Page 87 - Introducing Cultural Studies
P. 87
he Stereotyped Oriental
Colonialism replaced the Eurocentric
convention of portraying the Other as an
incomprehensible barbarian with the
pathological stereotype of the strange but
predictable Oriental. He was now religious
but superstitious, clever but devious,
chaotically violent but effeminately cowardly.
At the same time, a new discourse was
developed where the basic mode of breaking
out of these stereotypes was to reverse
them: superstitious but spiritual, uneducated
but wise, womanly but pacific.
The cry of the
victims of
colonialism was
ultimately the cry
to be heard in
another language
- which would be
unknown both to
the colonizer and
the anti-colonial
movements that
he had bred and
domesticated.
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