Orientalism: Past and Present

Abstract

     This paper sheds light on the various stages, reasons, goals and agendas that the discourse of Orientalism has gone through since early centuries onwards. It exposes the critical ideological hostility between the West and the East, as well as Christianity and Islam, which has resulted in the proliferation of countless fabrications, misconceptions and lies within the discourse of Orientalism considering the Orient. The paper attempts to prove that Orientalism is a solely Western style that has never ever been pure or realistic in representing the Islamic East. However, it has always been negative and unfair in dealing with everything related to the Orient. Indeed, it is used as both a preparation and justification for the Western military and ideological clashes and colonization on the Orient. This paper includes an introduction, two sections and a conclusion. The first section provides a detailed background about the various reasons behind the appearance and development of Orientalism throughout history while the following section tracks the origin of Orientalism from the past up to the present day. The paper concludes that Orientalism is not a new phenomenon and it cannot be understood as a homogeneous discourse, yet it has changed, transformed and mutated throughout history. It is the huge Western body of literary, historical or sociological texts that only aims at dominating, restructuring and having authority over the Orient.