Orientalism and History

Edward Said's discussion and narrative regarding "orientalism" or the "oriental", is essential an argument about the East and the West. The West of course being the United States and "developed" European countries and the East being India, Middle East, and parts of Africa. I think that his argument and discussion is interesting, but keeping the time period of history in mind is key. Said talks about a few authors who have offered their thoughts on the topic, and most people look at them as extremely racist and call them out for it. What I like about Said's process is that he goes in and analyzes their works, essentially writing "careful reappraisals" of their work. In looking at a quote from the Heart of Darkness, "the conquest of the earth, mostly means taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves". Taking into account the different time periods of the earth, during the time of conquest, the earth was essentially unknown. Venturing passed borders led into the "East", and the different culture and society caused a feel/need to conquest. It sounds bad to think of them as conquering the earth, even though that is what they were doing, because there was nothing else they knew, and it sort of led the path for future perspectives on "orientalism". When Said says the French and Belgians believed they were "improving them in some way", many different reactions come into my head. To me it sounds awful, there is no way that by enslaving people and taking their agriculture for your benefit is at all justifiable or allowable.

But thinking of this "improvement" upon oriental societies in modern terms, is more coherent/ relate-able to me. Said continues his discussion and brings up more modern forms of how "orientalism" is still in play. Since the time of his book, I think there has definitely been in increase in discussion about "orientalism", specifically with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In these current situations, I think a lot of people believe that we are trying to "improve" their systems and cultures, and that it is wrong fro us to go into something and get involved with what we are not a part of. The perception of the Islamic world is very controversial. To some degree, I understand the complaints about and anger created by going into the "orientalist" world to try and fix things. But, in reality, I don't see how we cannot. There has to be some degree of "improvement" in these areas of the world, and it does not have to mean changing religion or taking out races, which a lot of people think is what we are doing. There is nothing wrong with being a Muslim. But there are groups of people who run these "oriental" states that are inhumane and extremely violent, and that is what we are trying to change. I think there is a lot of wrong thinking when it comes to the Islamic world. Terrorists have attacked our country and continue to bring terror upon people and religions in their own states, and there's is nothing wrong with us trying to stop them and change political and ideological systems. Not every Muslim is part of these groups, and actually, only a very minute population is.  But there is too much judgement where, because we are fighting against them, there is automatically an extreme hate for all people of the Middle East and such (Orientalism).