Palestinian, intellectual, and fighter

[Cleopatra]

Palestinian, intellectual, and fighter, Edward Said rails against Arafat and Sharon to his dying breath

Robert Fisk, The Independent, 25 September 2003

The last time I saw Edward Said, I asked him to go on living. I knew about his leukaemia. He had often pointed out that he was receiving "state-of-the-art" treatment from a Jewish doctor and - despite all the trash that his enemies threw at him - he always acknowledged the kindness and honour of his Jewish friends, of whom Daniel Barenboim was among the finest.

Edward was dining at a buffet among his family in Beirut, frail but angry at Arafat's latest surrender in Palestine/Israel. And he answered my question like a soldier. "I'm not going to die," he said. "Because so many people want me dead."

On Wednesday night he died in a New York hospital, aged 67.

I first met him in the early years of the Lebanese civil war. I'd heard of this man, this intellectual fighter and linguist and academic and musicologist and - God spare me for my ignorance in the 1970s - didn't know much about him. I was told to go to an apartment near Hamra street in Beirut.

There was shooting in the streets - how easily we all came to accept the normality of war - but when I climbed the steps to the apartment, I heard a Beethoven piano sonata. No, it wasn't the "Moonlight"- nothing so popular for Edward - but I waited outside the brown-painted door for 10 minutes until he had finished.

"You've read my books, Robert - but I bet you haven't read my work on music," he once scolded me. And of course, I scuttled off to Librarie Internationale in the Gefinor Building in Beirut to buy his definitive book to add to my collection; his wonderful essays on the Palestinians, his excoriation of the corruption and viciousness of Yasser Arafat, his outraged condemnation of the criminality of Ariel Sharon.

He was a tough guy, the most eloquent defender of an occupied people and the most irascible attacker of its corrupt leadership. Arafat banned his books in the occupied territories - proving the immensity of Said and the intellectual impoverishment of Arafat.

At that first meeting in Beirut in the late Seventies, I had asked him about Arafat. "I went to a meeting he held in Beirut the other day," he said. "And Arafat stood there and was questioned about a future Palestinian state, and all he could say was that 'You must ask every Palestinian child this question.' Everyone clapped. But what did he mean? What on earth was he talking about? It was rhetoric. But it meant nothing."

After Arafat went along with the Oslo accords, Said was the first - rightly - to attack him. Arafat had never seen a Jewish settlement in the occupied territories, he said. There wasn't a single Palestinian lawyer present during the Oslo negotiations. Said was immediately condemned - all of us who said that Oslo would be a catastrophic failure were - as "anti-peace" and, by vicious extension, "pro-terrorist".

Said would weary of the need to repeat the Palestinian story, the importance of denouncing the old lies - one of them, which especially enraged him, was the myth that Arab radio stations had called upon the Palestinian Arabs of 1948 to abandon their homes in the new Israeli state - but he would repeat, over and over again, the importance of re-telling the tale of Palestinian tragedy.

He was abused by anonymous callers, his office was visited by a fire-bomber, and he was libelled many times by Jewish Americans who hated that he, a professor of literature at Columbia University, could so eloquently and vigorously defend his occupied people.

An attempt was made, in his dying days, to deprive him of his academic job by some cruel supporters of Israel who claimed - the same old, mendacious slur - that he was an anti-Semite. Columbia, in a long but slightly ambivalent statement, defended him. When the Jewish head of Harvard expressed his concern about the rise of "anti-Semitism" in the United States - by those who dared to criticise Israel - Said wrote scathingly that a Jewish academic who was head of Harvard "complains about anti-Semitism!"

As his health declined, he was invited to give a lecture in northern England. I can still hear the lady who organised it complaining that he insisted on flying business class. But why not? Was a critically ill man, fighting for his life and his people, not allowed some comfort across the Atlantic? His friendship with the brilliant Barenboim - and their joint support for an Arab-Israeli orchestra that only last month played in Morocco - was proof of his human decency. When Barenboim was refused permission to play in Ramallah, Said rearranged his concert - much to the fury of the Sharon government, for which Said had only contempt.

The last time I saw him, he was exalted with happiness at the marriage of his son to a beautiful young woman. The time I saw him before, he had been moved to infuriation by the failure of Palestinians in Boston to arrange his slides to a lecture on the "right of return" of Palestinians to Palestine in the right order. Like all serious academics, he wanted accuracy. All the greater was his fury when one of his enemies claimed that he was never a true refugee from Palestine because he was in Cairo at the time of the Palestinian dispossession.

He had no truck with sloppy journalism - take a look at Covering Islam, on the reporting of the Iranian revolution - and he had even less patience with American television anchors. "When I went on air," he told me once, "the Israeli consul in New York said I was a terrorist and wanted to kill him. And what did the anchorwoman say to me? 'Mr Said, why do you want to kill the Israeli consul?' How do you reply to such garbage?"

Edward was a rare bird. He was both an icon and an iconoclast.

For the full article see here

 

[Cleopatra]

Another one from Daniel Barenboim :




Edward Said's breadth of interest

Daniel Barenboim, The Electronic Intifada, 26 September 2003

Chicago, 25 September 2003 --

Perhaps the first thing one remembers about Edward Said was his breadth of interest. He was not only at home in music, literature, philosophy, or the understanding of politics, but also he was one of those rare people who saw the connections and the parallels between different disciplines, because he had an unusual understanding of the human spirit, and of the human being, and he recognized that parallels and paradoxes are not contradictions.

He saw in music not just a combination of sounds, but he understood the fact that every musical masterpiece is, as it were, a conception of the world. And the difficulty lies in the fact that this conception of the world cannot be described in words‚ because were it possible to describe it in words, the music would be unnecessary. But he recognized that the fact that it is indescribable doesn't mean that is has no meaning.

Many Israelis and Jews did not want to tolerate his criticism, not just of the present Israeli government, but of a certain mentality that he identified in Israeli thoughts and deeds‚ namely the lack of empathy with the fact that the very same war of independence of Israel in 1948, which brought about the acquisition of a new identity for the Jewish part of the population, was not just a military defeat, but also a psychological catastrophe for the non-Jewish population of Palestine. And therefore he was critical of the inability of Israeli leaders to make the necessary symbolic gestures that have to precede any political solution. The Arabs, on the other hand, were and are still unable to accept his sensitivity toward Jewish history, limiting themselves to repeat their innocence as far as the suffering of Jewish people is concerned.

It was precisely this ability of his to see not only the different aspects of any thought or process, but their inevitable consequences as well -- and also the combination of human, psychological, and historical, as the case may be, "pre-history" of such thoughts and processes. He was one of those rare people who was permanently aware of the fact that information is only the very first step toward understanding. And he always looked for the "beyond" in the idea, the "unseen" by the eye, the "unheard" by the ear.

It was a combination of all these qualities which led him to found together with me the West-Eastern Divan, which provides a forum for young Israeli and Arab musicians to learn together music and all its ramifications.

The Palestinians have lost one of the most eloquent defenders of their aspirations. The Israelis have lost an adversary -- but a fair and humane one. And I have lost a soul mate.

Full article

 

[TillEulenspiegel]

Most have no idea of the depth of our loss. He was that rarity of rairities....a Man of Reason.

 

[Cleopatra]

One of the things I find amazing ( who am I to judge someone like Said afterall) about him is what I read in one of his interviews about the role of the Palestinian diaspora.

He brought the example of his son who was a survivor of leuchemia--I think-- I am not sure about this.

When the later announced him his decision to leave his comfort and social status in NYC and go live in the occupied territories--after completing excellent studies in English and Arabic Literature not only he didn't prevent him but he encouraged him to go for his plans.

I had the privilege to listen to a lecture of E.Said in Athens University a couple of years ago in the context of a Symposium about Arts and Politics. He talked about--what else- the role of classical music as a tool of political propaganda.

If Israel had more "enemies" like him, maybe we wouldn't have people like A.Sharon as leaders...

 

[Rayn]

If Israel had more "enemies" like him, maybe we wouldn't have people like A.Sharon as leaders...

If Israelis didn't vote people like A. Sharon into office, maybe there would be more people like E. Said.

 

[Cleopatra]

Here are some articles I found in Open Democracy's weekly review. Since I am a passionate lover of music, allow me to post some excerpts from the last article that describes Said's love for music. I always thought that music was the answer to human's attrocities.

WHERE I'M COMING FROM
Unauthorised extracts from a recent interview with Edward Said reflecting on family life, 'home', Orientalism and Palestine
http://www.opendemocracy.net/themes/article-10-1508.jsp

A LIFE FOR FREEDOM
Marina Warner recalls a great public intellectual and a rare, true friend
http://www.opendemocracy.net/themes/article-10-1511.jsp


WE ARABS AND THE WEST
Said's enlightened struggle is part of a distinguished Arab tradition, says Faleh Jabar
http://www.opendemocracy.net/themes/article-10-1510.jsp

THE MAN, HIS MUSIC AND HIS LEGACY
Judith Herrin remembers Edward Said's love and mastery of music, and ponders the metaphoric importance of an orchestra that rings harmony from human difference
http://www.opendemocracy.net/themes/article-10-1509.jsp


The Man and his Music
Judith Herrin
26 - 9 - 2003


Besides politics and literature Edward Said’s other great love was Western (‘classical’) music. Here someone who knew him and heard him play reflects on the metaphorical power of music to symbolise the resolving of stubborn human difference.

Just in case it gets overlooked in the appreciation of Edward’s political focus and literary brilliance, I want to remember his love of music.

To my surprise Edward was intensely musical. Later I was to learn how well he played the piano; then we just argued passionately about the different ways of playing Bach. John favoured Glenn Gould, I was more for Andreas Schiff. But Edward was a serious pianist, as was made clear when we discussed technical difficulties, and later when he played for us at his apartment in New York. Later, when he was a Visiting Fellow at King’s College Cambridge, although already ill and with lectures to give, he devoted an hour a day to practicing – using the grand piano in the Dining Hall, repeating the same phrase, a few bars, over and over until he had got it right, I was told by an awed student.

It was this intuitive sense which brought him into contact with Daniel Barenboim. Together they created a unique institution: an orchestra of Arabs and Jews, students of music from very distinct traditions, all representatives of the East Mediterranean.

This recruited young musicians to rehearse together, to discuss their differences and to perform concerts, most recently at the London Proms last August. In Mozart’s concerto for three pianos, the soloists represented the whole orchestra: an Arab, an Israeli, and Daniel himself. When the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra’s young oboe player from Egypt was interviewed on the BBC, she expressed her amazement at its success. Never had she imagined she could have the opportunity to meet other players from non-Arab countries or work under a conductor such as Barenboim.

Together Barenboim and Said recorded their discussions about music in Parallels and Paradoxes: Explorations in Music and Society (Pantheon 2002, Bloomsbury 2003). While they disagreed about lots of issues in musical interpretation, they collaborated in bringing their understanding of the power of music to the service of divided peoples. Edward supported Daniel’s insistence on performing and giving masterclasses for Palestinian students in Ramallah, which greatly irritated the government of Israel. He took particular delight in winning over the German ambassador to the project, and it was in a diplomatic car with immunity that the journey to the West Bank was undertaken.

May the tireless energies of Daniel Barenboim and like-minded people win over the skeptics, and may Edward’s dreams of a peaceful solution to the problems of the Middle East take root in the creative yet disciplined mechanism which is the orchestra.

 

[BillyTK]

It's saddening to hear that the world has lost such a powerful and original thinker.

Thanks Cleopatra, for finding these links.