Mohamed Salah Eddine Madiou

Postcolonialism stands today in flagrant contradiction with its mission. This assertion should scarcely come as a surprise. Come to think of it: what has postcolonialism done to colonization in the past few decades, save passively reflecting on it and its realities that often do not fit the reality of things? How much leeway does postcolonialism give its critic in expressing opposition to colonization? And how does it rate as a field for serious decolonization? As a start toward answering these questions, or coming close to answering them, the following pages offer a commentary on how I feel about postcolonialism. I will confine myself to one particular reason I consider postcolonialism a dismal failure, which is incontestable and will hopefully startle the dull reader into alertness. I prefer here simple words with a direct message and no opaque subtleties.

There has been no way to absolve Orientalism from ferocious debate. Scholars have been drawn from several quarters of the world to Edward Said’s oeuvre when it first appeared almost fifty years ago. Orientalism has since become an oft-occurring, if not a dominant work segueing into every postcolonial (or otherwise) conversation that unfurls. Said presents in Orientalism a mode of thought quite complex in its essence; its emphasis offers an overwhelming, unsettling sense of the detail and a complexity capable of halting one in haste. The very best of Said’s work has stood the test of time, but the many-hued reception has, so far, not only prevented any effective convergence, but also allowed Orientalism to lose its complex argument and dissolve into simplification. This article gives insight into two different perspectives (the Algerian and the Jordanian) on Said and Orientalism, and on this basis offers a reassessment of Orientalism’s main argument to refocus its energy and locate Said vis-à-vis Orientalism. It also discusses the pitfalls of “newly” emerging Orientalist thoughts, and instead of departing from the concept of Orientalism as Said defines it, it proposes to reconfigure and modulate it to fit the current circumstances, providing the foundation for a new concept: Warientalism.