Orientalism - autonomous learning

90
ORmNTALISM
The Scope of Orientalism
91
universelle. In 1862 the Academie fran9aise offered a prize for an
epic on the canal. Bomier, the winner, delivered himself of such
hyperbole as the following, none of it fundamentally contradicting
de Lesseps's picture of what he was up to:
Au travail! Ouvriers que notre France envoie,
Tracez, pour l'univers, cette nO"\lveUe voiel
Vos peres, les heros, sont venus jusqu'ici;
Soyez ferme comme aux intrepides,
Comme eux vous combattez aux pieds des pyramides,
Et leurs quatre mille ans vous contemplent aussil
Oui, c'est pour l'univers! Pour l'Asie et l'Europe,
Pour ces climats lointain que la nuit enveloppe,
Pour Ie Chinois perode et I'Indien demi-nu;
Pour les peuples heureux, Iibres, humains et braves,
Pour les peuples mechants, pour les peuples esclaves,
Pour ceux aqui Ie Christ est encore inconnu. 84
De Lesseps was nowhere more eloquent and resourceful than when
he was called upon to justify the enormous expense in money and
men the canal would require. He could pour out statistics to enchant
any ear; he would quote Herodotus and maritime statistics with
equal fluency. In his journal entries for 1864 he cited with approbation
Casimir Leconte's observation that an eccentric life would
develop significant originality in men, and from originality would
come great and unusual exploits. 8~ Such exploits were their own
justification. Despite its immemorial pedigree of failures, its outrageous
cost, its astounding ambitions for altering the way Europe
would handle the Orient, the canal was worth the effort. It was a
project uniqu~ly able to override the Objections of those who were
consulted and, in improving the Orient as a whole, to do what
scheming Egyptians, perfidious Chinese, and half-naked Indians
could never have done for themselves.
The opening ceremonies in November 1869 were an occasion
which, no less than the whole history of de Lesseps's machinations,
perfectly embodied his ideas. For years his speeches, letters, and
pamphlets were laden with a vividly energetic and theatrical
vocabulary. In the pursuit of success, he could be found saying of
himself (always in the first person plural), we created, fought,
disposed, achieved, acted, recognized, persevered, advanced;
nothing, he repeated. on many occasions, could stop us, nothing
was impossible, nothing mattered finally except the realization of
"leresultat final, Ie grand but," which he had conceived, defined,
and finally executed. As the papal envoy to the ceremonies spoke
on November 16 to the assembled dignitaries, his speech strove
desperately to match the intellectual· and imaginative spectacle
offered by de Lesseps's canal:
II est permis d'affirmer que l'heure qui vient de sonner est non
seulement une des plus solennelles de ce siecle, mais encore une
des plus grandes et des plus d6cisives qu'ait vues l'humanite,
depuis qu'elle a une histoire ci-bas. Ce lieu, oil confinent-sans
desormais y toucher-I'Afrique et l'Asie, cette grande fete du
genrehull!ain, cette asSistance auguste et cosmopolite, toutes les
races du globe, tous les drapeaux, tous les pavillions, fiottant
joyeusement sous ce ciel radieux et immense, la croix debout et
respectee de tous en face du croissant, que de merveilles, que de
contrastes saississants, que de reyes reputes chimeriques devenus
de. palpables realites! et, dans cet assemblage de tant de pr9diges,
que de sujets de refiexions pour Ie penseur, que de joies dans
l'heure presente et, dans les perspectives de l'avenir, que de
glorieuses esperances! ...
Les deux extremites du globe se rapprochent; en se rapprochant,
elles se reconnaissent; en se reconnaissant, tous les hommes, enfants
d'un seul et meme Dieu, eprouvent Ie tressaillement joyeux de
leur mutuelle fraternite! 0 Occident! 0 Orient! rapprochez, rt>gardez,
reconnaissez, saluez, 'etreignez-vous! ...
Mais derriere Ie phenomene materiel, Ie regard du penseur
decouvre des horizons plus vastes que les espaces mesurables, les
horizons sans bornes ou mouvent les plus hautes destinees, les
plus glorieuses conquetes, les plus immortelles certitudes du genre
humain....
[Dieu] que votre souffle divin plane sur ces eaux! Qu'i1 y passe
et repasse, de rOccident a l'Orient, de rOdent a rOccident! 0
Dieu! Servez vous de cette vole pour rapprocher les hommes les
uns des autres!86
The whole world seemed crowded in to render homage to a scheme
that God could only bless and make use of himself. Old distinctions
and inhibitions were dissolved: the Cross faced down the Crescent,
the West had come to the Orient never to leave it (until, in July
1956, Gamal Abdel Nasser would activate Egypt's taking over of
the canal by pronouncing the name of de Lesseps).
In the Suez Canal idea we see the logical conclusion of Orientalist
thought and, more interesting, of Orientalist effort. To the West,
Asia had once represented silent distance and alienation; Islam
was militant hostility to European Christianity. To overcome such