To me, and to many around the world, I suppose, Edward Said’s name will always be associated -- above all
other things -- with beyond-ness … . He is (past tense can only be used with those of much humbler legacies)
beyond death, as we’ve understood it, in the sense that the last tremor of his heart, normally coupled with
cessation of life, or the beginning of the end of physical existence, failed in his case to introduce the next
stage, the utter nothingness. It is an attribute of great men and women that their physical demise does not,
indeed can not, entail their end. In our contemporary world, few will earn such a privilege as Edward Said
has.
He is beyond in the expansive reach of his intellect, from opera to Islam, from literature to philosophy, and
quite a lot in between.
I shall focus here on one particular domain in Said that usually does not earn headlines in the western media:
the deeply transforming effect of his philosophy of oppression and resistance. For Palestinians and all the
oppressed in the developing, or not, world, Said has been a unique inspiration for ethical resistance, for
struggle against injustice, and for humanism translated to our respective languages and our idiosyncratic
cultures and modes of thinking. Knowing ourselves, freeing our minds, taking pride in our culture as well as
sharing that of others were always to Said the keys to emancipation.
Although I was never fortunate enough to be an actual student of his, I learned quite a lot from him,
nonetheless. Beyond Orientalism and The Question of Palestine, I learned mostly from his dignifying and
humanizing approach to the dehumanized. The following two personal anecdotes will reveal a part of this
special aspect of Said’s beyondness.
Remorse & Inspiration
Back in 1984, when I was president of what was then the Arab Club of Columbia University, I relentlessly
sought ways to invite Edward Said to our events. He was, after all, our own, our pride, our celebrity, the
unelected voice in the west of the voiceless Palestinians. I was aware of Said’s persistent refusal to speak
at "Arab" events, as he loathed "speaking to the converted," as he once explained. I tried to steel a
moment from his perpetually busy office schedule to convince him that our events had attracted 95% Americans,
mostly students who could not exactly be described as in love with Palestine -- those familiar with Columbia
will know exactly what I am referring to -- but I could never get him to see me, or any of us, for that
matter.
And then -- you knew a ‘then’ was coming -- on one ordinary day I was leafleting the campus with a flier for an event we had planned, with a prominent Jewish American intellectual as keynote. I had a special style of leafleting, by the way: I taped the fliers in geometric shapes on the beautifully spacious steps leading to the Alma Mater, on the floors, and just about everywhere else where average students would not expect to see any fliers. Edward Said happened to pass by with his early morning coffee and bagel.
He saw me pacing, arranging my artwork with precision, symmetry and devotion, to attract the eyes that were
not trained to see anything related to
We both knew that he had done nothing whatsoever until then to help us in any way or form. But only until
then. In an apparent moment of guilt, he extended to me a warm invitation to meet him in his office -- shrine!
-- that very same day. Thrilled, proud and above all speechlessly vindicated, I immediately swallowed my pride
and accepted.
He had genuinely thought that we were doing classic anti-Israel events that addressed Arabs and their close
supporters only. When he realized he was wrong, he had the courage to express it, in his own way. And from
that moment on he played a decisive role in turning the tides at
Since then, Edward Said spoke at several of our events. In his typical charisma and distinguished intellect,
Said always had a extraordinary blend of effects on our overcrowded audiences: electrifying, educating,
charming, provoking, angering, engaging, and if an arrogant antagonist insisted on trying to nail him with
false premises or warped argumentation (needless to say, such cases were far from rare at Columbia), he/she
deserved the VIP treatment that was invariably served to them by Said: intellectual crucifixion, in public!
Only one other genius in my long experience in student activism possessed such potent weapons of logical
devastation: Noam Chomsky.
An unintended result of a series of our highly successful events, inspired by Said, was the skyrocketing of
our organization’s stature. We even used to quip at our new image as "one of the major organizations on
campus," as other groups viewed us, not knowing that at best our highly committed and motivated membership
roster hardly ever reached the two-digit territory!! In retrospect, it wasn’t just Said’s prominence that
helped us, it was his spirit of resistance against all odds that profoundly inspired us, and, I must say,
transformed some of us irreversibly. And I thought that only Lenin had the magic formula for transforming a
handful of committed activists into an able and consequential force of change.
Principles First
After years of excellent relations, a storm was bound to arrive in our relationship with the Grand
Palestinian. At the height of the first Palestinian intifada (1987-1993), some of the Zionist
organizations on campus (god, we had too many!) decided to invite the head of the Israeli "legal" system
in the occupied Palestinian territories, a decorated army General responsible for too many crimes to enumerate
here. The Arab student association and several other progressive student organizations decided to campaign to
prevent this military leader, who had "blood on his hands," as our thorough research had revealed, from
speaking at
We had an intense internal debate on whether his speech would constitute incitement to violence, justification of racism, defence of murder committed by his army almost daily in Palestine, or … simply an instant of free speech. We tried to persuade the organizers that such a speaker carried so much colonial and criminal baggage on his shoulders that his words were inherently seditious. We drew analogies to a far-right organization inviting, for instance, a former SS General. Though they were not amused by the analogy, some of them admitted that it was "a logically legitimate comparison." Nevertheless, we miserably failed in selling them the idea of disinviting him.
We shifted to Plan B. We asked for equal representation on the panel of our side, "the other side" --
as they’ve often superciliously demanded in our events. We were rebuffed, mercilessly, I should add. Why
should they feel any pressure from a tiny coalition of student groups who could not remotely measure up to the
immense power they held and projected on campus? At that point, we were almost obsessed with trying to answer
that question in a way that would surprise them, if not teach them a badly needed lesson in humility and moral
consistency.
We consulted with our treasured gurus, Said, Chomsky, and the not-so-famous then, Norman Finkelstein. We had
no idea at the time that the three were first-amendment aficionados! They replied in unexpected unison:
no matter how criminal this general might be -- they all agreed he was -- his talk at
Said even threatened to publicly criticize us if we pursued any path of censorship against the bloody
general.
Of course we were compelled to change our tactics to accommodate that advice/obligation. We decided to picket
outside the
When the General was finally introduced, he stood up and, fitting the image of a colonial Viceroy, walked to
the podium with deliberation, flanked by two massive bodyguards. We impulsively opened our banners and held
them high.
What would Said think of us now? I wondered.
He would be angry, but proud, I immediately convinced myself.
The General was particularly stung by the sight of the large flag in my hands which at the time was
entirely banned in the occupied West Bank and
In a daunting development, however, a small army of the notoriously insensitive
After several rounds of the rabbi’s polite pleas for quiet, which included promises to give us the floor after the speech, and our unyielding, yet orderly, chanting, amidst a state of collective shock that had struck the audience -- after all, it wasn’t everyday that someone could so audaciously challenge such an omnipotent alliance of Zionist groups at Columbia -- the MC decided to negotiate with me to end the standoff. Since I had no mandate to speak on behalf of the group, I looked from afar at my colleagues, and they instantly gave me a green light. They trusted me to reach a good compromise.
What would Edward Said advise me to do in such a predicament? I asked myself.
We met in the middle; the rabbi went up a few steps, I went down a few. I had every intention to stall, but
at the same time I had to maintain my honesty and sense of responsibility in my negotiations with him. I did
respect his integrity and occasional flurry of humanism. Ten minutes into our respectful dialogue, we reached
an agreement.
The rabbi went to the small stage to inform his guest of the agreement. I crossed the hall to share with my
colleagues the details.
And then, I held up my flag and went down to the podium. The rabbi announced the agreement on the microphone:
"A representative of the protesting groups will speak for five minutes and then ask his group to walk out.
Then, our distinguished speaker will finally get to deliver his speech, uninterrupted." The audience was now
entering into clinical shock.
Unable to hide my glee, I slowly mounted the stage and stood behind the podium to give my five-minute speech, basically trying to convince as many people as possible to walk out with us to protest the speaker’s criminal record. Suddenly, the General got up and shouted: "I shall not accept this humiliation, standing next to a Palestinian carrying a flag." He carried his briefcase and walked out with his guards. Conscious of the meaning of this windfall, we feverishly started chanting. Some in the audience cried, some just left with their heads down. We, on the other hand, felt that our heads were going to hit the ceiling.
Said must be proud, I thought. I was dead wrong.
When the news reached him, he ranted and raved. He immediately accused us of hurting our own cause, and he
made well on his promise, he spoke out publicly against us. When I met him after that, he had cooled down, and
we had a rational debate. He did admit that our act was "courageous," "effective" and "seemingly
unavoidable," but wrong, nonetheless.
I could live with that.
Despite his unapproachable aura, he was there when we needed insightful advice. Even when he wasn’t with us,
we summoned him in our minds when we needed a voice of reason and humanness to guide us. Now that he is
physically gone, his voice, his words, his unfulfilled dream will literally live on, educating, enraging,
provoking, enchanting and ultimately freeing us.
Omar Barghouti is a Palestinian doctoral student of philosophy (ethics) at Tel Aviv University and a political analyst. His article "9.11 Putting the Moment on Human Terms" was chosen among the "Best of 2002" by the Guardian. His articles have appeared in the Hartford Courant, Al-Ahram and Z-Magazine, among others.
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