Edward Said: A giant has fallen Khalil Barhoum

Opinion, September 2003, www.aljazeerah.info

Edward Said: A giant has fallen

By Khalil Barhoum

Jordan Times, Monday, September 29, 2003

WHO AMONGST us ever contemplated the moment when Edward Said, this giant of a man, would finally fall and vanish from our lives once and for all? Despite our knowledge, all along, that he had been so gallantly battling leukaemia since 1991, deep down we somehow imagined — perhaps even believed — that Said was virtually indestructible. And who can blame us if we so thought? Just witness the dizzying pace he maintained since he learned of his disease. Or take a look at the stunning mass of literary output that he has yielded in that same period?

A writer and a friend, Alexander Cockburn, just observed: “He lived at a rate that would have felled a man half his age and ten times as healthy: a plane to London, an honorary degree, on to Lebanon, on to the West Bank, on to Cairo, to Madrid, back to New York. And all the while he was pouring out the Edward Said prose that I most enjoyed, the fiery diatribes he distributed to ... a vast world audience.”

Fact is, over the years, we have grown too accustomed to expecting the most from Said. And, why not? After all, he had his own standards to live up to. We, on the other hand, were more or less bound by the normal constraints of time and space, so we could only afford to stand by and watch sheer greatness as it impassively paraded before our eyes in a multitude of forms.

All of us knew what to expect of him, and Edward always delivered. Never one to disappoint, along the way he critically provided us with a moral compass, one that helped us navigate a path through the murky moral and political terrain which have often impeded a clear perception of the enduring justice of the Palestinian cause. As he did so, his clear vision was certainly matched by his strong conviction; he never wavered, nor was he ever cowed.

Yes, you might say that Said had been a man on a mission ever since he began to come to terms with his own mortality — actually, the ones who never seemed ready to acknowledge the impending epilogue were the many friends and admirers among us who were attempting to dispel, if not totally deny, this reality at least for a while longer. As for him, realising that he already had a date with destiny, he felt strongly that there was still much too much to be accomplished: old battles to fight, new concepts to fashion, fresh opinions to mould, exciting stories to share, and many more miles to travel. Many more miles.

Unlike most of us, mere mortals, Said did not have the luxury of waiting for a more opportune time or some appropriate state in life to do all these things. Such mundane considerations did not preoccupy him in the least. So he tirelessly toiled away, while the rest of us mainly stood back and simply admired what we saw, part in awe but also part in envy.

How did he manage all of this with so little time? How could he not be bothered with such considerations that have kept many of us awake most nights, possibly due to fear of adverse reactions to words or actions that might be appropriated to us here or there, and every now and then?

As his legend grew, so did his stature and our reliance on the boundless energies of his intellect and the unwavering courage of his convictions. Yet, despite all his countless accomplishments, he was never adopted or fully endorsed by the so-called American mainstream, which bestows its favours generally on those who toe the line. So it goes. He thus blithely lived his life on the outside, looking in for the most part, quite content to be universally on the side of the oppressed and the less fortunate.

One cannot help but wonder what Said's place in conventional historical accounts would have been had he been judged creditable by the prevailing political culture and the media elite in the US. Would he have been a bit, or rather a lot, more famous now had he not been so closely wedded to the Palestinian cause and the defence of similar other seemingly losing issues, as he liked to call them?

I am afraid these questions are for the idle at this point, nonetheless. The truth is that Said had no regrets over the positions he espoused over the years because his ideas were those of a man who cherished justice over power, conscience over fame, and universal human rights over xenophobic parochial interests. And for that, we are immensely grateful.

Needless to say, individuals like him are quite unique. His impassioned defence of the Palestinian people's rights constituted, for all practical purposes, an integral part of his unyielding overall commitment to human rights and reaffirmed, yet again, their central role in the conduct of relations at the individual, national and international levels.

Said's courage and persistence in seeking and upholding these fundamental principles and basic human values have certainly made him a hero of the Palestinian rights advocates, as well as a symbol, to people worldwide, of innate human decency in the face of inexorable power and crushing injustice.

He will be greatly missed by all of us who were fortunate enough to have known him. In no small measure, he will be remembered around the world as a champion of humanity, dignity, freedom and, above all, stubborn resistance against overwhelming odds.

The writer is Programme Coordinator, ME and African Literatures, Cultures, and Languages at Stanford University. He contributed this article to The Jordan Times.

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).