Beyond Territorial Colonization: A Study of Orientalist Self-perceptions among Iranians.

While Iran was never formally colonized by Western powers, it's governing regimes before the Islamic revolution were loyal to both the East and the West; the country was therefore more or less a de facto colony of Russia, Great Britain, and the United States. One of the most pernicious consequences of such presences can be described as the "colonization of the mind," which has subtle and lasting manifestations. Using Edward Said's four major characteristics of Orientalism (i.e., binary opposition, over-generalization, fear and control, and depicting the Orient as stuck in past primitiveness), the present paper attempts to analyze the self-perception of the Iranians toward themselves to see whether the way they perceive themselves is similar to the Western discourse of the "Orient." In the first step, a number of interviews with a representative sampling of the population under investigation were conducted to develop a questionnaire. The questionnaires were then distributed and 650 responses were collected. The survey was meant to assess the four components of Orientalism as proposed by Said, among the respondents. It also contained questions about the respondents' lifestyle, their perceptions toward nationalism, and media consumption. The results reveal evidence of Orientalist selfperception among the Iranians when they compare themselves with the West. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]