Colonial discourse acknowledges non-Europeans’ priority on land but denies their authority

Evidence

If European culture generally has digested the Orient, certainly Valéry was aware that one specific agency for doing the job has been Orientalism. In the world of Wilsonian principles of national self-determination, Valéry relies confidently on analyzing the Orient’s threat away. “The power of choice” is mainly for Europe first to acknowledge the Orient as the origin of European science, then to treat it as a superseded origin. Thus, in another context, Balfour could regard the native inhabitants of Palestine as having priority on the land, but nowhere near the subsequent authority to keep it; the mere wishes of 700,000 Arabs, he said, were of no moment compared to the destiny of an essentially European colonial movement. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 644

Categorization

• DEFINE: Said’s ‘superseded origin’ concept: the Orient is acknowledged as the source of European science precisely so it can be relegated to the past, licensing European authority over living Orientals.
• XREF: This ‘superseded origin’ move anticipates arguments later Islamophobia readings will trace in claims that Islam contributed to Western civilization but is now a backward relic — the origin is honored only as archaeology. — connects to: Farming a land long-colonized yet never renouncing its colonial ideology is paradoxical — Tavengwa Gwekwerere, Davie E. Mutasa, and Kudakwashe Chitofiri, Settlers, Rhodesians, and Supremacists:…, 82; Discovery of land granted title against rival Europeans but not against natives. — Supreme Court of the United States (Marshall Court, 1823), Johnson & Graham’s Lessee v. M’Intosh,…, 166; Naming the land Rhodesia was an act of colonial violence that denied African presence. — Tavengwa Gwekwerere, Davie E. Mutasa, and Kudakwashe Chitofiri, Settlers, Rhodesians, and Supremacists:…, 41
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 644