Orientalism: Asia in Australian Cultural Practices

NB: We do not resell your papers. Upon ordering, we do an original paper exclusively for you.

NB: All your data is kept safe from the public.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Defining Orientalism
Representation of Asia in Australian cultural practices
Understanding Australian-Asian History
Conclusion
References

Introduction

Published in 1978, Edward Said’s Orientalism symbolizes the beginning of the study of literature, history, and arts. It incorporates anthropology that characterizes the post-colonial era. Said’s work presents the relationship that exists between the Orients and Accidents. In the context of his work, the term ‘Orient’ refers to the widely misinterpreted, yet romantic the Middle East and the Far East lands. He, on the other hand, utilizes the term ‘Occident’ to refer to the United States, French and English nations.

By looking at Orientalism from the most general dimension, as the study of people’s culture with respect to some other significant culture, the essay presents the ways in which the representation of Asia in the Australian cultural practices reflect a style of thought that Edward Said termed as “Orientalism”. The essay goes further to suggest how such practices help people to understand the Australian-Asian history.

Defining Orientalism

The countless Occident’s beliefs on Orients present a fake illustration of the true cultural forms of the Orients. According to Fleming (2000) “Orientalism is a manner of regularized or Orientalized writing, vision, and study, dominated by imperatives, perspectives, and ideological biases ostensibly suited to the Orient entailing the image of the ‘Orient’ expressed as an entire system of thought and scholarship” (p.1220).

In this context, Orientalism represents a set of fragmented beliefs that Said analyzes in-depth. Orientalism manifests itself in two ways: the dormant and the manifest orientalism. The former covers the invulnerable yet unmanageable perceptions about the real character of the orient. According to Sered, “The orient is a separate, eccentric, backward, silently different, sensual and passive” (1996, Para.2).

The orient’s values rely on western cultural ties. In most of the situations, the orient appears inferior and hence conquerable. Secondly, manifest orientalism comprises all the activities that happen after a previous mentioning of the same by people. According to Macfie (2002), manifest orientalism contains the “information and changes in knowledge about the Orient, as well as policy decisions, founded in an Orientalist thinking” (p.10). Consequently, based on people’s arguments, manifest orientalism is a mere expression of the latent Orientalism in words.

Representation of Asia in Australian cultural practices

Said points out how orientalism is evident in the manner in which the west portrays the Arabic cultures. Arabs are “…irrational, menacing, untrustworthy, anti-Western, dishonest, and–perhaps most importantly—prototypical” (Sered 1996, Para.6). Such depictions from subtle grounds in which orientalism reigns. According to Said, the West, of which Australia is part, establishes an evident dichotomy that culminates the East’s culture in that of the west (Said 1978, p.5).

Consequently, the Asian and Middle East cultural aspects require a racist and a prejudiced dimensional approach. More often, these cultures are inappropriate. An attempt to provide cultural solutions to Asian people, whom the Accidents view as a complete state of ignorance of their culture and history, suffers from cultural discrimination. The net effect is for the native Australian people to view their culture as more significant than that of the Asian people.

People, therefore, tend to compare and judge Asian cultural perspectives with their own culture that they stereotypically regard as appropriate. In fact, a biased judgment impedes the ability to see reality. Hence, one can never see anything positive out of the Asian culture. This way, the representation of Asia in the context of the Australian cultural practices reflects the “Orientalism” style of thought.

Australia has a deep-rooted history that connects it with the British and the European nations. However, it emerges as economically, geographically, and culturally coded to Asia (Halliday 1993, p.150). Culture reflects itself in people’s beliefs, language, and art amongst other characteristics that uniquely identify a given societal group. As a repercussion, orientalism finds its roots based on such characteristics. Debates and exhibitions have resulted over the decades with the objective of laying out the Asian-Australian relationship on cultural interactivity foundations. Such exhibitions include the 1999 Asia-Pacific Triennial show, which drew impeccable numbers of artists coming from both cultural backgrounds.

The chief reason for coming up with such a mix was the intricate and sophisticated issues of self-image coupled with national representation. During this exhibition, as Chiu laments, “Like any other artists in the exhibition, Clark’s reference to Asian culture was an ironic gesture…exploring the Asian cultures through a familiar western aesthetic tradition” (2000, p.26). This way, Clark perhaps represents the widely held occident’s perception of the Asian culture by presenting the Asian culture in relation to the European cultural lens.

Many Australian multiculturalists have attempted to call for a shift of contemporary arts of Australia from modeling with the European cultural perspectives to an Asian dimension. This endeavor calls for the inclusion of the exotic idea of otherness. However, as Chiu reckons, “the use of exoticism, as a way of relating to Asia, indicates the manner in which people conceived the debates in Australia in the early nineties in terms of binary where Australia represented the west, and Asia the east” (2000, p.29).

Attempts to seek a compromise of the two cultures emanate from the realization of the existence of cultural differences between the native Australians and the Asian immigrant communities. In the actual sense, it means that in an endeavor to establish a common meeting point of promoting cultural understanding; one end must be coming from the negative, and the other from the positive. The two must meet at the wide sort compromised point.

Given that, the native Australian culture has a firm basis, constructed by Occident’s cultural characterizations of the Asian culture, the Australian culture contains taints of positivity. This perhaps indicates how clearly people understand their culture. The Asians do not have a complete awareness of their culture: the reason behind their need for representation. This seems congruent with Said’s incredible criticism on the occident’s argument that “since orients cannot represent themselves, they must, therefore, let others represent them…knowing more about them than they know about themselves” (1978, p.37). Considering the above argument and Said’s observation, the Australian cultural practices tend to portray the Asian culture in an orientalism manner.

Aboriginal culture representation in Australian films and literature perhaps depicts the orientalism presentation of Asian culture in Australian cultural practices. According to Mishra (1987) “Aboriginalism is perhaps one of the most powerful “fictions” in Australia today that represents a number of literary and filmic texts through which Aborigines are evident” (p.67). The generic structures upon which the discourses of orientalism rely feature varying cultural practices.

Cultural practices contribute towards the validation of stereotypic perceptions of a given group of people by their counterpart group as opposed to their practices, which it treats with disdain. Said argues that “a created body of theory with material and cultural investments go well beyond the academic world into politics and even global perceptions of nations and races” (1978, p.45). This body of knowledge stands out in community practices- widely defined by their cultural norms. Societies, native Australia being no exception, campaign, and advocate for its cultural practices thereof regarding it as the best.

Attempts to give a second glance to other societies’ cultural values receive a remarkably insignificant focus, as it is irrelevant and inferior (Sered 1996, Para.8). Consequently, people tend to weigh their cultural practices in relation to those cultural practices they believe to be among the best in the existence. European and English history constructs Australia’s social institutions. Therefore, Native Australians would tend to scrutinize their cultural practices from the thought that western cultural practices are the best.

If there is any warranty for some change, then people should expect it to be similar to the European and English cultural practices. However, one would wish to know about Asian emigrant’s culture. The Australian people would perhaps attempt to unveil the evident loopholes in the cultural practices from a similar discourse.

Perhaps it is worth illustrating the orientalism presentation of Asia in the Australian culture with an example. Frederick Macartney, in his essay Literature and Aborigine claims, “Aborigines blur the distinction between self and external objects” (Macartney 1957, p.117).

He, as a repercussion, denies this race its ability to produce its own cultural artifacts in literary texts. In fact, throughout his discussion of the Aborigine narratives, he utterly omits the words ‘literature’. This is perhaps indicative of the extent to which native Australian culture does not recognize the existence of the ability of Aborigine people to know their cultural history. Consequently, such history has to reach them as advancement. Additionally, Asian narratives are either “tediously discursive and inchoate” or incapable of “critical reflectiveness” (Macartney 1957, p.117).

It is surprising to learn how a man who participated in the protection of the Austrian culture would turn around and end up being so insensitive about the culture. However, one could argue the reasons behind this to have resulted from the Australian cultural practices perhaps incorporating orientalism thinking. Consequently, Fredrick could not see anything wrong with such a presentation.

Understanding Australian-Asian History

The identification of a problem goes a long way in the determination of the most subtle ways to seek solutions for it. Consequently, in understanding cultural practices that tend to escalate orientalism, one has to strike a milestone in his or her endeavor to rise and go beyond orientalism issues. As O’Hanlon and David (1992) note, “Whilst there is no easy escape from the tyranny of discourse, it is nevertheless essential to open up the field through a radical contestation of its limits” (p.143).

Through conducting a critical analysis of the Australian-Asian history, perhaps people will realize that those who belong to both groups are coming from different ends. Australia, as it is today, emphasizes the need to foster intercultural understanding. The pros and cons of every race constituting Australia are vital and need their due consideration. In most situations, such a call is widely realizable through a clear understanding of the true nature of every Australian race.

An immense understanding of historical perspectives would perhaps enhance the capacity to attach value to every race’s culture. This way, orientalism has the capacity to lose meaning. Instead, people evaluate and judge others’ cultures from a non-prejudiced position, free from coercion or without referring to some points: occident’s cultures.

Careful analysis of the manner in which people do things portrays some cultural attributes. A careful study of the Australian-Asian history, therefore, would reveal that different people have different ways of doing things: such ways intensively dictated by deeply rooted cultural prescriptions of every racial practice. Understanding, as well as appreciating these differences, consequently, can provide an insight that the way people do things is not the only way out. Comparing other people’s practices with those of others, consequently, emerges as inconsistent with calls for intercultural understanding especially in the age of globalization.

However, the bottom line in bringing orientalism to a dead-end lies in the ability to know and come into an agreement that the crimes associated with orientalism exist among the native Australian people’s presentations. This reveals itself well through a thorough study of the Australian-Asian cultures unveiling the evidence of orientalism in the manner in which people criticize and present the Australian cultural practices.

Conclusion

Orientalism covers a set of fragmented beliefs that tend to make a person despise other people’s cultural practices. Hence, they are inferior when compared to criticizing a person’s cultural practices. In Australia, as the paper discussed, the relationship in existence is Accidents versus orients. The former refers to the west while the latter represents the Middle East. Culture, as afore-discussed, constitutes valid evidence of people’s literature and beliefs.

Orientalism presentations in the native Australian people’s literature and racial stereotyping are some of the practices that serve as catalysts that fuel the crimes of orientalism. Consequently, there were efforts made to cite instances of orientalism in Australian cultural practices. Finally, the paper recognizes the relevance of studying the history of the Australian- Asian people in an endeavor to unveil the necessary strategies for coping with the crimes charged with orientalism.

References

Chiu, M., 2000. The Transcultural Dilemma: Asian and Australian Artists in the Asia Debate. Australian Journal of Media and Culture, 2(3), pp. 26-34.

Fleming, E., 2000. Orientalism, the Balkans, and Balkan Historiography. The American Historical Review, 105(4), pp. 1218–1233.

Halliday, F., 1993. Orientalism and Its Critics. British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 20 (2), pp. 145–163.

Macartney, F., 1957. Australian Literary Essays. Sydney: Angus and Robertson.

Macfie, A., 2002. Orientalism. White Plains, NY: Longman.

Mishra, V., 1987. Aboriginal Representation in Australian Texts. The Journal of Media and Culture, 2(1), pp. 67-91.

O’Hanlon, R., & David, W., 1992. After Orientalism: Culture, Criticism, and Politics in the Third World. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 34(1), pp. 141-167.

Said, E., 1978. Orientalism. New York: Vintage.

Sered, D., 1996. Orientalism. Web.

Click Here To Order Now!