Origin and evolution of the concepts of the 'orient' and the 'occident'

Abstract

Forty years ago the term orientalism was used to mean what went on in the oriental Faculties of European universities: the study of texts to uncover Asian civilizations. Since Edward Said's influential work Orientalism, the term has come to mean, even for Said's intellectual opponents, a stereotyping of Asian cultures, usually in a derogatory form, which was complicit with western colonisation. In Said's argument orientalism was an intellectual project for 'mastering' the Orient. This is the sense in which I shall use the term in this today. I will argue, however, that orientalism was a much more fluid, changing and internally contested set of discourses than is often. realised. I first want to show how orientalist ideas developed over the long-term to give them some historical context. Then I will go on to show how the sterotypes and assumptions common to orientalist discourse could be- and often were -challenged from within. I will show how Asian people themselves transacted with and also helped to challenge those ideas. In the main, my argument is optimistic. As an old liberal-in both senses of the term- I believe that scholarship, discussion and debate can dissolve prejudice. That indeed is the purpose of our meeting. Tunku Abdul Rahman was a man of both east and west. A devout Muslim who was educated in part in a formally Christian and liberal institution, St Catharine's College, Cambridge, he worked to establish peace in this region and in the world as a whole, between religions, races and forms of economic life.