Edward Said interview (2001)

Edward Syed is a professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University he is the author of over 20 books which encompass areas as far ranging as music literary criticism and history Washington Post has said about him his writing challenges and stimulates our thinking in every area in addition to his academic career is perhaps best known as an have spoken advocate of Palestinian nationhood his most recent book called power politics and culture is a compilation of almost 30 interviews conducted over the course of his lifetime of teaching and writing I'm pleased to welcome him back to this table for one of a number of appearances and what an interesting cover this is I mean it power politics and culture interviews would that would say the introduction by gari it's not wish why not this were not non-indians color we used to be a student of mine is now colleague at cumbia yeah first how are you how are you feeling how's your health we won't hang in there yeah it's nice it's tough yeah I mean you know the energy is always drained and I'm waiting for a new treatment now because I've exhausted all the old ones you know what they say what we can talk about this as much as you want to or not one - yeah I mean they say I mean I would assume if you have a life-threatening illness yes you know you live with the idea of holding on because you do not know with medicine proceeding as fast as it is what's around the corner absolutely not and you have to really I think I mean you're the Royal counts for it I would say most of it you think so absolutely I'm Olivia no no no absolutely and I think just the enjoyment of life and the more you feel anchored in life as opposed to you know a lot of people get L want to be invalids before their time but I think the most important thing is to keep the work up as much as possible and to live every day without a thought for the future I mean if a new day dawns and you can get through it that's a bonus and of course the most important thing is have a good doctor there's no substitute for that good who's on the cutting edge of non cutting whom you even if you have a chronic illness you have to see a lot of it you know I've been with my doctor now for almost nine years yeah so you know it's a somebody you develop a lifetime relationship with and that's it's it's it's it's crucial there's no way of under estimating that and you don't feel the need to look around you don't need them you don't I don't feel any way that I have to look alternative treatment you need seven you don't need seven seven different opinions no no no not at all I gave that up a long time ago and I don't look around for a miracle cures I mean there's a lot of that going around quacks who feed on people for that they're not gonna find the good thing about my doctor is that he's he's also an intellectual he understands what I do and his main concern is to give me as much quality of my life as possible without you know undue sort of interventions although I've had a lot of treatment I mean a huge amount of treatment if what your illness is leukemia leukemia and so it's what chemotherapy oh yeah I've had everything I had chemotherapy I've had radiation I've had monoclonal antibody I've had experimental treatments and I mean the the conventional treatments don't work on me anymore I have a very kind of stubborn form of it will makes a difference well I think so yes well as well I believe that oh absolutely I mean you know it's if you're fighting the doctor in the sense that he's trying to keep you alive and you're trying to sort of rest or sink back you know then you're at cross-purposes and whereas if you're if you both feel that you're in the thing together I think that makes a lot of difference yeah you don't give up because well there are things that matter a lot to me you know I mean work that I want to do you know the stuff that I write is important to me my students you know cause it's family of course families and I would say for us but the other things you know my the causes that interest me now for example in the present crisis I mean one of the things that really tremendously bothers me is this sense of a tremendous gap between the world I come from and grew up in in the world I live in now and now what's the nature of again well look out by a tsunami oh no I think the gap is much more than that it's it's cultural it's political it's you know just sort of two different not really worlds but they're just two sets of expectation sets of expectations and languages that have very little in common different value all can be bridged in my opinion in other words I don't think the crisis is simply a crisis of misunderstanding I think that there is a lot that can be done by people who are familiar with both cultures in both worlds and that can you know can interpret one to the other I think that's been very very lucky why oh there's a long history of it I think the Islamic and Arab world has historically been because of its adjacent to Europe in the West it's always been felt as a threat there's been a great colonial interest in that part of the world you know now because of oil and strategy and it's it's felt to be also centrally important because of the holy places not just in Palestine but also of course in the in Saudi Arabia for Muslims it's such the whole area is saturated with all kinds of significance everybody claims some part of it you know historically or actually and I think you know the there's there's also tremendous disparity in in mode of life and trajectory people are going in one direction and they go in another direction in another part of the world and there's been a long and deep-seated conflict which which cut a lot of it comes from ignorance and misunderstanding some will say as Tom Friedman did today talking in India also democracy it makes them different and that freedom and democracy would have been a powerful stimulus hmm in the Arab world I you know I've been I'm second to none in my criticism of the absence of democracy I know you are in the Arab world you know you you've been also second to none in terms of a Palestinian yes in your criticism of the Palestinian Authority yes for those reasons yeah and the other subs well I mean the Egyptians all of them I've taken them all on thirty say I think that that is a good a great problem but I think you know another problem I think is the fact that most Americans now speaking from this side haven't really quite understood what the priorities and what the feelings and issues are for people in that part of the world or they don't take them seriously enough I mean that these are matters of great moment in issue to people and one of them I think is Palestine I mean the sense of Palestine to most Arabs is a central and now deeply symbolic thing the Palestinians are suffering that they are simply prevented from attaining their self-determination and statehood that they go through this daily ordeal under Israeli occupation for 4 years 35 years now is a source of tremendous well I think it's a source of tremendous mystery as to why this should happen well obviously from the Israeli side it's it's mysterious to me because it certainly isn't that a layup any love for the Israelis on the Arab side and on the outsides understood that here the United States and you know the Western world speaks about democracy and human rights and all of us how tolerate this situation which is so glaring I think there's a lot of anti-americanism on the Arab side which is which comes from you know complete misunderstanding of America as if America was the White House in the State Department and the Pentagon that was it yeah so no one has a sense of the complexity of of our society here you know that there are many currents in it that the universities and the churches and the unions and so on all playing in immense rollers this is not the time everybody always wants me anybody says anything that they disagree what they want me to launch into the rest of the program and in debate which I'm not going to do there is also the element though that them in you know that Israel hmm has reason to believe that there are Palestinians who do not recognize their desire to exist you know and believe that if Israel did not have its power and US support would drive them into the sea I think and there's some perceptions yeah it does this is what this is here another thing of cross purple eyes for Palestinians the central fact of their lives no matter where they are is the fact that they were uprooted or dispossessed in 1948 and still have no settled homeland there are refugees four million of them sitting on the borders there are the occupied territories and there are a million and a half Palestinians who are Israeli citizens who are second-class citizens I would I would bet my last shirt on the following the main problem for Palestinians it's deeply emotional and political but you please listen to me I think for us the major problem with Israel is not what Israel has done but that the fact that it has never been acknowledged I think what we need us to spoken about this by the way with my friend barren boy whom I know is on recently and you two aren't together yeah yeah exactly that what yeah you're wearing bomb the great Chicago Symphony pianist and a pianist and conductor um what I think is needed and I don't think it will ever peace will ever happen without this is it an Israeli leader has to make a gesture of compassion and acknowledgment to the Palestinian people all that we've gotten is a sense of well we have no responsibility for what happened you everything you've done is your problem whereas what I think is absolutely necessary is that Israelis individuals do but what we need is an acknowledgement from the Israeli government of responsibility for what happened to the Palestinian people there's no secret about it everybody knows that the destruction of Palestinian society was the resulted in the establishment of Israel it's as simple as that you had to get rid of one Society in order to plant another one and all the stuff about the future of Israel well I think I said who was possible in 48 would have been much better than what you know that's that's another subject into which we did go I mean a question of partition him right you know but for most Palestinians being asked when they were you know roughly 70% of the population to accept forty five percent of the land and give over fifty five percent to thirty percent of the population it didn't seem right but I think I hear you're just really important and that's the problem or of the refugee is the problem of the occupation all of these things will fall like 1980 Barack was sitting here in this table he would say I made no he didn't no not in a private room no no he has to say look I've read all the accounts of what happened in Camp David and elsewhere there was no on the contrary they didn't want to discuss it but I you see here's the interesting thing about it was it you're not the one to talk I mean I would say to you and and that that you raise an important point I would also say to you you know it it may are you prepared are you prepared to suggest that the leadership Palestinian leadership you know has failed thoughtful and you are alright with known as you were it been at odds with Arafat for oh you know our in fact from the very beginning I mean there are basic principle understand that I believe in in this in this politics I think and I've gone on you know a record I don't say that in America only I stayed over there Palestinians that the only hope for the Jews of Israel and the Palestinians of Palestine the Arabs it's some form of coexistence there's no other way there's no I mean the place is too small but their lives and history do you hear you on the compassion did you understand how in Israel yes there is the feeling you know that Palestinians do not want them there and if they were stronger would not allow them to be there and would drive them out but then the question is why is that so and how long can you keep against the people's will to keep them down to beat them down to kill them five Palestinians were killed yesterday charlie the occupation is the most brutal military occupation imaginable Palestinians cannot live in this well that's part of the reason that yet soccer beam was prepared to go where he did is the Prime Minister I understand that well let me move ahead to the United States because we're there other things are talking about and I have great respect for you and also for the issues that you raised this point Colin Powell last yesterday in Kentucky made a speech which I talked about with George Mitchell last night on this program that's uh well trying to watch you all the time thank you what did you think of power mainly how I look I thought it was an important speech first of all there was there had been a taboo for a long time in using the word Palestine and he used the word palate Bush exactly sack to toy being side by side exactly second to talk about a viable Palestinian state with acknowledged borders seems to me an in terrible important thing for an American a high American official to have said obviously with the agreement of the President and third and from my point of view most important in terms of the present context he was the first American in a long time to talk about the need for the end of occupation the Palestinians chemical moving all did in his speech peep out that's I'm saying Howell said it we cannot yeah so that's tremendously important now so a lot of Palestinian criticism was as I read it in the next day was that he didn't say enough but I think from what my my reading which is always optimistic all the speeches but the implication is that now we're going to involve ourselves in getting to that point in other words once you state that this is perhaps the goal then you can begin to work towards it rather than said well we don't really have a goal but we're trying to get people to I think so I I do absolutely I do because I I mean I believe it because I agree with it because I think you know I think there's certain resistance I mean there are an understandable though there there these are matters of high import and there and there are people who who come down on it you very well come down on it with one side with with strong or feeling yes tilting one way or the other yes and I mean by that then there's some people within this administration I'm sure yes you know who feel like the violence has to stop period area period you know yeah and and that violence hasn't been the answer and there are the people who strongly feel that that as long as there is there are occupation there will always be by honest and so you'll encounter violence and there's no literally no end to it and I think you know I think that rather than I think that was the problem with the ten years of Oslo you know since 93 until rightly now a the Palestinian situation the condition got worse and as several Israeli friends told me most Israelis we're not aware of it they thought well we have peace so what are they complaining about but in fact Palestinians got poor they could move around less more of their land was taken their houses were destroyed their olive trees were destroyed many of them were killed I put in jail etc so the situation got worse I think now if you have as the Powell speech indicates you have the beginning of a new climate that suggests this is the general line we want to take towards a Palestinian state towards two states living side by side in some harmonious way in I mean at the end of the road then I think these fears you know I think will dissipate or at least be largely reduced that's the most one can hope for but it's it's substantial I think one has to be able to feel optimistic you feel yeah because I mean nothing else I mean if they don't feel optimism and what is about yeah exactly I mean there's I mean the situation is so desperate for Palestinians that desperate well I mean just lots of people have lost lives yeah we're talking about defenseless people basically Charlie we're talking about people who don't have an army who don't have tanks you don't have f-16s helicopters who are at the mercy of an army that if it gets angry they can do it what they did yesterday they go into a refugee camp in Gaza and destroy 20 homes I mean that's you know on an on a micro level this is this is this is torture for people to live in conditions like that and I think watching it is very very hard for all of us and not only for us but for most of the world outside them why do you think in the end I'm wrong on this don't wanted to move to other things why do you think in the end our effect did not accept the offer that most people believe he should have accepted yes I think there were too many there were too many problems with it I think you know when when you're given an offer that it's more or less take-it-or-leave-it in other words this is the final offer I think that if you've given an offer where you have no boundaries with any Arab country except with that Israel surrounds you that the three or four large bits of territory are dis contiguous from each other if Israel controls exits and entrances I mean too much is left in Israel's head then you return it down now my complaint is not that he turned it down but then he turned it down without giving an alternative I mean if I was in this place I'd have said look this is no good for the following reasons this is what we have to address and keep it going and try to put that case for it he says he has no negotiating monitor that's there's always a negotiating position but that was that that was the mistake no he said that he found him I mean what what a Barak says yeah I've got time and time again he's the impound no negotiating no I think because I worked you know I mean there's some debate within yeah some of the thoughts will say you know but our fight is such a such a genius at manipulating people that the negotiators on their own could do nothing it I mean he really is the final sort of Court of Appeal and what he does when he goes a mess you know there's a designated successor or two but there are too many rival groups there they're too many contenders I think is he losing he's lost a lot of authority and yeah well he's lost a lot of popularity I mean the latest Palestinian poll shows that his popularity is about 17 or 18 percent now which is very and what about Hamas Hamas has never increased it's roughly the same it's always they arise how much Hamas is a largely in Gaza yeah it's a it's an Islamic group that hopes to establish a Palestinian Islamic state which is a hopeless proposition just as all the Islamists ideas in the Arab world are hopeless to establish Islamic states whatever that means and you're not a Muslim well it's not only I'm also very very secular I wouldn't want to if you see what I mean or for that matter you know any kind of theocratic state I think they are basically a welfare and educational organization with military pretensions that will do acts of resistance up to suicide bombing just to keep their case alive but I think the battle for a suicide bomber a suicide bomb in a pizza shop an act of resistance well they think it is I mean it's a it's a it's a tremendously wasteful you know and something that one has to go the same way is is bulldozing somebody's home yeah I mean there are all these acts unnecessary yes so on the part of it on yeah terminal and acts I mean nothing can come from them you know so I in that respect I think they're they're feel as hopeless as everybody else does in this context but I think that I think that one shouldn't overestimate their their their attractiveness to young people thank you thank you and would side my friend we'll be right back stay with us

Channel: Manufacturing Intellect

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Length: 20min 41sec (1241 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 03 2016