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Is Orientalism? Outline And Evaluating Edward Said's Argument

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IR 4027 Middle East Politics

Name: Marek Madle
The Course Co-ordinator’s name: Dr Andrea Teti
Essay topic:
What is ‘Orientalism’? Outline and evaluate Edward Said’s argument. What implications does his line of argument have? (Discuss with reference to EITHER media coverage of Middle East issues, government policies towards a Middle Eastern state, OR to the application of IR theories to the region.)

I. The Summary

This paper examines the definition of Orientalism, it outlines and evaluates Edward Said’s argument and what implications his line of argument has with reference to the media’s coverage of issues in the Middle East. This paper is also includes a case study of Osama Bin Laden based on implications of Said’s line …show more content…

That is what happened to Osama. The article by Kate Zernike and Michael T. Kaufman (2011) in New York Times described the life of Osama and how his role in the Wold order had changed. This happened in 1989 when the Soviet army was defeated in Afghanistan. This all could not have been done without US support of weapons and capital. The turning point came in 1998 when he declared that he was “confident that Muslims will be able to end the legend of the so-called superpower that is America.” But this article clashes with the previous article in that it states Osama ran his training camps from 1986 …show more content…

Unfortunately, Said also gave us an idea how easy may be to judge and misunderstand one part of the world by using wrong picture of Orient by Western writers and media but also brainwashing people’s brains by Western governments. The example I gave in this paper was story of Osama Bin Laden. Therefore it is still uncertain whether Osama Bin Laden was a freedom fighter or terrorist. On one hand, media gave us clear picture of Bin Laden as a terrorist with no mercy. On the other hand, Michael Scheuer’s book offers completely different view on him. Therefore it is important to follow Said’s aspects of contemporary reality to make sure that we fully understand what we read and do not paint everyone with the same brush as Aslan

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