‘Faut-Il Brûler L’Orientalisme?’

Abstract

This article discusses the specificity of French Orientalism on North Africa and shows how in its divide and rule policy, French colonialism constructed a discourse that opposes the Oriental Arab to the European Berber. It argues that French Orientalism, the bulk of knowledge that has been built in the context of colonization, though it has changed through time, continues to operate today both in the discourse of the former colonized and that of the former colonizer. In addition, the article draws the attention to the important fact that knowledge is not only a means of control and governance for the colonial machine, but it also contains categories by which imaginaries are shaped and colonial relations and attitudes are perpetuated.