Palestine Chronicle herdenkt gecensureerde seculiere Edward Said

[Ron Haleber]

http://palestinechronicle.com/assets/header/header.jpg

De hoofdredacteur van de belangrijkste Palestijnse opinie-website schrijft het volgende
om Said te herdenken. Hij geeft het belang aan dat Said had voor het Palestijnse Volk.

Tegelijk wordt duidelijk hoezeer de seculiere Said door de Marokkanen op deze site
waar het wemelt van religieuze ideologen en fanatici als OBL en Khomeiny - onderschat is.

Dat Israel-verdedigers zowel hier als in de rest van Nederland en in de
ons koloniserende USA de argumenten van deze door zionisten bekladde auteur - zie onder -
niet serieus namen en nooit bespraken spreekt natuurlijk vanzelf...

Said serieus nemen betekent niet, hem met egotrippende roddel-columnisten
te herdenken als Anil Ramdas die zich nooit van de westerse politiek zal
distantiëren... Maar om de moeite te nemen zijn kritische boeken zelf te lezen
en daarna de Nederlanders van zijn aanstootgevende visies te overtuigen...!

Kortgeleden nam Trouw nog de moeite Said paginalang belachelijk te maken...!


http://palestinechronicle.com/images/articles/1_images/said_926.JPG


Edward Said, You Are Not 'Out of Place'

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Edward Said was never out of place

"Unlike many of us who chose to be so careful not to offend, Said was unrivaled in his honesty. It is no wonder Said was adored by the people as much as the authorities detested him. His lashing out at the Zionist ideology and its involvement in shaping America’s foreign policy was deliberately misapprehended. But the might of his logic always prevailed.."

By RAMZY BAROUD

Suddenly, I am immersed in overwhelming loneliness. “Edward Said passed away this morning,” a troubling e-mail message stared me in the eyes. I knew that such a moment was inevitable. The honorable man was stricken with Leukemia and had suffered for years. His eyes sunk deeper into his handsome face with every lecture he gave. I knew that his untimely death was approaching.

The last message I exchanged with the Columbia University Professor was awhile back. I requested an interview and he said he would be happy to conduct one. But he asked for a month before conducting the interview, for he was about to undergo “very rigorous chemotherapy treatment” at a New York hospital. I imagined the courageous man absorbed in pain. The mere thought sickened me. We never conducted the interview.

Edward Said stood for everything that is virtuous. His moral stances were more than a wealth of essays, books, prose and music. It was manifested more evidently in his gentle, kind persona. He wrote whenever he managed to get hold of a pen. In his seemingly weakest moments of pain and struggle with the spreading cancer, he taught us strength and preached endurance.

Edward Said was an extraordinary intellectual. His intellectual capabilities, thoughtfulness and genius were inimitable. And because of that, he was a target for those who wish to silence every voice that utters the tabooed word of truth.

Said’s words dug deep into our hearts, broke the boundaries of culture, religion and politics.
He tackled our humanity before reaching out to our minds.
Palestinians are not the only ones who are mourning Said’s death.
Of this I am sure.

In his touching memoir, Said spoke of his long life legacy of being “Out of Place”. As a Palestinian denied the chance to live freely in his homeland, he circled the globe, from the Middle East to Europe to the United States, where he spent most of his life, so vividly and eloquently conveying the pain of his people in a way no other intellectual had.

Many tried to exploit the man’s unscarred reputation, dishonestly building a name for themselves.

An unknown Israeli writer rose to become a celebrated “intellectual” when he broke the news that Edward Said was not a refugee. Justus Reid Weiner’s “revelations” made him a hero in the eyes of those who never cease to demand Professor Said’s expulsion from his position at Columbia University, where thousands of Americans were privileged to learn a side of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that was hardly conveyed anywhere. “I have been moved to defend the refugees’ plight precisely because I did not suffer therefore feel obliged to relieve the suffering of my people,” Said responded so graciously to his accuser. Weiner and his supporters were quickly discarded and the giant intellectual carried on with his mission, swimming against the current of the mainstream.

But those living and dying in isolation,
so desperate in their attempt to let the world know
of their atrocious destiny under a wicked Israeli occupation,
those scattered in their refugee camps across Palestine and Middle East
are the ones that will miss Professor Said the most.

Unlike many of us who chose to be so careful not to offend, Said was unrivaled in his honesty. He tackled issues that were too “politically incorrect” to confront.

It is no wonder Said was adored by the people
as much as the authorities detested him.

On more than one occasion, his books were banned in the Middle East,
even in the West Bank and Gaza.
But being “Bookless in Gaza” was hardly enough to dishearten Said.

His lashing out at the Zionist ideology and its involvement in shaping America’s foreign policy was deliberately and shrewdly misapprehended as “anti-Semitism.” But the might of Said’s logic always prevailed, and will continue to prevail, even in his death.

Refugee or not, the tireless professor of Columbia University is dead. He passed away on a New York morning, not like any other. He left us with a legacy that makes us proud that he was a Palestinian, with a heart that beat with endless humanity.

As I finished reading the message conveying the poignant news, I was relieved that I had already thanked him, on behalf of my father, my mother, my grandparents and my children and the rest of the 5 million refugees awaiting their return to Palestine. “Thank you professor. You stood courageously for us, while many denied that our pain was even legitimate, or that it deserved to be eased.”

Edward Said was never out of place, despite the title of his memoir. He always had a special place in our hearts, and there, he shall remain.



About the Author: Ramzy Baroud is the editor-in-chief of Palestine Chronicle


The Palestine Chronicle (http://palestinechronicle.com/story.php?sid=20030926174752387)




Link naar Archief met belangrijke artikelen van Said (http://www.edwardsaid.org/)



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De bekende schrijfster Malise Ruthven geeft in The Guardian een interessante analyse van Edward Said

Controversial literary critic and bold advocate of the Palestinian cause in America

Friday September 26, 2003 The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,3604,1049884,00.html

[Ron Haleber]

NEW YORK - United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan mourned the loss of Edward Said, the Palestinian-American writer who died early yesterday.


Secretary-General Mourns Death of Palestinian Scholar Edward Said

Friday, September 26 2003 @ 04:14 PM EDT


"The Secretary-General heard with great sadness of the death of Edward Said, the distinguished Palestinian-American writer and scholar who did so much to explain the Islamic world to the West, and vice versa," a statement by Annan's spokesman said.

"While not sharing all of Professor Said's opinions, the Secretary-General always enjoyed his company, savoured his wit, and admired the passion with which he pursued his vision of peace between Israelis and Palestinians," the statement added.

"Both the Middle East and the United States will be the poorer without his distinctive voice."

Source: United Nations News Service

[Ron Haleber]

The Electronic Intifada: http://electronicintifada.net/introduction/index.shtml

E I verwijst o.a. naar een artikel van de organisatie American Task Force on Palestine die een twee-staat oplossing bepleit.

Edward Said: one of the architects of all reasonable discussion on Palestine
Ziad Asali, MD,


The Electronic Intifada, 26 September 2003

A university professor of literature at Columbia University has died. He was witty, elegant and powerful, passionate about his field of study and a man of aristocratic bearing. He loved opera and art and wrote lovely, erudite books. What made him especially important, however, was none of the preceding. Edward W. Said was one of the architects of all reasonable discussion on the question of Palestine and commanded the moral authority to discuss the subject honestly and outside the rhetoric of hatred and violence.

He was a brilliant man who sought to improve the world through the power of reason and beauty and truth. Now he is gone and we mourn the loss because his passing leaves in us an absence where the source of Arab-American identity once lived.

Being born to privilege does not a great man make. However, using the gifts of privilege, the education, travel, perspective and information of a fortunate youth, gave Edward the opportunity to put his experiences to the service of the underprivileged. Where many chose to flee and seek comfort in "the good life," Edward Said made himself a witness to the lives of the Palestinian people. He understood the oppression that comes from simply lacking the means to articulate your own circumstances. He found great purpose in speaking for and about the Palestinian cause because he felt uniquely suited for the job.

History simultaneously smiled upon and cursed him.

He was a pioneer on the issue of Palestine and his perceptions and inquiries still frame the debate even as the constant unfurling of history has altered the specifics of the discussion. His passionate pursuit of justice inspired so many of us to mature in our political arguments.

He was the first Palestinian to ask Arabs to delve into the painful history of the Holocaust in order to understand the suffering that Jews endured. And in this way, he was able to clarify in the minds of many Palestinians the way in which clinging to their historical grievances would merely lead to a showcase of wounds.

Edward was harshly critical of the shortcomings of the current Palestinian leadership as he was of Israeli occupation.

However, he was extremely careful to separate leadership from the population at large. In his work and in his person, Edward Said made the Palestinians human to the rest of the world. He gave voice to mute suffering, for where many heard the din of violence and hatred, Edward made our concerns lyrical. He gave us faces and names. He put words in our hearts, souls and minds. And that was just his hobby.

In the minds of many, Edward helped create the discipline of comparative literature. With the publication of "Orientalism" in 1978, students of English literature and art history were suddenly able to see a global and historical context for the canon which they revered. He made it possible to both passionately love these works and simultaneously understand the vast assumptions they made about the East.

He liberated thoughtful students from both sides of the divide to consider their own colonial history as a tool in comprehending the other perspective.

And though the field of comparative literature has evolved and it may be fashionable to turn upon the early texts, it is undeniable that Edward Said made it possible for these further, more elaborate discussions to even exist. He discovered words for what some readers had merely felt and that revelation of the inchoate was so valuable to scholars that it has transformed many of the texts about which he wrote.

His career as an academic would have been remarkable even if "Orientalism" were his only contribution. He could have been one of those eminences grises who lectured from yellowed notes on the groundbreaking work his younger self produced. He was far from that picture, writing on subjects as varied as opera and religion, and writing introductions to the works of such luminaries as Rudyard Kipling, Henry James, Sigmund Freud, and E.E. Cummings not to mention Chopin and Faulkner.

He also collaborated with noted conductor Daniel Barenboim on "Parallels and Paradoxes: Explorations in Music and Society." There was no aspect of the arts about which he had not cultivated a deep interest and a thorough understanding.

On a much more personal note, he contributed greatly to Arab America's comprehension of itself. Edward Said's personal grace stood in living defiance of the stereotypical images of Palestinians as thugs and terrorists. How could a person believe those things after having met the worldly, charming, elegant man that Edward was?

Never was his grace so much in evidence as in his last few years in the face of his final, indefatigable enemy. His personal heroism in illness was remarkable as he continued to teach, write, travel and speak even as his physical condition deteriorated. He continued to work on four books simultaneously in his final year. Although he was a man of many passions, he maintained profound dignity in the face of death. In fact, dignity and justice were of such importance to him that one of his last articles to be published was an essay on the nature of dignity.

Edward Said will be remembered as the model of integration for Arab Americans. His fluid comfort in both cultures was astounding to behold and it came from a very simple source.

He was born a Palestinian and being one was a wellspring for his unique perspective on history, art, music, philosophy and many other subjects. He was an American and being one gave him personal and political freedom, a fully functional model of the rule of law and the opportunity for success in his chosen profession. He was both because each fed him and contributed to his integrity as a human being as much as having two arms or eyes did. And Edward Said's commitment to a full identity freed us all.

Because he chose not to be merely Palestinian or only American, we were granted permission to choose the best of both and create the identity which gave us dignity. And because he refused to be defined by history's accidents, we were liberated to seek our destiny and rise like many bright phoenixes from the ashes of our former selves.


Ziad Asali is president of the American Task Force on Palestine. The ATFP is a not-for-profit corporation that aims to educate the American people about the national security interests of the United States in establishing a Palestinian state. Specifically, ATFP seeks to promote the awareness of the far-reaching benefits that Palestinian statehood will have for the United States in the following areas: (1) enhancing national security, (2) proliferation of American values of freedom and democracy, and (3) expansion of economic opportunities throughout the Arab and Islamic worlds.

For more information, see www.americantaskforce.org.


bron:

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article1988.shtml