The Death of Edward Said -- A tribute

Re: MNIPhirsay`s posts.

First off, you and your friends appear to be very worked up about my using the term “neoMarxist” to describe Said. Would you be happier if I corrected myself and said ``post-Marxist`` instead of ``neoMarxist?`` Is that the approved descriptive term? I`ve also heard that they now prefer to be called ``conflict theorists.`` Or are you trying to argue that Foucault, Derrida, and all those who go around deconstructing texts to decipher their “true” meanings, analyzing power relationships and what-have-you have no possible connection to Marx? In that case, maybe I need to go back and sue my Political Theory professor for telling us lies. Although they may have transcended Marx, the roots are there, no?

So, neoMarxist was not used as an insult (the way ``liberal`` is here in the US by some Republicans) but as a short-hand description of where I think he is coming from. Or are you seriously going to claim that Said was not deconstructing the heck out of, e.g., Lewis?

BTW, you are completely wrong about the thawra issue. “The Political Language of Islam” came out in 1988; Said was writing in 1978. So, unless Said was clairvoyant as well, it is not possible for him to criticize something that hasn’t been written yet. Said is obviously referring to something else. So it does not necessarily follow that Lewis is being deliberately insulting here.

Neilsen characterizes the thawra dispute thus:

In this way, says Said, Lewis achieves two things: firstly, to devalue the significance of the events and institutions denoted by such terms and, secondly, to imply that the essence of Arab-Islamic civilisation is so unchanged that the meaning of words 1400 years ago can validly be used to explain current phenomena. Lewis’s argument was most succinctly put a decade after Said’s:

Islam is still the most acceptable, indeed in times of crisis the only acceptable, basis for authority... In political life, Islam still offers the most widely intelligible formulation of ideas, on the one hand of social norms and laws, on the other, of new ideas and aspirations... Islam provides the most effective system of symbols for political mobilisation.
Source: http://artsweb.bham.ac.uk/mdraper/transnatsufi/Research_Papers/Nielsen.htm; Lewis quote is from “Political Language of Islam,” cited by Nielsen.

Now, are you seriously going to tell me that Lewis is completely wrong here? What the heck is Pakistani history then?

On to Said as a member of ``the West is to blame for everything`` school. I was told, in no uncertain terms, that I was a complete dunderhead for saying that Said belonged to this vein of self-apology among “Orientals.” Turns out, there is a vast Likud-wing conspiracy to keep the Arab man down.

“The answer, I think, is that books like Miller`s [God Has Ninety-Nine Names: Reporting From a Militant Middle East] are symptomatic because they are weapons in the contest to subordinate, beat down, compel and defeat any Arab or Muslim resistance to U.S.-Israeli dominance. Moreover, by surreptitiously justifying a policy of single-minded obduracy that links Islamism to a strategically important, oil-rich part of the world, the anti-Islam campaign virtually eliminates the possibility of equal dialogue between Islam and the Arabs, and the West or Israel. To demonize and dehumanize a whole culture on the ground that it is (in Lewis`s sneering phrase) enraged at modernity is to turn Muslims into the objects of a therapeutic, punitive attention.” (http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=19960812&s=said)

So, every book that is critical of Arabs and/or Islam is all part of a direct conspiracy, run no doubt by the Elders of Zion, using their old “Protocols,” to establish Eretz Israel. No doubt, before 1948, all these authors worked directly for the Colonial Office; now they work for the Israeli government, paid for by the Pentagon. The Orientalists are Dead, Long Live the Orientalists! Getting a little paranoid, are we?

Presumably, also, the Mossad-CIA nexus is busy sabotaging any sign of government competency that appears in any Arab country. This would of course ensure that no threat to Israel could ever arise.

Here is a little excerpt from one of his articles in the London Review of Books: “So, because of its potential to make trouble in Israel, Saddam`s Iraq was targeted for military and political termination” (http://www.lrb.co.uk/v25/n08/said01_.html).

It wasn’t the oil, it wasn’t the weapons of mass destruction, it wasn’t even personal for George W! It was the JEWS!!! If this isn’t paranoic hysteria of the highest order, what is?

Here’s another little gem from Said:

“…well-trained US special forces have practised and perfected the storming of civilian homes alongside Israeli soldiers in Jenin (same source).

Even if, highly unlikely, there might have been an observer or two from the US Special Forces watching how the IDF carries out its urban Low-Intensity Warfare operations, they certainly weren`t marching into combat side-by-side with the IDF! To go from there to Said’s allegation shows a tendency, at best, to get carried away with his own eloquence and, at worst, a blatant disregard for the truth. This supports TAhmed`s contention that Said has some serious problems with the truth.

I suppose I could find you a dozen or two more of these little gems, but I grow bored with looking.

Some scholars (e.g., David Kopf, “Hermeneutics versus History,“ The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 39, No. 3. (May, 1980), pp. 495-506) have argued that Said set up a strawman, the way that Keynes created a “Treasury position,” that he called “Orientalism” so that he could argue his case for a much more nuanced look at the Middle East and dismiss all Western “knowledge” about “his” region. Kopf is almost apologetic when he points out that Said’s work is literary criticism and not history and so can be excused the many factual errors it contains—errors that would get an actual “history” condemned out of hand.

Malcolm H. Kerr (review of Orientalism International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 12, No. 4. (Dec., 1980), pp. 544-547) argues that
“[Orientalism is spoiled by overzealous prosecutorial argument in which Professor Said, in his eagerness to spin too large a web, leaps at conclusions and tries to throw everything but the kitchen sink into a preconceived frame of analysis. In charging the entire tradition of European and American Oriental studies with the the sins of reductionism and caricature, he commits precisely the same error.”

Kerr then goes on to list some 60 scholars, mainly French, British and American but quite a few influential Oriental ones as well, that Said deliberately ignores since they do not fit into his neat little “Orientalist” paradigm. Even I, a complete idiot according to you, had heard of a few of these “missing 60,” Hourani, Hitti, Dekmejian, Evans-Pritchard, Abu-Lughoud, Geertz, and Rodinson.

“Surely as a group,” Kerr argues, “they have exerted as much intellectual influence as Said’s select roster of ogres, and surely they have not been altogether brainwashed by the tradition.” Kerr then goes on to ask, why has Said included authors of travelogues and novels set in the Middle East but refused to include these genuine experts on the subject?

Hmmmm. What could the reason be? Is it that if Said had really done a comprehensive study of “Orientalism,” he would have found scant evidence for his thesis?

BTW, oh great expert on Said, according to Kerr, Said deliberately excludes Hurgronje and Goldziher, whom you consider to have been “whacked out of the ballpark” by him, from the study. Since I threw my copy of Orientalism away years ago, want to look up the index and see if they are in there?

Here is Charles E. Butterworth, (The American Political Science Review, Vol. 74, No. 1. (Mar., 1980), pp. 174-176) on Said:

“…his argument falters due to his inability to explain how he alone has achieved enlightenment. Thirdly, Said’s argument suffers from the same fault that plagues modern military theoreticians: overkill. Where a deft slash with a razor would effectively dismantle an argument, Said wades in with a pickax. Or when he has effectively shown up a worthy opponent, Said dilutes his point by carrying it out against an incompetent opponent. At other times, he tortures a passage until it yields a meaning quite distinct from that which it originally seemed to have. Frequently, he does this unnecessarily and thus succeeds only in weakening an otherwise sound argument. Finally, there are faults of carelessness (p176).

Now, you’ve dismissed Ibn Warraq as a, and I quote, “nobody” without bothering to address any of the points he has raised, perhaps you will accept Beckingham’s critique of Said’s many errors?

Said writes:
“Orientalists are neither interested in nor capable of discussing individuals (p.154)” So Philby’s writing about Ibn Saud was what? And the early biographies of the Moghuls were what?

Both Palestine and Egypt are referred to as British colonies (p.25). They weren’t, of course. You can try to argue that the difference between “mandate,” “protectorate” and “colony” is a trivial one. Actually, during much of the “protectorate” period, virtually any Indian home-rule activist would have been happy to be upgraded to “protectorate” status. So there is a real difference. If Said criticizes other people for getting things wrong, surely he should at least try to get basic facts right! Or is that only for lesser mortals?

Said writes that Muslim armies conquered Turkey after they conquered Egypt but before they conquered the rest of North Africa (p.59). Huh? Even I know that the conquest of Turkey/Asia-Minor was several centuries later.

Philby was the “colonial authority” in Saudi Arabia (p.59). Philby had gone completely native and was working more for Ibn Saud than he was for the Colonial Office.

India has no languages, only dialects (p. 322).

“mer d’Ionie” is translated as “Ionian sky” (p.182). Even I know that much French.

Said refers to a book written in Paris in 1810 as being dedicated to the King of France (p.126 & 336 n.14). Actually, it was to “l’Empereur et Roi,” i.e., Napoleon, Emperor of France and King of Italy. In any case, Said gets the title wrong since he is actually referring to the title used for the 1862 edition but the work he is critiquing is the 1810 original. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy.

Since Said has accused everybody under the sun of third rate scholarship, what does this make his? Fourth rate?

I have to agree with Beckingham’s contention that Said is a truly abysmal writer (at least in Orientalism. Since I know nothing about Literary Criticism, please tell me what exactly does the following passage quoted by Said mean since to him it was “beautifully put” and apparently needed no further elaboration.

“To Nerval’s eyes, Chateaubriand’s journey remains a voyage along the surface, while his own is calculated, utilizing annex centers, lobbies of ellipses englobing the principal centers; this allows him to place in evidence, by parallax, all the dimensions of the snare harbored by the normal centers (p.183).”

And what does this mean?
“Philology problematizes itself, its practitioner, the present (p.132).

**********************
I’m getting bored and tired now so I will end it here. I am sure that you can find millions of laudatory reviews of Orientalism but my point is that true experts in the field think that its scholarship is very suspect, to say the least. They all agree that Said had one or two good points about some of the worst excesses of some Orientalists but he overstates his case to the point of absurdity.

As I said earlier, Said made some valid points about the tendency of some experts to see Islam as the defining characteristic of Muslim societies and that this is a static Islam. Ok, maybe the Muslim is more than an automaton that says prayers five times a day and

Forget it, I`m going to bed.

temp:
Ashrawi`s tribute was beautiful. Thanks for linking.

re Tahmed

`You consider lying to be ``only`` lying. `

It is called Clintonitis.

Just as an aside, every paper in the Third World, including the venerable Daily Times (Lahore), is agog about Said being a poor Palestinian refugee born in Jerusalem. He was an American born in Cairo who never spent more than half a dozen years in Jerusalem. But that truth takes away from the aura of his exalted exile. Well, enought mentioned. One shouldn`t speak ill of the departed.

re. MNI #91:
It is quite amusing to note that his bete noir Edward Said, an Arab, knew infinitely more about every single one of these (Mozart, Shakespeare, Voltaire, Stravinsky, Jazz, Orwell) than Lewis himself.
A little disingenuous, don;t you think? Said`s erudition and refinement of taste was due arguably in it`s entirety, to what echoboom would call the kanjar `colonial` influences in his life-- both as a child in his homeland and later, of course, as a young man in America.
Said`s main chaffe with Western media was it`s dehumanizing of the Arabs-- its wont to reduce them to mere caricatures without a history and a soul. I don`t think he ever accused anyone of beign ignorant of any great cultural achievements of the Arabs (which in any way that can be called patently Arabic).

TAhmed:
Calling a spade a spade is one thing. Seeing a CAT land mover in the spade is quite another.

MNI #107 ``The only specific charge was that he lied in his article.``

You consider lying to be ``only`` lying. And this despite my reminder that this is not a harmless white lie, but one by a leading arab ``intellectual`` in a leading arab newspaper on a central issue having to do with arab hostility towards the US. And you wonder why I could not call a lie something less drastic (like ``exaggerated`` or ``mischaracterized``)!!

Not just that, you tried to defend your hero by joining him in promoting the lie by giving me a list of books from Amazon. And when I take you up and ask you to show where in these books you find anti-Islamic things, you back off claiming I am sending you after red herring.

I have no desire to convince anyone on chowk of anything. You are all strangers, and I wish you all well. All I can say is, if someone wishes to understand why pakistan (and muslim countries generally) are in such a mess, they need go no further than the discussion that took place on this board.

hamidm #98
``the man was consistent and logical in his views on colonialism .......
you don`t have to agree with everything a man says to recognize his contributions ``.

Precisely - I think we all forget that from time to time.

temporal #102,
Thanks for the Hannan Ashravi article. By the way, The Telegraph (UK) had
an op-ed column on Said that was meant to be an obituary, but was as vitriolic as
they get. Oh well, to each their own....

Dost-Mittar #103,
I think we agree on this issue. Said was one of the most articulate spokesmen for
the Islamic world in the west. Interestingly, I was listening to Akbar Ahmed on cspan
sometime ago, peddling his new book on Islam in front of an audience at GWU (I think)
and defending Islam in the post 9/11 world (often disingenuously). Throughout the
process, I kept thinking how someone like Said could elevate the level of the discourse.

tahmad #105:

It is quite clear to me, that it is useless arguing with you, because you are living in your own world where you are Aflaatoon. It is amazing that someone who has barely heard Said`s name, and has read two articles (out of 20+ books and probably a few hundred articles) is so strong and confident in his aspersions.
Most of your critique of Said is too vaguely articulated to be properly understood, let alone responded to. The only specific charge was that he lied in his article. And when I have shown to you that this particular charge is false, you are trying to send me on a red herring chase for page numbers and such. You are the one who confidently insists that Said lied -- ot ``exaggerated``, not ``mischaracterized``, but lied.

Here is the URL on Amazon that`ll give you a list same as mine:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-form/002-3084300-4504035

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-form/ref=s_b_rs/002-3084300-4504035

Temporal is being his typical diplomatic and humorous self. Heaven knows your self-delusion deserves harsher opprobrium. I`d suggest to you as well, that before launching accusations -- calling someone a ``liar`` is not a critique but an accusation -- check your facts. Everybody else is not an idiot out here to willy nilly heap praise on Edward Said. Calling him a ``great intellectual`` is not just empty praise. Even his critics concede that he was a man of great erudition, even among intellectuals. You can critique Said -- he was not infallible -- but at least be intelligent and informed about it.

So far you`ve been high on jazba, and low on knowledge. The head in the proverbial sand is your own.

temporal #102: I am of course just a time-pass chowk poster and Edward Said is a Great Intellectual. I have heard that message enough times already on chowk in response to my post. If you have any comment on the substance of what I wrote concerning his article, that would be different.

hamidm: Just to clarify on my post #100 (and sorry to drag it on).

I continue to have a vastly different understanding of the Quran than what you indicate. That doesnt make you a bad guy and me a good guy or anything like that. However, you are clearly wrong on your FACTS when you refer to that verse (frequently repeated by islam baiters as well as islamic extremists) on not to trust christians and jews. The fact is that elsewhere in the Quran there are verses that make it clear that is ONLY in cases you are threatened (as was the case at the time of the prophet), and elsewhere the Quran explicitly calls on muslims to live in peace and affection with other people. This is a fact that can be easily checked by reading the book.

The source of the hatreds of the muslim extremists is not the Quran. It is nevertheless very much present, but it is due to other factors. And the recipe of the solution is simple: (1) separate religion from politics, introduce rule of law and democracy, and promote economic development. (2) Let cook for a couple of generations. (3) Enjoy the results. All this fuss about islam this and islam that will be over.

temporal #102 ignore my comments (which obviously misunderstood what you wrote) in the post i just sent (the one where i started adding an addendum to a post to hamidm (i think i need to stop clicking over to chowk during ``rest stops`` while working on my laptop, when i should be going out and smelling the roses or something.

in fact comparing this discussion i got into concerning the bunker mentality of many muslims with playing the flute in zina-ul-haq`s c-130 is a great analogy.

plats8#90:
[Actually, Said did always try to pose the Palestinian question in a secular framework. ]
....and I never said anything otherwise. Not only Said but many other Christian Arabs/Palestinians have been lent very active support to the Palestinian cause, much like the Christian Tamils in Sri Lanka have supported the Elam cause.
But Said`s contributions are not limited to Palestinian cause. He fought what he thought was an unfair portrayal of Islam and Islamic civilization by Western Islamic scholars.
BTW he was also a great admirer of Jawahar Lal Nehru and quoted him quite frequently.

Urstruly
...left/right marches...or accusations hurled at each other with abandon none never fail to amuse me....

…when asked to define what is left/right is another gas guzzler…and waste of band-width

…the truth is this…hard liners and extremists of any position lob grenades at each other without regard to the vast silent majority trying to survive in the middle…call it north/south, left/right, developed/developing, have/have-nots:)

anyway…have posted some interesting links on the baithak…some of these you may find good reading…also check out hamid mir’s latest column in urdu…(go to jung…columnist)

tahmed32
...bhaijan bura mut manaiyay ga…but here your take on edward said is akin to playing flute on general zina ul haq’s (ba’shukria sohail –khuda tum ko khush rakhay!) c-130…or as the young ones say...time-pass

rgds,

t

Patriots and invaders: Iraqi resistance to foreign occupation enjoys great popular support
Patriots and Inaders

Dr. Hannan Ashravi on her freind edward
Edward by Hanan Ashravi

An Annotated Refutation of President George W. Bush’s September 23 Address Before the United Nations
by Stephen Zunes
Refutation

(this last one i just add to keep the pot boiling...a bonus;))

The discussion on this board so far brings a great insight into the working of the leftest mindset. I think the reason the leftist intellectuals never saw the light and could never forsee what was coming as total collapse of an ideology was that they were surrounded by a cadre of testicle carriers. They were like the flies trapped in honey who can neither fly and nor does it want to.

hamidm #98 in fact i am extremely corrigible (temporal to please refrain from vehement condemnations of this abuse of the english language) if something makes sense. you will see that i refer to the Quran not to prove how good it is, but to demonstrate to ardent muslims on chowk how bad they are. (since they are violating the Quran itself). And since i dont discuss as much as I used to with ardent muslims on chowk, i dont refer to the Quran.

thus, i dragged in the Good Book this time because SameerJB forced me to do it as he threw some punches below the belt in his well-intentioned but misplaced efforts at defending the Dearly Departed Whining Eddy.

All I ask of these people is to get their heads out of the sandbox (if I was jay, i would have been less charitable and would have placed their heads somewhere else) and realize that ardent muslims need to stop picking fights with everyone, and to stop imagining that the west (and the east and the north and the south) has nothing better to do than give them a hard time.

Hamid Sahib,

Correction: A lot of theory and social reform of the sixties has made these discourses possible...if your children are going to school and learning a multicultural curricula you may thank that movement. If your daughters have more opportunities at higher education, you may thank that movement. If your (and everyone else`s on this board) children are able to understand the MANY discourses and narratives that comprise this country, you may thank that movement. That Karen Armstrong is able to publish her book is due to this movement. That working poor immigrants have access to all the educational supports they need to study at universities-and be respected for their process as esl and adult learners AND citizens of the world is possible because of those movements.

These are the kinds of changes that have improved this society-and they came from the sixties movements in academia. These are the people conservative and Orientalist journalists try to deride as ``ivory tower`` and ``outdated``. They are so ``outdated`` that our dear rightwingers need to be reminded of who brought them in before they were taken for granted.

tahmed,

.............. you are in incorrigible!...... i have never met anhyone who is so bent upon perpetuating the myth that the book is right and all we have to do is follow it to get to the big orgy in heaven ........... here is my suggestion - stop looking for the odd verse that satisfies your ``rational`` position........... here is what i suggest: form a hypothesis; then look for verses that support it BUT don`t stop there - also look for verses that DO NOT support your hypothesis and list them side by side .............. you will be amazed to find that for every one verse that supports your hype, ten refute it ............. start with the treatment of women or treatment of non-muslims .............. no big hurry, whenever you have the time .................

............ and stop beating up on poor ed said - a lot of the leftist rhetoric from the sixties and seventies sounds rather outlandish now, but the man was consistent and logical in his views on colonialism ..........in a few years a lot of the current neo-con babble will also sound silly in hindsight ................ you don`t have to agree with everything a man says to recognize his contributions - unless he is a prophet or something............