Viewing from a Point

Orientalism, or as put by Said; the difference between east and west; is a tri chapter work of what Edward Said concludes, should not have been done in the first place regarding the classification of peoples between the so called civilised west to the uncivilised east. This has greatly contributed to the bias and propaganda that still exists to this day.      In the first chapter, he writes how the world was divided between the east and west. The orients were regarded as sub-human, uncivilised, incapable of running their own affairs, hence needed the intervention of the civilised west. And because they (orients) were incapable, the west could, without their knowledge, represent them. Everything was studied and interpreted according to the interpretation of the west. European generally defined themselves by defining the orient. The second chapter writes the orients’ land and behavior being highly romanticized as the east being exotic and pure. It was in the easts’ purit

Smith has articulated one of the most impressive and informative writings I have ever come across. Research, as her book articulates, “it stirs up silence, it conjures up bad memories, it raises a smile that is knowing and distrustful.” The relevance resounds arguably in many ‘indigenous’ communities as they cannot but agree with subconscious contempt. Having imperialism as the driving force that has and continues to enable research to infiltrate and to an extent ‘colonise’ indigenous groups throughout the world, implies only of the West’s arrogance towards structures and systems that have been established and practiced for thousands of years by indigenous peoples throughout the world. For Bougainville, research is a well-known term in many communities, villages, hamlets, etc. And as a region coming out of two big waves of colonization and then the bloody 10-year civil war, the region has seen much outside influence as much from within their own. Conceptions of