Edward W. Said

By John P. Egan

When Edward Said came to America as a student in 1951, little was popularly known in this country about the Middle East or Middle Easterners. Consequently, Said and many of his fellow students from the Middle East were viewed as the quintessentially exotic "Other," a view similar in many respects to the "Charlie Chan" stereotyping of Asian immigrants in the early part of this century. Simple lack of knowledge accounted for misconceptions about Arabs and the Arab world in the 1950's, Said argues. Today, however, he believes that narrow-minded and stereotypical depictions of Arabs serve a much more well-defined political agenda: they are consistently employed by those in academia, government, the media, and other fields who seek to bolster America's close relations with Israel and to deny that the Palestinians have the right to self-determination.

Prolific Writer

Born in Jerusalem in 1935 and a graduate of Princeton and Harvard Universities, Said is now the Parr Professor of Comparative Literature at Columbia University. Among Middle East specialists, he is best known for two books: Orientalism and The Question of Palestine. In Orientalism, Said analyzed the foundations of academic Middle East studies programs and explored the ways Western intellectuals and policy-makers have historically viewed the East. In The Question of Palestine, he put forth a distinctly Palestinian analysis of the events of the last hundred years in Palestine. For many people, myself included, Orientalism and The Question of Palestine served as an introduction to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Said's most recent book, After the Last Sky, is a moving exploration of the Palestinian condition in the aftermath of Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon.

But Said does more than write and speak on Palestine and the Middle East. He has written extensively on the interplay of literature and politics. He also writes occasional columns on classical music for the Nation.

Trends in Palestinian Literature

As an authority on Palestinian literature, Said notes that in the aftermath of the 1948 war, in which 750,000 Palestinians lost their homes, Palestinian literature understandably focused primarily on the loss of Palestine. Palestinian artists were less concerned with such issues as the tensions between modernity and tradition, or the literary trade-offs between the novel, the novella, and free verse poetry. Said believes that debates such as these would make for a more sophisticated national literature.

Although Said disclaims any special expertise in Middle East issues, his closely argued books and articles have helped put the word "Palestine" back into the American vocabulary. However, while serious American foreign policy analysts now acknowledge that the Palestinian problem must be resolved if there is to be peace in the Middle East, Said feels that this acknowledgement has yet to sink in at the policy-making level. He contends that policy-makers now ignore the Palestinian demand for self-determination less out of ignorance than out of the belief that the Palestinians are irrelevant. Such policy-makers seem to believe that the US can manage its Middle East interests with only scant rhetorical notice paid to those who once lived in Palestine.

Said's books and articles have helped put the word "Palestine" back into the American vocabulary. Serious American foreign policy analysts now acknowledge that the Palestine problem must be resolved if there is to be peace in the Middle East, but Said feels this has yet to sink in at the policy-making level.

Said is sharply critical of those who see the Palestinians, and Arabs in general, only as an impediment to an otherwise close and entirely appropriate relationship between the US and Israel. He believes, however, that these pro-Israel forces are still in the ascendant, and are far more powerful than those calling for a full consideration of the Palestinian plight. As a case in point, he mentions the New York Times' reaction after Israeli General Sharon lost his libel suit against Time magazine. Shortly after the decision, three articles appeared on the Times' op-ed page: all three were written by Israelis or American Jews, and all analyzed the trial from slightly different Zionist perspectives. That, the Times apparently believed, was the entire spectrum of relevant analysis and commentary. There was no Palestinian voice, nor even a suggestion that a Palestinian view might be relevant or even interesting. Said cites this as an example of how, routinely in the US media and in US government consultations, the Palestinians are excluded from the discussion of their history and their fate.

John P. Egan is News Editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.