Edward Said On Orientalism
Summary
TLDRThe script delves into the significant impact of Professor Edward Said's work, particularly his 1978 book 'Orientalism.' Said's analysis revolutionized Middle Eastern studies and post-colonial theory, highlighting how Western perceptions of the Middle East are shaped by historical and ideological biases. The discussion explores the origins and implications of these perceptions, the role of imperialism, and the contemporary portrayal of the Middle East in media. The narrative also connects Said's intellectual contributions to his political activism for Palestinian rights, emphasizing the need for understanding and coexistence amid cultural and political conflicts.
Takeaways
- 📚 The work of Professor Edward Said, particularly his 1978 book 'Orientalism', is profoundly significant in intellectual history.
- 🌍 'Orientalism' revolutionized the study of the Middle East and contributed to the creation of fields like post-colonial theory.
- 📖 Said argues that the West views the Middle East through a distorting lens he calls 'Orientalism', which presents the region as static and threatening.
- 📰 Orientalism is not innocent or objective but highly motivated, reflecting specific interests and power dynamics.
- 🎨 Said highlights how Western literature and art often misrepresent the Middle East, relying on stereotypes and exoticism.
- ⚔️ The historical context of imperial conquest, particularly by Britain and France, plays a significant role in shaping Orientalist views.
- 🇺🇸 American Orientalism is distinct, influenced by political factors like the U.S. alliance with Israel and indirect experiences with the Middle East.
- 🛑 Said emphasizes the persistence of anti-Arab racism and the portrayal of Muslims as terrorists in Western media and popular culture.
- 🎥 The media's negative focus on Islam contributes to widespread misconceptions and generalizations about the Islamic world.
- 🤝 Said advocates for understanding and coexistence, urging a move beyond stereotypes to recognize the humanity and diversity of people in the Middle East.
Q & A
Who is Professor Edward Said?
-Professor Edward Said was a prominent literary theorist and a professor at Columbia University, known for his influential work in post-colonial studies and his book 'Orientalism'.
What is the main argument of Edward Said's book 'Orientalism'?
-'Orientalism' argues that the Western understanding of the Middle East is shaped by a biased framework that distorts reality and is influenced by imperialistic interests.
How did 'Orientalism' impact the study of the Middle East?
-'Orientalism' revolutionized the study of the Middle East by challenging traditional Western perspectives and contributing to the development of post-colonial theory.
What historical event partly inspired Edward Said to write 'Orientalism'?
-The Arab-Israeli war of 1973, which contradicted Western stereotypes of Arabs, was one of the immediate inspirations for Said to write 'Orientalism'.
What does Edward Said mean by the term 'Orientalism'?
-Said uses 'Orientalism' to describe the Western approach to understanding the East, which creates a distorted, stereotyped image of the Middle East and its people.
How does Said link 'Orientalism' to imperial conquest?
-Said argues that 'Orientalism' emerged from the historical context of imperial conquest, where Western powers used biased knowledge to justify their dominance over Eastern regions.
What example does Said give of early 'Orientalist' work?
-Said cites Napoleon's conquest of Egypt in 1798, which included a scientific survey of Egypt meant for European audiences, as a key example of early 'Orientalist' work.
How does American 'Orientalism' differ from British and French 'Orientalism'?
-American 'Orientalism' is more indirect and abstract, heavily influenced by the political alliance with Israel, unlike the more direct colonial experiences of Britain and France.
What is Said's critique of media representation of Islam?
-Said criticizes the media for presenting a negative, monolithic image of Islam that emphasizes terrorism and ignores the diverse, humane lives of ordinary Muslims.
What connection does Said draw between his intellectual work and his political activism?
-Said connects his intellectual work on 'Orientalism' and 'Covering Islam' with his activism for Palestinian rights, highlighting the need to overcome racist legacies to achieve peace and justice.
Outlines
📚 The Impact of Edward Said's 'Orientalism'
This paragraph highlights the significant influence of Edward Said's book 'Orientalism' on the study of the Middle East and various academic disciplines. It discusses how the book has been translated into multiple languages, required reading in many educational institutions, and has sparked intense debate over the past three decades. The central argument of 'Orientalism' is that Western knowledge of the Middle East is not objective but motivated by certain interests, creating a distorted lens through which the region is viewed.
🌍 Misrepresentations in Oriental Literature
This paragraph examines the persistent stereotypes and misrepresentations of the Orient in Western literature and art. Edward Said argues that Western depictions of the Orient have little to do with the reality of these regions and are instead based on a repertoire of images that present the East as mysterious and static. These representations have been consistent over time, influencing even scholarly descriptions of the East and contributing to a distorted and timeless image of the Orient.
🏛️ The Role of Imperialism in Orientalism
This paragraph discusses how Orientalism is tied to the history of imperial conquest, particularly by the British and French. Said argues that Orientalism served to justify imperial dominance by creating a framework that allowed Western powers to categorize and subdue the native populations. The example of Napoleon's scientific expedition to Egypt is highlighted as a key moment in the development of Orientalism, showcasing the power dynamics and the creation of knowledge designed for European consumption rather than for the natives.
🎥 The Politicization of American Orientalism
This paragraph explores the differences between European and American Orientalism, with a focus on the latter's indirect and abstract nature. It also highlights how American Orientalism is heavily influenced by political factors, particularly the relationship with Israel. Said critiques the American media for perpetuating negative stereotypes about Arabs and Muslims, often portraying them as terrorists and extremists, which he argues distorts the true nature of the region and its people.
📰 Media and the Demonization of Islam
This paragraph examines how the Western media portrays Islam and the Middle East, often focusing on negative aspects like terrorism. Said argues that this narrow focus leads to a generalized and paranoid view of the entire region, stripping away the humanity and diversity of its people. He also discusses his book 'Covering Islam,' which analyzes the media's role in perpetuating these stereotypes, and how these representations have only worsened over time.
🎬 Hollywood's Role in Shaping Perceptions
This paragraph delves into the role of Hollywood and popular media in shaping Western perceptions of the Arab and Islamic worlds. It highlights how films and TV shows often depict Muslims as villains or fanatics, reinforcing Orientalist stereotypes. Said criticizes these portrayals for contributing to a simplistic and violent image of Islam, which in turn justifies aggressive policies and military actions against Muslim countries.
🕵️♂️ The Persistence of Orientalist Stereotypes
This paragraph discusses the enduring nature of Orientalist stereotypes, exemplified by the immediate suspicion of Middle Eastern involvement in the Oklahoma City bombing, despite it being carried out by a domestic terrorist. Said criticizes the media and public's readiness to link any act of terrorism to the Middle East, reflecting deep-seated prejudices and the pervasive influence of Orientalist discourse.
🏠 The Personal and Political Dimensions of Said's Work
This paragraph provides insight into Edward Said's personal background and his motivation for his work on Orientalism. Growing up in Palestine and experiencing displacement, Said's intellectual pursuits are deeply intertwined with his political activism for Palestinian rights. He believes that overcoming the legacy of Orientalism is crucial for achieving peace and justice in the Middle East, and he draws on the work of Antonio Gramsci to argue for a more inclusive and understanding approach to history and identity.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Orientalism
💡Post-colonial theory
💡Stereotyping
💡Imperial conquest
💡Cultural representation
💡Napoleon's conquest of Egypt
💡Media portrayal
💡Islamophobia
💡Palestinian struggle
💡Coexistence
Highlights
Edward Said's work, particularly his 1978 book 'Orientalism,' revolutionized the study of the Middle East and shaped new fields such as post-colonial theory.
'Orientalism' has been translated into 26 languages and is required reading at many universities and colleges.
The central argument of 'Orientalism' is that Western knowledge about the East is not objective but is highly motivated and distorts the reality of Eastern people and places.
Said argues that Western views of the Middle East are constructed through a lens he calls 'Orientalism,' which portrays the East as different and threatening.
The book explores how stereotypes about the Middle East are created and perpetuated through literature, art, and scholarship.
Said's interest in Orientalism was sparked by the Arab-Israeli war of 1973 and his own experiences as an Arab.
Orientalism presents the East as a timeless, unchanging place, which is contrary to historical realities.
Said locates the construction of Orientalism within the history of Imperial conquest, particularly the British and French empires.
Napoleon's conquest of Egypt in 1798 is seen as a turning point that marked a new kind of Imperial conquest involving scientific and cultural documentation.
Said discusses how American Orientalism differs from British and French Orientalism due to the lack of direct colonial experience and the influence of political factors, particularly the U.S. alliance with Israel.
The media's portrayal of Muslims as violent and irrational contributes to anti-Arab racism in the United States.
Said's book 'Covering Islam' explores how the media's focus on negative aspects of Islam shapes public perception.
Said emphasizes the need for understanding and coexistence, drawing on the work of Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci.
Said calls for a move beyond stereotypical representations to a more nuanced understanding of different cultures.
Said argues that the situation in Palestine and Israel is a critical test case for whether humanity can live together in peace despite differences.
Transcripts
you
when future scholars take a look back at the intellectual history of the last quarter of
the 20th century the work of Professor Edward Sayid of Columbia University will be identified
as very important and influential in particular Sayid 1978 book Orientalism will be regarded as
profoundly significant Orientalism revolutionized the study of the Middle East and helped to create
and shape entire new fields of study such as post-colonial theory as well as influencing
disciplines as diverse as English history anthropology political science and cultural
studies the book has now been translated into 26 languages and is required reading at many
universities and colleges it is also one of the most controversial scholarly books of the last
30 years sparking intense debate and disagreement Orientalism tries to answer the question of why
when we think of the Middle East for example we have a preconceived notion of what kind of people
live there what they believe how they act even though we may never have been there or indeed even
met anyone from there more generally Orientalism asks how do we come to understand people strangers
who look different to us by virtue of the color of their skin the central argument of Orientalism
is that the way we acquire this knowledge is not innocent their objective but the end result of a
process that reflects certain interests that is it is highly motivated specifically Sayid
argues that the way the West Europe in the u.s. looks at the countries and peoples of the Middle
East is through a lens that distorts the actual reality of those places and those people he calls
this lens through which we viewed that part of the world Orientalism a framework that we use
to understand the unfamiliar and strange to make the peoples of the Middle East appear different
and threatening professor Syed's contribution to how we understand this general process of what
we could call stereotyping has been immense the aim of this program is to explore these issues
through an interview with him by discussing the context within which he conceived Orientalism well
my interest in Orientalism began trip for two reasons one was an immediate thing that is to
say the arab-israeli war of 1973 which had been preceded by a lot of images and discussions and
the media and the popular press you know about how the Arabs are cowardly and they don't know how to
fight in there you know always going to be beaten because they're not modern and then everybody was
very surprised when the Egyptian army crossed the canal in early October of 1973 and demonstrated
that you know like anybody else they could fight so that was one immediate impulse and the second
one which has a much longer history in my own life was was the constant sort of disparity I
felt between what my experience of being an Arab was and the representations of that that one saw
in art I mean I'm not talking about very great artists you know like did a claw and anger and
[ __ ] home and people like that novelists who wrote about the Orient you know like code Israeli
or flow Barre and you know the fact that those representations of the Orient had very little
to do with what I knew what my own background in life so I decided to write the history of that
if somebody let's say in the 1850s or 60s in Paris or London wished to talk about or read
about India or Egypt or Syria there would be very little chance for that person to simply address
the subject as we like to think in a kind of free and creative way a great deal of writing had gone
before and this writing was an organized form of writing like an organized science you know what
what I've called Orientalism and it seemed to me that there was a kind of repertory of images that
kept coming up you know the sensual woman who's there to be sort of used by the man the East is
a kind of mysterious place full of secrets and monsters you know the marvels of the East was
a phrase that was used and the more I looked the more I saw that this was really quite consistent
with itself you know it had very little to do with people who actually been there and
even if they had been there there wasn't much modification other words you didn't get what
you could call realistic representations of the Orient either in literature and painting or music
or any of the arts and this extended even further into descriptions of the Arabs by experts you
know people who had studied them and I noticed that even in the 20th century some of the same
images that you found in me not on 19th century amongst scholars like Edward William Lane wrote
his book on the modern Egyptians in 18th in the early 1830s and then you read somebody in in the
1920s and they're more or less saying the same thing what one great example that I always give
is that the wonderful French poet gardener Val who went on a voyage to the Orient as he called
it and I was reading this book of his travels in Syria and it was something very familiar about
it you know it sounded like something else that I'd read and then I realized that what he was
doing almost unconsciously was quoting lane on the Egyptians on the theory that the Orientals
are all the same no matter whether where you find them I mean it's in India or in Syria
or in Egypt it's basically the same essence so there develops a kind of image of the timeless
orient as if the Orient unlike the West doesn't develop it stays the same and that's one of the
problems with Orientalism is it is it creates an image outside of history of something that
is placid and still and you know eternal which is simply contradicted by the fact of history see so
that's in that one sense it's a it's a creation of of you might say an ideal other for Europe
professor Syed's analysis of Orientalism isn't just a description of its content
but a sustained argument for why it looks the way it does it's an examination of the quite
concrete historical and institutional context that creates it specifically Sayid locates the
construction of Orientalism within the history of Imperial conquest as Empire spread across
the globe historically the British and the French have been the most important in terms of the East
they conquer not only militarily but also what we could call ideologically the question for these
empires is how do we understand the natives that we are encountering so we can conquer
and subdue them easier this process of using large abstract categories to explain people
who look different whose skin is a different color has been going on for a long time as far
back as there has been contact between different cultures and peoples but Orientalism makes this
general process more formal in that it presents itself as objective knowledge Sayid identifies
Napoleon's conquest of Egypt in 1798 as marking a new kind of Imperial and colonial conquest that
inaugurates the projects of Orientalism it was a kind of break that occurred after Napoleon came
to Egypt at 1798 I think it's the first really important Imperial modern Imperial expedition so
he invades the place but he doesn't invade it the way the Spaniards invaded the new world looking
for loot he comes instead with an enormous army of soldiers but also scientists botanist architects
philologists biologists historians whose job it was to record Egypt in every conceivable way
and produce a kind of scientific survey of Egypt which was designed not for the Egyptian but for
the European and of course what strikes you first of all about the volumes that they produced or is
their enormous size they're a metre square and all across them is written the power and
prestige of a modern European country that can do to the Egyptians what the Egyptians cannot do to
the franchising there's no comparable Egyptian survey of France to produce knowledge you have
to have a power to be there and to see in expert ways things that the natives themselves can't see
the differences between different kinds of Orientalism z' are in fact the differences between
different experiences of what is called the Orient I mean the difference between Britain and France
on the one hand and the United States on the other is that Britain and France had colonies
in the Orient I mean they had a long-standing relationship and imperial role in a place like
India you know so that there's a kind of a there's a kind of a archive of actual experiences of being
in India of ruling the country for several hundred years right and the same with the French in North
Africa let's say Algeria or Indochina direct colonial experience in the case of the Americans
the experience is much less direct it has never been an American occupation of the Near East so I
would say the difference we British and French Orientalism on the one hand and the American
experience of the Orient on the other is that the American one is much more indirect it's much more
based on abstractions the second big thing I think the difference in the American experience from the
British and the French of Orientalism is that American Orientalism is very politicized by the
presence of Israel for which America is the main ally President Clinton and I are proud as are all
Americans that the United States was the first nation to recognize the State of Israel eleven
minutes after you broke your independence and what you have in effect is the creation of Jewish state
in the middle of the Islamic oriental world and the sense that positon it's a Jewish state
and a Western State self-declared there is a greater coincidence between American interests
there than there is between American interests let's say in places like Iran and Saudi Arabia
which are important because of oil I think the presence of of this other factor which is very
anti Islamic where Israel regards the whole Arab world as its enemy is imported into into American
Orientalism I mean the idea for example that Hamas terrorists on the West Bank are just interested in
killing Jewish children is what you derive from looking at this stuff and very little attention
is paid to the fact that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza has been going on for
thirty it's a lot thirty years it's the longest military occupation in this century and so you
get the impression that the only problem is that you know Israeli security threatened by Hamas and
suicide bombs and all the rest of it and nothing said about the hundreds of thousands millions
of Palestinians who are dispossessed and living miserable life is the direct result of what Israel
has done and is doing so there's a sense in which the Arab struggle for national independence and
in the case of the Palestinians for national self-determination is looked at with great
hostility as upsetting the stabilities of the status quo and that makes it virtually impossible
it's a tragedy virtually impossible for an American to see on television to read books to see
films about the Middle East that are not colored politically by this by this conflict in which the
arms are almost always play the role of terrorists and violent people and irrational and so forth
because that's another thing that America really needs to think about is our racism racism that
counts in the United States towards Muslim people and towards Arabic people and that's
something that has to stop and the United States has to start respecting people from
the Middle East in order to find a solution to the problem that's been building up over many
years so I thank everyone for for your patience and letting me speak my mana many people believe
the way that Americans understand the Muslim world is very problematic indeed anti-arab
racism seems to be almost officially sanctioned you can make generalized and racist statements
about arab peoples that would not be tolerated for any other group at the heart of how this new
american Orientalism operates is a threatening and demonized figure of the Islamic terrorists that is
emphasized by journalists and Hollywood now Syed recognizes that terrorism exists as a result of
the violent political situation Middle East but he argues that there was a lot more going on there
that is misunderstood or not seen by the peoples of the West the result of the media's focus on one
negative aspect alone means that all the peoples of Islamic world come to be understood in the same
negative and paranoid way that is as a threat so the one we think of people who look like that and
come from that part of the world we think fanatic extreme violent Syed argues that understanding a
vast and complex region like the Middle East in this narrow way takes away from the humanity and
diversity of millions of ordinary people living decent and humane lives there we asked when he
plant a bomb to blow up the Americans if the Islamic Underground asked him to the answer
was yes after I've written or Orientalism and a book called a question of Palestine in the
early 80s in the late 70s rather and beginning of the eighties I wrote a third book which is
called covering Islam and I thought of them as a kind of trilogy and covering Islam was an account
of the coverage of Islam in the popular media immediately occasioned by by the Iranian which
described yourself as you recall as an Islamic Revolution and you know what I discovered was
a huge arsenal of images employed by the media large masses of people waving their fists black
banners you know the stern faced on a knee all of them giving an impression of the utmost negative
sort of evil emanation so the impression you got of Islam was that it was a frightening
mysterious above all threatening is if the main business of Muslims was to threaten and try to
kill Americans as recently as last year in 1996 let us say almost 16 or 17 years after I wrote
covering Islam I did a update of the book and I wrote a new introduction and I found quite to my
horror on surprise the during of 16 to 17 years with the large number of events in the Islamic
world taking place which you would think would allow for more familiarity with a more refined
sense of what was taking place on let's say as reflected in television and print journalism in
fact was the opposite I think the situation got worse and that what you had instead now is a much
more threatening picture of Islam represented for example by television film called jihad in America
based on the bombing of the World Trade Center I reported an international terrorism for the
past ten years and since the World Trade Center bombing I've been investigating the networks of
Islamic extremists committed to jihad in America for these militants jihad is a holy war an armed
struggle to defeat non-believers or infidels and their ultimate goal is to establish an Islamic
empire but this gathering did not take place in the Middle East it happened in the heartland
of America Kansas City Missouri combating these groups within the boundaries of the Constitution
we'll be the greatest challenge to law enforcement since the war on organized crime but never the
same generalizations were made let's say about the Oklahoma City bombing that this was a Christian
fundamentalist etcetera etc but the Islamic she had had come to America and you had these scenes
of the most irresponsible journalism where you'd see people talking in Arabic and then a voice over
saying and they are discussing the destruction of America whereas if you picked up a little of
what was being said if you knew the language had nothing to do with that and that Islam and the
teachers of teachings of Islam became synonymous with terror and the demonization of Islam allowed
for very little distinction between piety let's say and violence the so called independent media
in a liberal society like this in a factor so lazy in a controlled by interests that are commercial
and political at the same time that there there is no investigative reporting it's just basically
repeating the line of the government only days ago I concluded a broadcast on the World Trade
Center bombing by telling you what senior US law enforcement officials were telling us that the
threat of Muslim extremists operating within the United States is an ongoing danger something we'll
have to live with from now on and repeating the lines of the people who have the most influence
for whom Islam as a useful foreign demon to turn attention away from the inequities and problems in
our own society so as a result the human side of the Islamic and expecially Arabic world are rarely
to be found and and the net result is this vacancy on the one hand and these easy almost automatic
images of terror violence there is a handy set of images and cliches you know not just from
the newspapers and the television but for movies I come from a land from a faraway place with a
caravan camels roam where it's flat and immense and they need it in tents it's barbaric but hey
it's home when the wind and the sun's from the west and the sand and that less is right Armon
down stop on by of a carpet and fly to another baby and you know I mean I myself growing up in
the Middle East in Palestine and Carrie used to delight in films on the Arabian Nights you know
done by Hollywood producers you know with John Hall and Maria Montez and Sabu I mean they were
talking about a part of the world that I lived in but it had this kind of exotic magical quality
which was what we call today Hollywood so there was that whole repertory of the sheiks and the
desert and galloping around and the scimitars and the dancing girls and all that that was
that's really the material the situation and the popular media is is basically that Muslims are
really two things one they're villains of one sort villains and fanatics I wouldn't dispatch
the American people to the hell they deserve and be many films end up with huge numbers of bodies
Muslim bodies strewn all of the place the result of Arnold Schwarzenegger or Demi Moore Chuck
Norris lots of films about gorillas going in to kill Muslim terrorists serve so the idea of Islam
is something that to be stamped out the whole history of these Orientalist representations which
which portrayed the Muslim and the oriental is in effect a lesser breed in other words they've been
the only thing they understand is the language of force this is it this is the principle here
that unless you give them a bloody nose they won't understand we can't talk reason with them
is the art world full of terrorists well I mean all you have to do is we'll break down
the question into into common sense and say there are terrorists is there everywhere but you know
there's a lot more going on there I mean we're talking about 250 300 million people and one of
the great problems with Orientalism to begin with is these vast generalizations about Islam and the
nature of Islamic is very little in common that you can talk about as Islam let's say between
Indonesia and Saudi Arabia they're quite me they're both Muslim countries but you know
the difference is in history and language and traditions and so on are so vast that the word
Islam has at best a tenuous meaning um the same is true with in the Arab world I mean Morocco
is very different from Saudi Arabia Algeria is very different from Egypt and I would argue in
fact have argued that the predominant mood of the Arab world is very secular ah you know it's easy
to attract attention and certainly the media's attention for some of the political reasons that
are obvious I mean to discredit the Arabs to make them seem like a threat to the West to keep the
idea around at the end of the Cold War that you know there are foreign Devils in otherwise what
are we doing with this gigantic military you know this huge military budget that is twice
as much as an entire world's military budget combined so you have to have threat and the
result is it's very hard to find works that are sympathetic to the Arabs in Islam Islam as seen as
the enemy of Christianity and United States sees itself as a Christian or judeo-christian country
in affiliation with Israel and that Islam is the great enemy the the competitor there's a history
of that and I give the example of Dodi Fayed you know the erstwhile suitor of Princess Diana well
a few days before he died I read through the the English press and it was full of the racist
cliches of Orientalist discourse I mean that this is what the Sunday Times but one of the leading
newspapers in England had a headline to a 15,000 word story entitled a match made in Mecca and the
idea of Muslim conspiracies trying to infect you know taking over this white woman by these
dark people with Muhammad the Prophet Muhammad whose historical personage of the 7th century
somehow stage-managing the whole thing that's the power of the discourse you see if you're thinking
about people and Islam and about that part of oh those are the words you constantly have to
use and you won't get what I give you my word no where you go so this course is a regulated system
of producing knowledge within certain constraints whereby certain rules have to be observed ok Libya
exports yes sir you American Pig nice Dutch to think past it to go beyond it not to use it it's
virtually impossible because there's no knowledge that isn't codified in this way about that part
of the world may I help you oh hi advantage team mabushii Nia listen to her sound cheese's Oh Todd
and there's a certain sense in which in not really mounting a serious critique of it the
ABS have participated and have and continued to allow themselves to be represented as Orientals
in this orientalist way there is no for example information policy of the twenty Arab countries 22
Arab countries to try to give a different picture of what their worlds are like because most of them
are dictatorships all of them are dictatorships without democracy who are in desperate need of
us patronage government patronage to support them and so they're not about to criticize the United
States not about to engage in a real dialogue and and in that respect I think the Arabs keep
themselves collectively in a way that is that is subordinate to and inferior to the West and
in fact fulfills the kinds of representations that most Westerners have in their minds about the arms
the attack came without warning and according to a US government source told CBS news that it
has middle-east terrorism written all over it the attack in Oklahoma City appears to have a
familiar mark this was done with the attempt to inflict as many casualties as possible that is a
Middle Eastern trait the fact that it was such a powerful bomb in Oklahoma City immediately
drew investigators to consider deadly parallels that all have roots in the Middle East ABC News
has learned that the FBI has asked the u.s. military to provide up to 10 Arabic speakers
to help in the investigation well one of the interesting things about about the persistence
of Orientalism um I mean almost when you think about it almost astonishing persistence of it
is was the Oklahoma City bombing 90 in April of 1995 I can give you a personal example I was in
Canada giving some lectures at the actual time of the bombing and maybe half an hour after the
event had occurred in the afternoon my office was inundated with phone calls from the media and I
rang my office from Canada as I frequently do to find out you know if there was any message for me
that needed attention and so on and she said every 25 calls had come in from the major networks from
the cable channels from the major newspapers news magazines and so forth all of them wanting to talk
to you and I said what about about this event in Oklahoma City I said well what does that have to
do with anything well apparently somebody had volunteered one of these instant commentators
that the notion that this seemed like a Middle East style bombing and that there were a couple
of swarthy people around right after the bombing or seen after the bombing within hours of the
explosion local police and the FBI had issued the all-points bulletin looking for three men believed
to be of middle-eastern origin and sources tell CBS News that unofficially the FBI is treating
this as a middle-eastern related incident Oklahoma City can tell you is probably considered one of
the largest centers of Islamic radical activity outside the Middle East and so this got them to
think that they should talk to me not because I had anything to do with it but because by virtue
of being from the Middle East I would have an inside insight into this you know and of course
the proposition is so preposterous and so racist just if you're from the area you would understand
who and why this is being done never thinking for a moment that it was a local homegrown boy called
McVeigh who was you know totally American in his Outlook that was doing it out of the
best principles of American extermination and a hub like anger you know at the world
professor Saeed is not only a literary theorist he is also a very prominent and active representative
of the Palestinian people Saeed grew up in what was then called Palestine and is now called Israel
and the occupied territories when the State of Israel was founded in 1948 like millions
of other Palestinians Saeed and his family were made homeless as well as stateless these exiled
Palestinians now mostly live either in the territories under the control of Israel or
in refugee camps in the surrounding countries one of the things that drives Saeed is the quest for
justice and a homeland for the Palestinian people and there's a close connection between Syed's
intellectual work and his political activism as he himself remarks he wrote three books that he
thinks of as a trilogy and that in his mind are closely connected together Orientalism
covering Islam and the question of Palestine he believes that finding a peaceful humane and just
solution to the conflicts in the Middle East that is finding an answer to the question of Palestine
will require overcoming the racist legacy of Orientalism that stresses the separation of people
from each other that regards difference as a threat that must be contained or destroyed because
of the complex and bloody history of the Middle East Sayid regards the situation in Palestine and
Israel as the ultimate test case facing the 21st century of whether we live together in peace and
reconciliation with our differences or whether we live apart in fear and loathing of each other
constantly under threat constantly at war in seeking a way out of this legacy of mistrust
and conflict Sayid draws upon the work of Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci who gives us the tools
to think about these difficult issues in more productive and humane ways well Graham sheet in
the prison notebooks says something that is always tremendously appealed to me that history deposits
in in us our own history our family's history our nation's history our traditions history which has
left in us infinity of traces all kinds of marks you know through heredity through collective
experience of individual experience of family experience the relations between one individual
and another a whole book if you like series of an infinity of traces but there's no inventory
there's no there's no orderly guide to it you know so Graham she says therefore the task at the
outset is to try to compile an inventory in other words to try and make sense of it and this seems
to me to me at any rate to be the most interesting sort of human task it's the task of interpretation
it's a task of giving history some shape and sense for a particular reason not just that you know to
show that my history is better than yours or my history's worse than yours I'm the victim and
you're somebody who's oppressed people at song but rather to understand my history in terms
of other people's history in other words to try to understand to general to move beyond to generalize
one's own individual experience of the experience of others and I think I think the great goal is
in fact to become someone else to transform itself from a unitary identity to an identity
that includes the other without suppressing the difference that he says is the great go and and
and and for me I think I think that that would be the case you know and that would be the notion of
writing an inventory historical inventory which not only understand oneself would understand
oneself in relation to others and to understand others as if you would understand yourself
Palestine is so important in this respect because of its local complexities that say Arabs and Jews
are Muslims and our of Christians and Israeli Jews of themselves very mixed background I mean we're
talking about Polish Jews Russian Jews American Jews Yemeni Jews Iraqi Jews Indian Jews it's a
it's a fairly complex mosaic somehow finding a way to live together on land that is drenched
saturated with significance on a world scale unlike any other country in the world I mean it's
wholly 2/3 of the major religions and every inch of it has been combed over and fought over for the
last several thousand years and the pattern so far has been the zionist pattern which is to say that
you know is promised to us we're the chosen people everybody else is sort of second-rate throw them
out or treat him as second-class citizens and in contrast to that some of us not everybody but many
Palestinians have said well we realized that we are being asked to pay the price for what happened
to the Jews in Europe under the Holocaust it was an entirely Christian and European catastrophe
in which the Arabs played no part and we are being dispossessed displaced by our by the victims we've
become the victims of the victims but as I say not all of us say well they should be thrown out
because we have been thrown out and so we have another vision which is a vision of coexistence
in which Jew and Arab Muslim Christian and and you can live together in some polity which I
think it requires a kind of creativity and invention that is possible vision that would
replace the authoritarian hierarchical model but this idea that somewhere we should protect
ourselves against the infiltrations the infections of the other is I think the most dangerous idea at
the end of the 2028 century and unless we find ways to do it and there are no there aren't our
shortcuts to it unless we find ways to do this I you know there's going to be wholesale violence
of the sort represented by the Gulf War by the killings in Bosnia the ruined and massacres and
so on I mean those are the pattern of emerging conflict that is extremely dangerous and needs
to be counteracted and I think therefore it's correct to say that the challenge now is is the
challenge I call it anything other than coexistent how does one coexist with people whose religions
are different whose traditions and languages are different but who are who form part of the
same community or polity in the national sense how do we accept difference without violence
and hostility I've been interested in a field called comparative literature most all of my
adult life and commit the ideal of comparative literature is not to show how English literature
is really a secondary phenomenon and French literature or Arabic literature is you know
kind of poor cousin to Persian literature or any of those silly things but to show them
existing you might say as contrapuntal lines in a great composition by which difference is
respected understood without without coercion and it's that attitude I think that we need
you
5.0 / 5 (0 votes)