1 - Up against conceptual frameworks: post-orientalism, occidentalism and presentations of the self

Summary

As I think about the question of how post-colonial scholarship has influenced more recent works about the ‘East’, and also ponder on the gains and pitfalls of post-orientalist scholarship, I come across Edward Said's reassuring words in his introduction to Culture and Imperialism (1993): ‘Gone are the binary oppositions dear to the nationalist and imperialist enterprise’ (p. xxviii). This, no doubt, constitutes a radical shift from his earlier account of history and representation (Orientalism, 1978), in which Said stressed that relations between the ‘West’ and the ‘non-West’ have been continuously characterized by conflict, divisiveness and dichotomies as the inevitable consequence of and reaction to colonialism. A sense of relief, almost comfort, arises: are we living in new times in which processes of decolonization within formerly colonized as well as colonizing countries allow reconciliation, liberation and the necessary steps to go beyond essentialisms, hierarchies and binary oppositions?

The feeling of relief vanishes when I put down my books and papers on ‘post-colonialism’ – all full of promising notions of ‘breaking down boundaries’, ‘hybridity’, ‘plural identities’ and ‘cultural interdependencies’. Reading the newspapers or watching television, I feel confronted with a very different language and reality: the ongoing battle of strength between the United States and Iraq (or rather Saddam Hussein, if we want to believe various spokespeople), Nato airstrikes in Yugoslavia, Serb aggression in Kosovo, and the ongoing oppression and humiliation of Palestinians in Israel.