Chapter 3 - Romantic Orientalism and Occidentalism

Summary

“From the point of view of governing him rather than from that of scientific research into how he comes to be what he is, I content myself with noting the fact that somehow or other the Oriental generally acts, speaks and thinks in a manner exactly opposite to the European,” declares Lord Cromer in Modern Egypt. “Consider the mental and moral attributes, the customs, art, architecture, language, dress and tastes of the dark-skinned eastern as compared with the fair-skinned Western,” he adds. “It will be found that on every point they are the poles asunder.”¹ The ease with which Cromer develops this sharp distinction between “us” and “them,” Occident and Orient, is evidence of the cultural and political construction that Edward Said identifies as Orientalism.