Edward Said, Vocal Palestinian Advocate and Scholar, Dies at 67

Edward Said, a prominent Columbia University professor who was a vocal and often controversial advocate for the Palestinian cause, died last Thursday. He was 67.

Born in Jerusalem in 1935, but raised both there and in Cairo, he was one of the most prominent leaders of Palestinian political thought in recent history.

After moving from Cairo to the U.S. in the 1950s, he earned a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and then a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from Harvard University. He went on to become a visiting professor here.

Throughout his life, Said was forced to defend his background—particularly in the face of criticism for his strong support for Palestinian nationalism despite his birth on what is now considered Israeli soil.

“I never have represented my case as the issue to be treated,” he told The New York Times. “I’ve represented the case of my people, which is quite different.”

Many of Said’s most well known academic and political works were published by Harvard University Press. “Said is a paradoxical person, all of his activities flow together,” said Lindsey Waters, executive editor for the humanities of Harvard University Press.

Said is the author of more than 20 books, including Acts of Aggression: Policing Rogue States (on which he collaborated with MIT Professor of Linguistics Noam Chomsky), Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Past of the World and Culture and Imperialism.

Waters, who worked with Said on many of his publications, said Said was very concerned that in today’s world “aesthetics get swamped by politics.”

“He had tremendous respect for himself,” Waters said, emphasizing that he was a member of his country’s bourgeoisie and not a Palestinian refugee.

Said was frequently challenged to justify his political beliefs.

Waters recalled an exchange between Said and Stanley Fish—now dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago—at one 1983 conference.

According to Waters, Fish asked Said, “You’re a Marxist. How come you have such a beautiful tie on?”

Said’s reply was a simple one: “When the revolution comes, everybody who wants to wear a tie like this, will just wear it.”

In academic circles, Said’s work has played a prominent role in research and classroom discussions—particularly his 1978 Orientalism, which contended that the Western world treated the “East” as an object of knowledge and a territory to be conquered. The title of the book, itself, remains an important term in academic discourse.

Said was awarded a number of prizes for his work, including Sultan Owais Prize (the premier literary prize of the Arab world), the Spinoza prize and the New Yorker Book Award for Non-Fiction for his 1999 memoir Out of Place. That same year, he was named president of the Modern Languages Association.

However, Said’s interests surpassed English literature. He also worked closely with the famous Argentinian-Israeli pianist and composer Daniel Barenboim to create the West-East divan Orchestra.

He wrote for several Middle Eastern newspapers, including the Palestinian Al-Hayat and the Egyptian Al-Ahram.

Though he frequently spoke out about events in the Middle East, Said—who once served on the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s governing council—attempted for the most part to remain outside the political fray.

“[Said] is a critic, not a political leader. He wants to be outside politics so he openly criticizes Yasser Arafat,” Waters said. “He found it essential to keep the distance from the movement.”

But though Said criticized Arafat for the use of force on his own people, the Palestinian president praised Said last week in Pakistan’s Daily News.

“With his departure, humanity has lost its eminent genius who had actively contributed to every cultural, intellectual and creative fields,” Arafat said.

Opponents condemned Said’s nationalist political stance as extreme and anti-Israel.

But Said described himself as a supporter of “just peace.”

“I am for peace. And I am for negotiated peace,” Said told the International Herald Tribune in 1999.

Said hoped for the creation of a “bi-state” which would provide equal rights to both Palestinians and Israelis, which he said the Oslo agreement of 1993 failed to do.

Despite his attempts to avoid direct political involvement, Said recently sparked controversy during a 2000 visit to the Middle East by throwing a stone across the Lebanese border toward an Israeli guardhouse. Columbia did not censure Said for the incident; a university spokesperson said that Said did not hurt anyone but was exercising his academic freedom.

Said was diagnosed with leukemia in 1992 and seemingly retreated to working with music for the last three years of his life. The importance of his work, however, was not and will not be forgotten, according to Waters.

“The impact of his death will be considerable,” she said, “because who else can be so brave, in the climate of fear and conformism? Said was a model for people.”

After Said’s extensive scholarship and advocacy work, Waters added, “all we can do is be less afraid tomorrow.”