I think that people do have an Orientalist mindset because it has been ingrained in people's minds. People see the East as a terrorist territory. We see it on TV and in the media saying that people from the Middle East are all terrorists simply because they are from the Middle East. Especially after 9/11 people became very scared of Muslims and their religion, even though not every Muslim is a terrorist just like not every Catholic hates gay people. But people have heard these stories and myths and so instead of taking them as such, they take them as facts. They see the East as mysterious and they know very little about the area and what they do know is negative. The consequences of this mindset is that it makes people closed-minded, they see the Middle East as a place where terrorists live and where they have limited access to water, they see this and decide not to go and by making this decision they then don’t see how the Middle East is and they stay closed minded. We can move beyond this mindset by traveling to the Middle East itself or talking to someone who has been there or is from the East. This will help them see the East in a new light and hopefully change their mind out of Orientalism. If this is to continue it will drive a bigger and bigger wedge in between the two groups and make it Us VS. Them and people will stay close-minded about the East and the stereotype will continue.
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