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Orientalism
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Although metaphors were probably the most powerful means of conceptualizing the enemy in terms of Orientalism they were not the only "linguistic mechanisms" used throughout news coverage of the Gulf War. Thus, there was ample use of formulas as in "the Joker of Baghdad had more tricks up his sleeve" (N, 4 Feb. 91) to refer to Saddam Hussein's futile attempts to work out some kind of compromise. Also, frequent reference was made to historic figures famous both in the Orient and the West, e.g. Saddam Hussein was compared to King Nebuchadnezzar, Saladin, Hitler and Mussolini, whereas the cadet Schwarzkopf was said to have been a fervent admirer of "Alexander the Great, [...] Caesar, Hannibal and Napoleon" (N, 11 March 91) and Gen. Powell was seen as a "black Eisenhower" (N, 3 Sept. 90). Among the major metonymies used was "the Ruler-for-State" metonymy" as in "to get Saddam out of Kuwait" (Lakoff 1992: 467–468). Another instance of "linguistic mechanism" at work was the use of informal register to enhance the overal effect of the frames of Self-presentation and frames of Other-representation respectively. That the war of words was not over when the "smart weapons" had done their job, becomes evident when we look at a nationally televised speech at the end of the war, where President Bush could be heard thanking U.S. troops saying "Thank you guys.
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Orientalism is a 1978 book by Edward Said that marked the beginnings of postcolonial studies. In his book Said suggests that all discourse, particularly discourse about other cultures, is inherently ideological. Therefore regardless of the subject any historical discourse must be situated within a particular framework whose overall structure is necessarily ideological. Said situates his argument in the realm of Orientalism, particularly the academic study and political and literary discourse surrounding Arabs, Islam and the Middle East that originated primarily in England and France and later the United States. What Said attempts to show is that this discourse actually creates (rather than examines or describes) a palpable divide between East and West. It is this divide, in the examples he gives throughout the book, which situates the West as a superior culture to the East.
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As with any good theory, this early critique of Orientalism has its flaws. Some of these are conceptual, as pointed out by the literary critic Aijaz Ahmad. Said is unclear whether Orientalism is the ideology of colonialism or is rooted in the very psyche of European thought. If it is the latter, then Said’s use of the term is an “Orientalism-in-reverse,” in which the “West” has an inherently flawed understanding of the rest of the world (Ahmad 1992, 183). Additionally, Said underestimates the strong tradition within Arabic writing that draws ontological distinctions between East and West. The concept of Orientalism ... suffers from an overly general application.
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Despite this often mixed tradition, the word "Orientalism" carried no negative freight. Respected institutions like the Oriental Institute of Chicagoor the London School of Oriental and African Studiescarried the term without reproach. "Oriental" was simply understood as the opposite of "occidental" ('western'). The word began to develop negative connotations following the publication of the groundbreaking work Orientalism by the Palestinianscholar Edward Said. Following the ideas of Michel Foucault, Said emphasized the relationship between power and knowledge in scholarly and popular thinking, in particular regarding European views of the IslamicArabworld. Said argued that Orient and Occident worked as oppositional terms, so that the "Orient" was constructed as a negative inversion of Western culture.
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The intellectual aspect of Orientalism combined with the political aspects of Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries. The landmark, according to Said, is Napoleon's Egyptian expedition. Said writes, "[Napoleon's] plans for Egypt therefore became the first in a long series of European encounters with the Orient in which the Orientalist?s special expertise was put directly to functional colonial use" (p. 80). This points to the co-existence of an intellectual and a political "Orientalism". The political aspects were rooted in the notions of European supremacy over the Orient.
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In Orientalism, Islam first had to be placed within the realm of Western understanding with respect to Christian concepts rather than regarded on its own terms. One way of accomplishing this was to make analogies between Christian religions and Islam. The obvious parallel is the one which some Orientalists draw between Muhammad and Christ. Since Christ is central to the Christian faith, Westerners assumed that Muhammad holds the same place in Islam. This misconception helped to popularize the use of the name 'Mohammedanism', a term highly offensive to Muslims. The Christ analogy ... served to reinforce the notion that Muhammad was nothing more than an 'impostor' and a pale version of the Christian Messiah.
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