The massive Israeli attacks on Gaza and all Palestinians turned into escalating brutality from the very first day. Countries such as the UK and the US, openly supported Israel, followed by Germany, France, Italy, and others. Given that these countries, especially under the patronage of the US and the UK, constitute a colonial structure, their support for Israel can be seen as a natural outcome. In fact, without this support, the existence of Israel would have become highly controversial. However, after October 7th, the displayed brutality reached such terrifying proportions that conventional judgments lost their validity. Since these are countries representing Western civilization, the brutality exhibited in Gaza deeply influenced accumulations around the concepts of East and West. The boundaries of Western superiority are now being discussed. This is probably not the outcome they desired.
One of the significant areas shaped around the concepts of East and West is Orientalism. The concept of Orientalism and the accumulations in this field should be discussed separately, but in this article, we will focus on a current development related to the issue. As is known, Orientalism is a concept representing the common accumulation of different genres, particularly gaining attention through works in the genre of painting. In fact, pioneers of modern art, like Osman Hamdi Bey in our context, are also representatives of orientalist painting. These artists represent the "Us" painted on behalf of the West. What this means and titles like the deepening of Eurocentric thought have not been adequately discussed yet, but these issues will be brought up more in the future. Events deeply affecting the world after Gaza will also shake Turkish intellectual life.
Orientalist painting, which emerged in the 19th century in the West, represented a new ideology directed more towards Easterners than the East itself. However, explanatory texts about orientalist paintings have always focused on a specific perspective, and ideological foundations have not been noticed. Unfortunately, this issue is even more evident in Turkish sources. Especially after Edward Said, Orientalism remains a matter explained with cultural sources. Undoubtedly, this limited Orientalism criticism. However, Orientalism developed on political and ideological foundations, even purposes, that cannot be confined to cultural sources. One of the main results of Lamartine's Eastern journey is the report submitted to the French parliament. Lamartine prepared a report about suitable places for colonization on the coasts of the Eastern Mediterranean. According to them, the East has extraordinary beauties as a place, but encountering the disturbing presence of Easterners is inevitable. Orientalism is a compilation that emerged in different disciplines as a result of the new attitude taken in the face of this presence. Concepts of knowledge and power are also meaningful within the framework of colonialist hegemony. Therefore, the context of Orientalism is not cultural sources. The "colonial encounter" revealed a new ideological perspective that cannot be explained with cultural sources. The main source or context of Orientalism is colonialism. Since colonialism in Turkish has been welcomed with a concept that cannot be clearly defined, such as imperialism, the orientalist ideology has been limited to cultural sources. As a result, a strange understanding such as "we also have Occidentalism" has emerged. However, removing the concept of colonialism from Said's books leaves very little behind. His criticism of Orientalism also gains meaning within the same framework. The problem is not limited to how the West looks at the East.
An explanation limited to cultural sources indicates that colonial hegemony is not seen. From here, it is also difficult to answer the question of how hegemony will be broken. If it were not for the tremendous resistance of the people of Gaza, it would be challenging to answer the question of how hegemony would be broken. Looking at the artistic activities that emerged after October 7th from the perspective of breaking hegemony is crucial. This perspective will certainly not disrespect the tremendous resistance of the people of Gaza. This time, the Palestinians managed to garner international support for the first time. In this context, images that bring together a figure representing Palestine and a figure representing Native Americans in the same frame received global attention. We cannot see these new images as products of the reductionist perspective of the West. It is evident that we did not look at orientalist paintings.
These reflect an anti-orientalist perspective.
