There is a lot to sift through this week from the readings. Orientalism and post colonialism thoughts are some pretty heavy matters to digest in one week. However there are elements of both are found in the other.
Orientalism is a very odd thing when I think about it. It is basically the breakdown of the majority of the world imposed into a single category. Everything that was not in Europe was in the “Orient”. What particularly baffled me is that Egypt and parts of Africa are imposed into this Orientalist view as well, when most if not all of Egypt and Africa is parallel to Europe and really no further East. Greece, the very seat of classical philosophy and “western” thinking, is more East then Egypt, which I find highly amusing contrasted to Orientalism. I really think that Orientalism is a later version of the classic Roman barbarianism. The Romans’ version was much more simple then orientalism, any group of people or tribes who were not Roman or Greek that did not speak Latin or Greek and did not have similar institutions were barbarians. Of course as Europe became more developed and complex the idea of “civilized” culture takes on more complexities and evolves – that’s how we get orientalism.
It is not difficult to see the effects of orientalism on mountaineering. Tibet itself I believe had been highly Orientalized by the Western climbers coming in. India too probably more so has been filled with the mental projections during the long British reign over the Indus peninsula. Although like so many other things in this class we find these over arching themes all circling back to the Sherpas. The image of the Sherpas as lazy and not as intelligent as the sahibs in Annapurna and K2 the Savage Summit are shockingly modern examples of orientalism. We also see colonialism rearing its ugly head in this as well.
Sherpas to me remain an enigma. They were never under the colonial powers emanating from the West, but they have been so distinctively effected by the colonial spirit. “Discovered” and utilized by western climbers in an echo of colonial endeavors. Though what makes the Sherpas so much different than colonized people is that in a way they have embraced this discovery of themselves. The region near Everest and along the major trekking routes of the Himalaya are being transformed into hubs catered to climbers, trekkers, and adventure tourists. In a way they are taking some of the Orientalism out of their image, but at the exact same time they are projecting an image of post colonialism. I am sure that this is not an phenomenon bound solely to Sherpa but in all probably in just about any place in the modern world that can be labeled as “exotic”. The tourist industry here and now, as I am quickly learning in my research for the upcoming paper as well as from what we have gleaned from our readings and discussions, is almost like a living entity that grows and changes everything that it touches. Tourism in so many ways is, has, and will change the settings that it is getting built into. Mountaineering tourism in particular leaves a widely carved path behind it echoing colonial era ideals and injecting them with a new modern look, but the feeling and intentions behind them have hardly changed – the sentiment is still there.
On a complete tangent, I found what Said said (pun completely intended) about Muhammad in the Inferno very interesting. Previously, I have studied Dante, but in a completely literary context, but I have to agree with Said that there is a large degree of Orientalism in that scene in the Inferno. I found this interesting and I think that it makes the Inferno even more complex. What else could I be missing from it?