The Guardian 25.9.2003
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1049793,00.html
World-renowned scholar Edward Said dies
George Wright and agencies
Thursday September 25, 2003
Edward Said, the world-renowned scholar, writer and
critic has died aged 67, it was announced today.
Said died at a New York hospital, his editor Shelly
Wanger said. He had suffered from leukaemia since the
early 1990s.
He was born in 1935 in Jerusalem - then part of
British-ruled Palestine - and raised in Egypt before
moving to the United States as a student. He was for
many years the leading US advocate for the Palestinian
cause.
His writings have been translated into 26 languages
and his most influential book, Orientalism (1978), was
credited with forcing Westerners to re-examine their
perceptions of the Islamic world.
His works cover a plethora of other subjects, from
English literature, his academic speciality, to music
and culture. His later books include "Musical
Elaborations" in 1991, and "Cultural Imperialism" in
1993.
Many of his books - including The Question of
Palestine (1979), Covering Islam (1981), After the
Last Sky (1986) and Blaming the Victims (1988) - were
influenced directly by his involvement with Palestine. He was a prominent
member of the Palestinian parliament-in-exile for 14 years before stepping
down 1991.
Said, a professor at Columbia University for most of
his academic career, was consistently critical of
Israel for what he regarded as mistreatment of the Palestinians.
He prompted a controversy in 2000 when he threw a rock toward an Israeli
guardhouse on the Lebanese border.
Columbia did not censure him, saying the stone was not
directed at anyone, no law was broken and that his
actions were protected by principles of academic
freedom.
He wrote two years ago after visits to Jerusalem and
the West Bank that Israel's "efforts toward
exclusivity and xenophobia toward the Arabs" had
strengthened Palestinian determination.
"Palestine and Palestinians remain, despite Israel's
concerted efforts from the beginning either to get rid
of them or to circumscribe them so much as to make
them ineffective," Said wrote in the English-language
Al-Ahram Weekly, published in Cairo.
His outspoken stance made him many enemies; he
suffered repeated death threats and in 1985 he was
called a Nazi by the Jewish Defence League and his
university office was set on fire.
After the signing of the Oslo peace accords between
Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation
(PLO), Said also criticised Yasser Arafat because he
believed the PLO leader had made a bad deal for the
Palestinians.
In a 1995 lecture, he said Arafat and the Palestinian
Authority "have become willing collaborators with the
(Israeli) military occupation, a sort of Vichy
government for Palestinians."
Salman Rushdie once said of Said that he "reads the
world as closely as he reads books".
The Irish critic Seamus Deane described him as: "That
rare figure: a truly public intellectual who has a
powerful influence within the academy and also a
potent public presence. He's a very brilliant reader,
of both texts and political situations."
Hamid Dabashi, chairman of Columbia's Middle East and
Asian Languages and Cultures Department, said: "Over
the past three decades he was the most eloquent
spokesman for the plight of the Palestinians."
Said is survived by Miriam, his second wife.
Sydney Morning Harald 26.9.2003
Palestinian scholar Edward Said dies in New York
Palestinian intellectual Edward Said, whose writings
included the book Orientalism, died in New York at age
67 today after a battle with leukemia, a colleague at
Columbia University said.
Said was a literary critic and theoretician but was
also known as a prominent Palestinian activist.
Arab commentators said Said would be remembered as a
Palestinian patriot and a towering intellectual who broke ground in the
theory of literature and Orientalist studies.
For many years he was a member of the Palestinian
National Council but he broke with Yasser Arafat in
the belief that the Oslo peace accords signed in 1993
betrayed Palestinian refugees.
Said called the Oslo accords "a Palestinian
Versailles" that further eroded Palestinian human and
national rights, and opposed a segregated two-state
solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict,
proposing an integrated, democratic country instead.
"I spoke to Mrs Edward Said and she told me he has
passed away this morning at a New York hospital," said
Hamid Dabashi, chairman of Columbia's Middle East and
Asian Languages and Cultures Department.
Said was a professor of comparative literature at
Columbia. His books include Orientalism, A Question
of Palestine and The End of the Peace Process.
His theory of Orientalism said that false and
romanticised images of the Middle East and Asia were
used to justify Western colonialism and imperialism
in
the region.
"Over the past three decades he was the most eloquent
spokesman for the plight of the Palestinians," Dabashi
said.
Said's friends recalled him saying he was "not dead
and not alive" as doctors gave him larger doses of
chemotherapy to battle his cancer.
Abdelwahab al-Badrakhan, deputy editor of the leading
pan-Arab newspaper al-Hayat, said: "We lost a peak of
Arab intellect. Edward Said set himself apart by
knowing the feelings of the street.
"He articulated the basis for Palestinian patriotism
and added to his fundamental rejection of Zionism the
idea of Palestinian-Israeli co-existence," Badrakhan
told Reuters in London.
In 2000, Said visited an area of southern Lebanon
recently evacuated by the Israeli military.
In keeping with the custom there of tossing "stones
of celebration" across the border with Israel, Said threw such a stone.
But when a photographer captured the moment, the widely published picture
was used by opponents to paint Said as a rock-throwing militant.
Chibli Mallat, a leading human rights lawyer who
worked with Said on a framework for a democratic
Palestine and a democratic Iraq, called Said's passing
"a unique loss."
"As a supporter throughout his life of a single state
in Palestine-Israel where Jews and Arabs have the same
rights, he has traced against the odds a humanistic
future for an otherwise intractable conflict," Mallat
said by telephone from Beirut.
Said was born in Jerusalem, a Palestinian of Christian
faith, but spent most of his childhood in Cairo,
Egypt. Educated at Princeton University and Harvard
University, he taught at Harvard, Johns Hopkins and
Yale University as well as Columbia.
Journalist Amy Goodman, host of the New York-based
television show Democracy Now! called Said, "The voice
of permanent exile of a man living out of place
continually trying to establish a safe home for his
people."
"He was a voice of rage, of compassion, a voice of the
Palestinian people," she said.
Reuters
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article1979.shtml
Edward Said: A lighthouse that navigated us
Ilan Pappe, The Electronic Intifada, 25 September 2003
We, who supported the Palestinian cause, have been
orphaned with the untimely death of Edward Said. For
Israeli Jews, like myself, he was the lighthouse that
navigated us out of the darkness and confusion of
growing in a Zionist state onto a safer coast of
reason, morality and consciousness.
I am sorry I only met Edward in 1988, but I feel
fortunate for the time we did spend together. His
insights of, and inputs on, the global reality in
general and the Palestine one in particular will guide
us all for many years to come. But above all, we shall
miss Edward's unique ability of articulating in the
public sphere the evil inflicted upon the Palestinians
in the past against the continued effort in the
Western media of sidelining, if not altogether
eliminating, the plight and tragedy of Palestine.
There is no one who could easily feel his place on
that stage -- no one who could in few sentences
associate so clearly the wrongs of the past with the
tragedy of the present in the land of Palestine.
The academic and intellectual world would equally be
disorientated without his original thoughts and conceptualization on the
West's relationship with the world. We should be grateful, nonetheless,
that so many of our colleagues went in his footsteps as he so brilliantly
deconstructed the power bases and more sinister interests behind the knowledge
production in West on the Orient in general and the Middle East in particular.
For those of us who knew him more personally, we have
all lost a dear and genuine friend, with whom one
could talk about the most abstract philosophical
issues and with the same ease move to more mundane
problems in life -- which usually paled in comparison
with his endless and brave struggle against his fatal
illness.
Something of this mixture and balance was also in his
books. He will be remembered, and justly so, for
"Orientalism" and the works that followed shaping and
contributing to the post-Colonialist and Cultural Studies. But I will
also cherish the "The Politics of Dispossession" -- these short and lucid
interventions, quite often immediate reactions to a recent crisis or juncture
in the life of Palestine and the Palestinians, but always contextualizing
the event and Said's thoughts within the much more broader view on the
march of history.
A few weeks ago we had our last meaningful
conversation -- on the phone -- in which he beseeched
me, as he did others I am sure, not to give up the
struggle for relocating the Palestinians' refugee
issue at the heart of the public and global agenda.
He
stressed the need to continue the effort of changing
the American public opinion on Palestine and he was
very hopeful and encouraged by he what recognized as
a significant change in European public opinion.
Edward probably left more than one spiritual and moral
will to us. The one I am taking is the one above. In
his memory and out of respect to his intellectual
genius as well as to his moral courage, we should
regroup our energies and reorganize our efforts to
impress on the world that there will be no justice and
no peace in Palestine, no stability in the Middle East
and no tranquility in the US relationship with the
Muslim world, without the return of Palestinian
refugees to their home, the end of the Israeli
occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and the
building of a state in Palestine that would respect
human and civil rights, as did Edward all his life.
May his soul rest in peace.
Ilan Pappe is a senior Israeli academic at the
Department of Political Science and M.A, University
of
Haifa and the author of many books relating to the
conflict.
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/story.php?sid=20030925152906727
Tribute to Edward Said - Barghouthi
"A man with great courage and clear conviction Edward
Said was a shining light in a confused world. As a
true intellectual giant, Said inspired all fields with
his accomplishments .."
By MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI
It is with heartbreaking sorrow that the Palestinian
National Initiative announce the tragic death of
Edward Said who passed away today after eleven years
fighting leukemia. At this time our thoughts and love
are with his family. We wish them strength and courage
and assurance that Edward will be a man forever
remembered not only for his incredible achievements
but for his remarkable qualities as a friend. Though
words may do little at such a time to assuage the pain
and grief something must be said to pay homage to a
man and a life we should truly celebrate.
A man with great courage and clear conviction Edward
Said was a shining light in a confused world. As a
true intellectual giant, Said inspired all fields with
his accomplishments. The passion which infused his
intellectual abilities presented him as a man with
clear visions to be greatly admired, trusted and
respected.
Though his beliefs and commitments presented him with
many challenges his statements and many testimonies
of
outrage at the hypocrisies, contradictions, and
indignities so rife in the world gave him the
integrity and honesty for which he was renowned.
A prolific writer Said addressed all issues of
culture, colonialism, imperialism, language and
literature. As a Palestinian exile much of his
political writing came from personal memories yet he
remained objective and grounded not only affirming the
Palestinian presence but also pointing toward a future where peace is
possible. Among spokespeople for the Palestinian cause surely there was
none so articulate, so inspiring, so admired.
For the Palestinian National Initiative, a movement
striving for democracy in Palestine itself co-founded
by Dr. Said, the death of this
unique and most prominent leader, a man of values and
integrity who truly believed in freedom and justice
is
a great loss. The Mubadara remain determined to follow
in his foot steps, and remain committed to his vision,
conveying all his hopes and values not just of a free Palestine, and free
Palestinians but of freedom for all, the world over.
The sense of loss felt by the death of such a great
intellect, gentleman and friend is immeasurable. His
eminent work of decades and all that he stood for will
remain forever a monument for justice, and human
rights. As a man of courage, graciousness, hope and
dedication, his memory will remain forever in our
hearts.
About the Author: Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi is the
founder of the Palestinian National Initiative
Independent - Politik (26-09-2003)
Palestinian, intellectual, and fighter, Edward Said
rails against Arafat and Sharon to his dying bre
26 September 2003The last time I saw Edward Said, I
asked him to go on living. I knew about his leukaemia.
He had often pointed out that he was receiving "state-of-the-art"
treatment from a Jewish doctor and
- despite all the trash that his enemies...
Homepage von Edward Said:
http://www.edwardsaid.org/
www1.news.ch
Donnerstag, 25. September 2003
/ 21:47:44
Palästinensischer Intellektueller
Said gestorben der linksgerichtete palästinensische Intellektuelle Edward
Said.
New York - Einer der weltweit
bekanntesten Kritiker sowohl Israels als auch der Autonomiebehörde, der
linksgerichtete palästinensische Intellektuelle Edward Said, ist tot.
Er starb im Alter von 67 Jahren in New York an Leukämie. Said, ein christlicher
Araber, der in Jerusalem geboren wurde, in Kairo aufwuchs und mit 17 Jahren
in die USA ging, lehrte an der New Yorker Universität seit 1963 Anglistik
und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft.
Seit der arabischen Niederlage
im Sechs-Tage-Krieg von 1967 befasste Said sich in zahlreichen Büchern
mit dem Nahostkonflikt. 14 Jahre lang, bis zu seinem Bruch mit PLO-Chef
Jassir Arafat im Jahr 1991, war er Mitglied des Palästinensischen Nationalrates.
Said warf Arafat vor, sich auf
den Osloer Friedensprozess eingelassen zu haben; dieser bedeutete seiner
Meinung nach nichts anderes als die
bedingungslose Unterwerfung und
Entrechtung der palästinensischen Seite und die internationale Legitimation
des militärisch in jeder Hinsicht übermächtigen israelischen Staates.
Zugleich kritisierte Said die
Autonomiebehörde unter Arafat als undemokratische, korrupte und polizeistaatliche
Autokratie.
Said verurteilte die Anschläge
von radikalislamischen Gruppen gegen unschuldige Zivilisten. Er plädierte
für ein friedliches Zusammenleben von Juden, Moslems und Christen als
gleichberechtigte Bürger in einem binationalen, demokratischen Staat.
bert (Quelle: sda)
Kurier.at 25.9.2003
Israel-Kritiker Said gestorben
Der Kulturwissenschaftler plädierte
für einen binationalen Staat.
New York- Edward Said starb im
Alter von 67 Jahren in New York nach jahrelangem Kampf gegen eine Leukämie,
wie die Columbia University mitteilte. Said, ein christlicher Araber,
der in Jerusalem geboren wurde, in Kairo aufwuchs und mit 17 Jahren in
die USA ging, lehrte an der New Yorker Universität seit 1963 Anglistik
und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft. Seit der arabischen Niederlage
im Sechs-Tage-Krieg von
1967 befasste er sich in zahlreichen
Büchern mit dem Nahostkonflikt. 14 Jahre lang, bis zu seinem Bruch mit
PLO-Chef Yasser Arafat im Jahr 1991, war er Mitglied des Palästinensischen
Nationalrates.
Kritik an Autonomiebehörde
Said warf Arafat vor, sich auf
den Osloer Friedensprozess eingelassen zu haben; dieser bedeutete seiner
Meinung nach nichts anderes als die bedingungslose Unterwerfung und Entrechtung
der palästinensischen Seite und die internationale Legitimation des militärisch
in jeder Hinsicht übermächtigen israelischen Staates. Zugleich kritisierte
er die Autonomiebehörde unter Arafat als undemokratische, korrupte und
polizeistaatliche Autokratie. Kompromisslos auch gegenüber den radikalislamischen
Gruppen, deren Anschläge gegen unschuldige Zivilisten er verurteilte,
plädierte Said für ein friedliches Zusammenleben von Juden, Moslems und
Christen als gleichberechtigte Bürger in einem binationalen, demokratischen
Staat. Dabei sprach er sich als Übergangslösung für eine vorübergehende
staatliche Teilung aus.
Der Kulturwissenschaftler gründete
zusammen mit dem argentinisch-israelischen Dirigenten Daniel Barenboim
1999 in der Europäischen Kulturstadt Weimar das internationale "West-Eastern-Divan-Orchestra"
mit Musikern aus dem gesamten Nahen Osten. Der seit 1970 verheirate Said
war Vater von zwei Kindern. Zu seinen bekanntesten Werken gehört das in
26 Sprachen übersetzte Buch "Orientalism" aus dem Jahr 1978. Seine Autobiografie
erschien auf deutsch unter dem Titel "Am falschen Ort". Sein Buch "Das
Ende des Friedensprozesses. Oslo und danach" enthält Artikel zum Nahostkonflikt
aus den Jahren 1995 bis 2002.
Times of India 26.9.2003
A passionate chronicler of the
Palestinian cause
SIDDHARTH VARADARAJAN
TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER
26, 2003
01:22:25 AM ]
NEW DELHI: Edward Said, one of
the world’s leading scholars of comparative literature and a passionate
advocate of the Palestinian cause, died in New York on September 25. He
was 68 and had been suffering from leukaemia for several years.
Formally speaking a professor
of English and comparative literature at Columbia University, Said was
truly a polymath whose academic and journalistic work recognised few disciplinary
or geographical boundaries. He wrote with equal felicity — and passion
— about Palestine, Joseph Conrad, the demonisation of Islam, the writings
of Giuseppe Di Lampedusa or the music of Richard Wagner. But his most
visceral attachment was to the struggle of Palestinians for self-determination,
statehood and dignity. His writings about Palestine, he said once in an
interview, ‘‘have the tone of a witness to events that might otherwise
go unrecorded’’. Born in Jerusalem to a family of Palestinian Christians,
Said studied in Cairo, Princeton and Harvard. His initial work was on
Conrad, but as the struggle of the Palestinians took
shape in the 1960s, his intellectual
pursuits began to broaden.
In his highly influential Orientalism,
published in 1976, Said studied the way in which Western literary representations
of Asia and the Middle East were symbiotically linked to the perpetuation
of colonial power. He followed this up with The Question of Palestine,
an authoritative, scholarly debunking of pro-Israel historiography and
an attempt to ‘‘articulate a history of (Palestinian) loss and dispossession
that had to be extricated, minute by minute, word by word, inch by inch’’.
In Covering Islam, Said offered
a remarkably robust analysis of the biased manner in which the Western
media reported about Muslims and the Islamic world. In recent years, Said
emerged as an eloquent critic of the Palestinian peace process, the US
‘roadmap’’ and the many compromises Yasser Arafat has made since the Oslo
accords.
zusammenstellung: sylvia jerusalem