Orientalism - autonomous learning

248 ORIENT ALISM
Orientalism Now
249
person defining. All Arab Orientals must be accommodated to a
vision of an Oriental type as constructed by the Western scholar, as
well as to a specific encounter with the Orient in which the
Westerner regrasps the Orient's essence as a consequence of his
intimate estrangement from it. For Lawrence as for Forster, this
latter sensation produces the despondency as well of personal failure;
for such scholars as Macdonald, it strengthens the Orientalist discourse
itself.
And it puts that discourse abroad in the world of culture,
politics, and actuality. In the period between the wars, as we can
easily judge from, say, Malraux's novels, the relations between East
and West assumed a currency that was both widespread and
anxious. The signs of Oriental claims for political independence
were everywhere; certainly in the dismembered Ottoman Empire
they were encouraged by the Allies and, as is perfectly evident in
the whole Arab Revolt and its aftermath, quickly became problematic.
The Orient now appeared to constitute a challenge, not just
to the West in general, but to the West's spirit, knowledge, and
imperium. After a good century of constant intervention in (and
study of) the Orient, the West's role in an East itself responding
to the crises of modernity seemed considerably more delicate. There
was the issue of outright occupation; there was the issue of the
mandated territories; there was the issue of European competition
in the Orient; there was the issue of dealing with native elites, native
popular movements, and native demands for self-government and
independence; there was the issue of civilizational contacts between
Orient and Occident. Such issues forced reconsideration of Western
knowledge of the Orient. No less a personage than Sylvain Levi,
president of the Societe asiatique between 1928 and 1935, professor
of Sanskrit at the College de France, reflected seriously in 1925 on
the urgency of the East-West problem:
Our duty is to understand Oriental civilization. The humanistic
problem, which consists, on an intellectual level, in making a
sympathetic and intelligent effort to understand foreign civilizations
in both their past and their future forms, is specifically posed
for us Frenchmen [although similar sentiments could have been
expressed by an Englishman: the problem was a European one]
in a practical way with regard to our great Asiatic colonies. . . .
These peoples are the inheritors of a long tradition of history,
of art, and of religion, the sense of which they have not entirely
lost and which they are probably anxious to prolong. We have
assumed the responsibility of intervening in their development,
sometimes without consulting them, sometimes in answer to their
request. ... We claim, rightly or wrongly, to represent a superior
civilization, and because of the right given us by virtue of this
superiority, which we regularly affirm with such assurance as makes
it seem incontestable to the natives, we have called in question all
their native traditions ....
In a general way, then, wherever the European. has intervened,
the native has perceived himself with a sort of general despair
which was really poignant since he felt that the sum of his wellbeing,
in the moral sphere more than in sheer material terms,
instead of increasing had in fact diminished. All of which has
made the foundation of his social life seem to be flimsy and to
crumble under him, and the golden pillars on which he had thought
to rebuild his life now seem no more than tinseled cardboard.
This disappointment has been translated into rancor from one
end to the other of the Orient, and this rancor is very close now
to turning to hate, and hate only waits for the right moment in
order to turn into action.
If because of laziness or incomprehension Europe does not make
the effort that its interests alone require from it, then the Asiatic
drama will approach the crisis point.
It is here that that science which is a form of life and an instrument
of policy-that is, wherever our interests are at stake--owes
it to itself to penetrate native civilization and life in their intimacy
in order to discover their fundamental values and durable characteristi