainly in the context of them living a primitive life. This is evident due to the excessive use of words such as “tribes”, “dress” and “shaykhs” along with the word “Arab”. This is also evident through the word “pagan” being a collocate of the word “Arab” in these texts, as shown in the screenshot below.
Additionally, it is clear that the Westerners see themselves as superiors to Arabs and Orientals from many word trends found on Antconc accompanying the word “Arab”, such as always pairing the Arabs with Persians, Turks, and sometimes even Greeks, as an inferior unequal other half of the world, as shown in the screenshot taken from Antconc below that shows the hits that we got of the word “Persian” paired with the word “Arab”.
Also, in these texts, we do not find any hit when we look for “Arab men”, meanwhile we get several hits when searching for “Arab women”, as if to say that they regard Arabs as men and have to specify when they’re talking strictly about women (similar to people adding female before a profession stereo typically thought of to belong to males, such as “female doctor”, or the opposite when saying “male nurse”). This is shown in the following screenshots from Antconc of the concordance hits of the two words with the word “Arab”.
As for the texts after 1910, we see that more political words, specifically related to territories and wars, were used. These words were also frequently paired with the word Arab(s), such as Arab forces, Arab empire, Arab army, Arab provinces… This clearly shows how the word trend and the choice of words has changed in this 50-year gap since 1860, to cover more political aspects than cultural. However, the attitude of the Orientalists towards the Orient doesn’t quite change. We still see from the word trends that the Westerners are grouping Arabs with Turks and Persians as “the others” while viewing themselves as superior and different. Additionally, we still see the same trend of using Arab women but not Arab men after the year 1910. Another interesting observation here would be the use of the word “horsemen”, indicating horse riders, skilled ones, in a context of battle. In the corpus of texts written before 1860, we did not see the combination “Arab horsemen”, we mostly saw the word “horse(s)” accompanying the word “Arab(s)”. Again, this shows how although the attitude did not change with time, the writings did, and they revolved around imperialism and politics rather than just scorning Oriental culture and tradition. One result to support this claim is shown in the concordance hit shown below of the pairing of the words “Empire” and “Arab”.
Additionally, we still see the same trend of using Arab women but not Arab men after the year 1910. Another interesting observation here would be the use of the word “horsemen”, indicating horse riders, skilled ones, in a context of battle. In the corpus of texts written before 1860, we did not see the combination “Arab horsemen”, we mostly saw the word “horse(s)” accompanying the word “Arab(s)”. Again, this shows how although the attitude did not change with time, the writings did, and they revolved around imperialism and politics rather than just scorning Oriental culture and tradition. These findings are shown in the screenshots below taken from Antconc showing the hits of those 2 words in the respective time periods aforementioned.
In addition, after analyzing the texts written by British authors, we notice that there was a general look of condescension at the Arabs and the Orient as a whole, as they regarded the Arab as a tribal society with chiefs for each tribe who made all its decisions. Moreover, the frequent use of the word (Sheik) and the context it was used in help us see that the British authors viewed the Arabs as a religious society whose primary purpose is their devotion to God. Another aspect of the British view towards the Orient centers around the fact that they believed that a woman is at the bottom of the chain with no rights or choices, and that if a man wanted a woman he would just take “it”. However, even though they viewed the Arabs as a primitive, tribal, religious society, they did acknowledge their art and literature which we can notice throughout the various times they refer to Arab poets, poetry, and its value. The below screenshots from Antconc helps show the frequent use of words the words “Tribes” and “Sheik” alongside the word “Arab” which further supports the claim that the British Orientalists viewed the Arabs as tribal societies lead by their leaders known as Sheiks.
Additionally, the below screenshot from Antconc, which shows an excerpt from The Walls of Constantinople from B. Granville Baker, highlights the view that Arabs were lead by tradition they had in their tribes and societies which they stuck to and lived by.
Furthermore, the below screenshot from Antconc, which shows an excerpt from Eastern Nights – and Flights by Alan Bott, highlights another instant of the condescending views UK Orientalists had towards Arabs, their society, and their way of life.
Moreover as we go ahead in time, around the time of the first world war which is after 1910, even though this view didn’t change the lens through which Arabs were looked at, it changed it to a political lens, as the British authors recognized the Arab forces and the Arab empire as a force to factored in their calculations.
When compared to the texts written by the USA authors, we notice that aside from the use of a different diction, the views toward the orient and Arabs don’t differ much from those of the British which we notice through their frequent use of the words (Chief, Tribe, Tradition) which shows that they too regard the Arabs as a tribal society controlled by their traditions, and religions. And likewise, they too acknowledge the art and literature of the Arabs which we notice through the use of the word (Writers) and its context. However, a slight difference exists around the time of the first world war as the American authors divide the Arab regions into provinces as opposed to the UK authors who viewed it as an Arab Empire, as is shown in the screenshot below.
However, in general the attitudes remain the same with only slight differences, being condescending and viewing Arabs as inferior, tribal, religious societies.
Finally, as a conclusion to this project and an answer to our first research question, we determined that Orientalism is not a consistent movement. Although it is widely viewed as so, which is evident from the definition provided in section 1 suggesting that Orientalism is a way of seeing that views the Arab culture as primitive, uncivilized, exotic, etc., we surprisingly found a few excerpts from some texts that appreciated the Arab arts and culture, especially their poetry (as shown above). Even though these results are not plenty, they are enough to prove that many Orientalist authors had different attitudes towards the Arabs and the Orient. We believe this attitude depends largely on the Orientalist himself, as well as his culture, society, and origin. Therefore, we urge the next batch of students to look at texts written by Orientalists from different cultures, origins, and societies and try to build on what we have accomplished.
- Appendix
Document for the word list extracted from our read resources as well as our Antconc results in the forms of screenshots: LINKED HERE
Document for the list of words that form collocates with the word “Arab(s)” as well as our Antconc results in the forms of screenshots: LINKED HERE
- References
Said, E. (1978). Orientalism. Pantheon Books.
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