SAID ET LA THÉORIE POSTCOLONIALE

Abstract : The Orient is a phantasmatic construct of the West that has redrawn borders, recomposed history, swept away cultures and individualities, and deprived all components of the Eastern world of meaning. The East is Europe's double, the embodiment of the West's greatness. Western hegemony regards other cultures with contempt. This hegemony ended up imposing the idea that certain values had to be taught to the East, that the East had to be civilized, educated and socialized. It expressed a real colonial will to dominate. Like Foucault, Said studies the archaeology of Western discourse on the Orient. By studying Orientalism, we learn a lot about Europe, but nothing about the East. Westerners have imagined the East for the purposes of colonial domination. European culture developed by devaluing Oriental culture. Orientalism is essentialism. Key words: orientalism, essentialism, occidentalism, postcoloniality.