Orientalism and Edward Said

Said, using to his advantage the era of political-correctness, calls on scholars and authors from The Orient to demand equal influence for self-representation instead of continuing the cycle of an unbalanced dominance of Western-lead second-representation. .
             At the core of many of Said's key arguments is the critical link, historically and presently, between knowledge and power. While this has been exemplified repeatedly throughout history, the argument was perfectly epitomized when Prime Minister Arthur Balfour gave a speech in defense of Great Britain's occupation of Egypt in 1910 saying that, ˜We know Egypt better than we know any other country'. Not only knowing the origins of a civilization, but being involved in the creation of the historical text of a society can most certainly secure one's dominance over the area. Moreover, Orientalism is not just a post-rationalization of colonial rule, but in fact acted as justification for colonial rule because one side had the power to construct what was reality for the East and the West. .
             A good literary example of this Western-constructed reality of an Oriental country pre-colonization would be that of Au Maroc, written by French naval officer Pierre Loti who was traveling through the country before the French Protectorate was established in 1912. Loti, while articulate in his descriptive details, could be described as conflicted, as he presented many contradictory claims throughout his novel. There is no doubt that Loti presented Morocco as an extremely exotic, mysterious, wild country, and Loti even almost apologized in the story for his overuse of the adjective, ˜old', but said that it was justified since everything in Fez was just that. He would comment on the dirtiness of his surroundings, compare royal cavalry-men to monkeys, and at one point in the story even refused to enter the Jewish quarter of Fez as he detailed the ugliness of not only the streets of this quarter, but of the people residing there.