CENTRAL NEWS
The word ‘Orientalism’ derives from the Latin-originating word ‘Oriens’, which is a reference to the sunrise. While the term is used in French as ‘orient’ meaning “east,” it is used in English to refer to the East.
Although orientalism is described as “the study of the East” as a concept in literature, it is better understood that this word expresses much more today because of the perspectives it has created. Definitions such as exploring the east and its culture or approaching the east with a west-centric understanding does not fully reflect the meaning of the word.
The concept of reductionism is the practice of analysing and describing a complex phenomenon through its most simple or fundamental constituents. It is worth noting that if we try to define orientalism in a reductionist way, we will overlook many dimensions in terms of the geography we are rooted in. As an ideological understanding, it would be more useful to try to explain this concept in the form of a western-centered perspective.
Today, it is an undeniable reality that the western influence is dominant, from the coordinates of our geography to the terminology we use. The role of orientalism in this is based on the west, its ideology and culture. When we consider that even the namings like the near east, the far east or the middle east are made by centering the west, we can understand the depth of the situation to a small extent.
We can define orientalism as the social engineering initiative of western ideology in the east, from a narrow-minded sense. From a liberal sense of isospositivist perspective, it is possible to define orientalism as an effort to create an eastern personality that has been abstracted from its nature and culture, and placed into the liberal understanding of life, thrown into the nation-state state structure; walking from a life which has been made anti-social to the creation of a self-alienated personality.
We all took our part from orientalist understanding, an ideological argument for hegemony. If we consider the western civilization under the eastern rule, we should look at the first comprehensive orientations of modernity towards the east. It is also possible to interpret the Aces’ attacks against Troy in 1200s BC as attempts to settle or control the western civilization. Hellenism, initiated by Alexander in 330 BC, meant a very important expedition to western hegemony, and Crusader attacks should be evaluated at this level.
However, it will not be misleading to see the last 200 years as an absolute victory of modernity within this dimension. The developing technological and economic superiority brought cultural hegemony with it. The traditional power structure in the middle east, which is shattered with nation-states, accepts the ideology of modernity and now works with full force to instill this ideology to the whole society. While implementing the ‘divide and conquer’ policy with dozens of nations, the ancient society of the middle east is attacked with individualized personality structures down to its cells.
The European centrist understanding brings together a self-centric understanding. In order to nullify a society, it is first required to take away their history. Indeed, the first attacks were this way. In this regard, while Max Weber’s arguments that civilization on earth began with the Greek and Roman periods, according to the so-called historian Balfour, there were easterners and there were westerners. While one must rule, the other must be ruled. (This often means occupying countries, full intervention in internal affairs, and leaving their lives and property in the hands of this or that Western power).
Hundreds of so-called philosophers and historians have written thousands of books on the primitiveness and worthlessness of the East. Although these ideological attacks have been in vain with the historical ruins of the last century, this is no longer relevant. Because, with the culture, ideology and nature dimension, the eastern society has passed the process of assimilation and has now entered an auto assimilation process with the “TREND” phenomenon. Now the effects of orientalism have turned into rain in the middle east. And the people of the middle east are without umbrellas under this rain. Therefore, we can not get wet under this precipitation. As Leader Apo writes about Orientalism:
“Even when I write these lines, I always ask myself how much I have exceeded orientalism. I know very well that my thinking with this mentality will not save me from the fascist circle of thought slavery. ”
In this respect, we should act with the awareness that we are getting wet under the rain of orientalism in every respect, and first we should get an umbrella and then start with an anti-orientalist mentality. As a first step, we should abandon the centrist approach, which is a typical reflection of the liberal personality, and consider ideolochism by saying “organization truths” instead of saying “my truths”.
The most robust umbrella ideology is to deepen thought. To be an anti-orientalist, it is not enough to be an anti-capitalist. In this respect, it is necessary to evaluate modernism as a whole with a triple-combed brush and become an anti-modernist. Orientalism is overcome by completely rejecting modernism.
