The task ahead
Edward Said is irreplaceable, but a meaningful sequel to his work is both possible and necessary, writes George Naggiar*
It has been almost four weeks since Edward Said passed away. Remarkably, the condolences and tributes that the event inspired continue, uninterrupted by distance from the place or time of his death. But as sorrow and remembrance over his death yield to study and reflection of his life, my own thoughts increasingly move to considering the sequel to Said's life and work.
In the Arab world, that sequel is intimately tied to a relatively disappointing past performance in its interaction with the West, particularly the United States. Despite the force of Said's critique in Orientalism, in which he decried the falsity and racism contained within Western representations of Arabs and Islam, during the quarter century following its introduction, the Arab world had yet to take successful remedial action to correct these misrepresentations in the American people's conscience. Regrettably, many Arabs sought shelter in Said's critique of Orientalism's misrepresentations of the Orient, misinterpreting it as a defence of Arab behindhand in fields like democracy, human rights and education, to name only a few areas.
In part as a result of Arab disengagement in the United States, Arabs and Muslims remain alone among groups there that can continue to be spoken of and behaved towards with derision, if not outright hostility, without even the slightest censure. So, to take one example, an overt anti-Arab/ Muslim bigot like Daniel Pipes could recently be appointed to the US Institute for Peace without significant public outcry. Or, the president of the United States could call Ariel Sharon, likely the most aggressive figure towards Arabs and Palestinians in Israel's history, a "man of peace" without inviting total outrage and shock.
While this continued negative construction of Arabs and Muslims in much of American public discourse is, in part, a product of the American government's ambitions within the region and is certainly not assisted by a ceaseless assault of vituperative anti-Palestinian rights propaganda in the United States by the American supporters of the Israeli occupation, it is made possible in a large part only because of a collective Arab failure to constructively intervene in American public opinion.
Worse yet, Arabs and Muslims continue to be defined by their strongest opponents. Quite appallingly, the leading organisation translating Arabic into English in Washington, DC (and other languages in other major Western capitals) is the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), a strongly pro-Israeli occupation/anti-Arab organisation that regularly selects passages from the Arab press to construct Arabs as irrational, violent, anti-American, anti-Semites not to be dealt with at any cost. Even a relatively laudable initiative like the "Saudi Peace Plan" was first publicly presented -- and interpreted -- by Thomas Friedman, whose greater attention to Israel's Jewishness than Palestinians' rights is well known.
Unfortunately, with the exception of the fine work of a few Arab-American groups, such as the Arab-American Institute and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, and a number of individuals, like Electronic Intifada co-founder, Ali Abunimah, Palestine Right to Return Coalition co-founder, Mazin Qumsiyeh, Palestine Chronicle founder and editor, Ramzy Baroud, and Palestine Media Watch founder and president, Ahmed Bouzid (individuals whose work must be acknowledged and whose entrepreneurial status should be noted), there have been few consequential Arab alternatives to these interpreters or portrayals. As a result, as Said often said, there is no counter-repository of information or knowledge about Arabs or Muslims that can be easily summoned or mobilised to counteract these false representations, particularly at important instances when these representations permit tragic policy decisions to follow. But while this absence has proven disastrous in US-Arab relations, it also leaves open a space for a meaningful sequel to Edward Said's work.
This sequel will not, of course, be a "next" Edward Said, as I have listened to a number of individuals hope for and for which post I have already heard the names of several candidates. As Foucault clarified, historical events are the convergence of a unique set of circumstances, not be repeated again. And Said's historical contribution was indeed that of a particular moment. Beyond that more "philosophical" observation, I doubt that someone of Said's genius, perspicacity, interest, depth and range could so easily join us again.
On the other hand, Said's genius was not a natural occurrence, nor his celebrity an inevitable fate. These statuses were created through enormous hard work, through reading, writing, speaking and travelling, all after the last hour. His many books, essays and interviews did not write or speak themselves, but were the product of an unceasing self-motivation to get up from his bed (even at his sickest hours) and get on with his work. We could use more of that in the Arab world and in the United States, as there will be no dues ex machina to save us from or deliver us to our destiny. Just as the sovereignty of injustice is not preordained, neither is our salvation from it.
Perhaps, in the end, Said's mesmerising energy, passion and words were a sort of blessed curse, as they allowed many of us to seek refuge within them, to not speak out because we, as Palestinians, as Arabs, and as people of conscience, could declare with such unearned comfort that someone -- indeed, the best -- was speaking for us, saying exactly what we had always felt. But that someone is no longer there. And even if he was, his was -- nay, is -- the task not of a person, but of a people. Thus, we must all begin to treat it.
* The writer is founder and president of the American Association for Palestinian Equal Rights (AAPER).
