Reversing the Passage: The Orient meets the Occident, Conflating the Binary

So far in deconstructing the binary of Orient/Occident and West/East I have focused specifically on the anthropological discourses and phenomena that define Orientalism and those who practice it. Yet, I think if I am able to deconstruct the binary I must also focus on the concept of crossing borders—the borders that mark the differences between West/East and Orient/Occident. 

So I have established, with the help of Edward Said’s work, that:

1^st that the Occident representsàEuropeàEngland and France

2^nd that the Orient representsà?à India

I have filled in one part of the Orient half of the binary.  India represents one country that can be covered under the umbrella term of the Orient. I don’t agree with the whole binary, and in fact the point of this class it to show that the differences that have been created are a form of power that is used to separate and create fear.  With that said, I find myself hesitating in filling in a continent where the question mark is when it comes to the Orient.  If I were to fill in the blank I would do so with either the Middle East, or Asia. As of right now these are only hypothetical inferences.  Asia is a continent, and I know the Middle is NOT considered a continent.  Yet, I believe that Edward Said pointed specifically to the Arab world—which is clearly defined as the Middle East and parts of North Eastern Africa. 

So the Middle East is the geographical place in which the Orient is most clearly represented.  

I think it is important to point to specific geographical boundaries when dealing with this binary because Orientalism stems from the fact that people have crossed certain borders and have been introduced to new cultures.  In doing so people that cross borders assign certain feelings and emotions to certain geographical spaces.  As I pointed out in the last post, people even came up with theories about the way people act in conjunction to certain longitudes and latitudes. 

There is no better way to study and deconstruct the binary than by explicating the actions and thoughts of those who navigate between geographical and cultural spaces.   It is within these spaces and border that one can better understand the thoughts and actions that guide the cultural fear that creates the binary in the first place, but I will get to that in a minute.

I haven’t defined what Occidentalism is.  Said points out that it is the opposite of Orientalism, and gives no further explication or definition. WHY?  Simple, we know that the hegemonic force-Orientalism—represents a far greater power in the binary. 

We know this: Orientalism is the mentality, and the colonial discourses, in which the West dealt with the East.  It was so deeply invested that it became an entire culture of its own manifested through politics, science, art and religion.  

Occidentalism would then represent the polar opposite of Orientalism—yes I just stated that Said pointed this out.  Occidentalism then can be defined as the mentality, and the anti-colonial discourses, that arise when the East begins to offset the relationship that has been forced upon it by the West.

I loosely defined the two—Orientalism and Occidentalism—and I’d like to point out the concept that creates a similarity between the two.  Each—for now I will call them mindsets—establish their power from the fact that they exist entirely on the basis of fear.  But not just any fear, it’s a fear based on the projection of difference. Each constantly defines itself in opposition to what it considers “Other.”

I examined a book in which the Occidental took a passage to the Orient, and the ways in which Orientalism projected the process of Othering.  But now I will examine a film in which the Oriental meets the Occident—Bricklane. The movie is an adaptation of Monica Ali’s novel Bricklane.

This film is a great visual representation of both Orientalism and Occidentalism—in fact it does a great job of deconstructing the binary and it shows the way people can shift and become conflicted with the cultural boundaries that define certain societies.

 I say this because the main protagonist, Nazneen, undergoes a transformation and is in essence torn culturally in half by both Orientalism and Occidentalism.  Yet it is not just Nazneen that suffers from the conflict that arises from this binary.   Her husband Chanu, and her daughter Shahna, also suffer from a cultural war that takes place within their own minds over their bodies and the geography that divides the fabric of their very lives.  For the sake of this post I would like to specifically explicate Nazneen’s own experiences.

To understand Nazneen’s own transformation I will focus on a few scenes because I want to argue the fact that Nazneen is first an Occidentalist and then she becomes an Orientalist and rejects the culture that both gave her life and took it away.

Nazneen is forced from her homeland in Bangladesh, and sent to live within the confines of an arranged marriage to Chanu, a man living in England desperate to embrace the money that seems to be the status of English men.  From the beginning of the movie Nazneen states “I always said I will not marry and be sent far away. I will go no farther than these patty fields, but our mother said we must not run from our fate” (Bricklane 1:30).  From the beginning there is a sense of ill boding. After all, Nazneen’s mother commits suicide over the fact that her daughter is to be married off and sent to England.  Fear of that which is different—therefore Nazneen’s own mother was an Occidentalist which is also what Nazneen was. It is interesting that it is marriage, a vital part of culture in Bangladesh, which separates Nazneen from her geographical sense of comfort.  Marriage takes Nazneen’s life, and culture, and instills a fear which permeates the beginning of the film.    After Nazneen is married, and leaves her home, she states that “You can spread your soul over a patty field you can feel the Earth beneath your toes.  You can tell this is the place where your life ends and begins. What can you tell from a pile of bricks?” (Bricklane 6:10).  Disdain for a place that does not accept her for who she is which accompanies the fact that she in turn misunderstands the place she now inhabits.

Nazneen’s life and Occidental mentality changes when she purchases a sewing machine.  Suddenly, her life becomes entangled between two cultures.  The sewing machine represents the bridging of cultures if you will. She meets Karim, and her fear suddenly disappears. But before she meets Karim, and posses a sewing machine, Nazneen is culturally ignorant and her Occidentalism/fear manifest itself through her actions—She walks with eyes cast down, answers “Yes, No, and Sorry”, and speaks in broken language.  Her sari serves as the protection from which she fears and hides her body and minds within its folds.  Yet, when she gets the sewing me machine she changes.  Each week Karim brings fabric, and as Nazneen sews pant together, she begins to unravel the fabric of her own life.  Her sari gets lower, and lower, and eventually Nazneen loses herself in a passionate love affair.  Fear no longer defines her life.  Instead she fears returning to the place that took her life away in the first place.

At this point it is clear that Nazneen finds herself in the position of the Orientalist. She no longer desires to return home, and finds fear in having to. She had found solace in the tenuous letters that defined her and her sister’s relationship. But Karim represents the West in his material success.  But this is quickly changed when two significant events happen—9/11 and the revelation that her sister has become a prostitute.

These two events change Nazneen’s own life.  Karim, her lover, becomes embroiled with a political agenda of making the world believe that Islam is not different, nor does it represent the violent act that created further opposition.  He changes his appearance, no longer Anglicized, and grows his beard out and wears a robe.

She’s once again suspended between the two cultures, forced into a space of confinement because of Orientalism and Occidentalism.

Eventually, she rejects the two and decides for herself exactly what she wants—an identity separate from any man or culture.  Yet, it’s ironic because her freedom resides within the culture that took her life away in the first place.

Unlike her mother she decides to live, and reject the fate that tries to constantly define her life.

I don’t do the movie the visual justice it deserves, nor do I focus on the other characters that deal with the binary on their own.  Yet, this simple explication reveals a lot about the way Occidentalism/Orientalism create conflict within the cultures that practice both. 

They both give life, and they both take life away.  

Is one more civilized than the other?

It’s simple, one is no better than the other.  We must look within the spaces, and the people like Nazneen who occupy those spaces, in order to deconstruct and reject the binary that has firmly controlled those involved.

Am I any better for trying to understand it?