Edward Said Dies at 67

[durutti]

http://www.nynewsday.com/news/local/manhattan/ny-saidobit0925,0,1201707.story?coll=nyc-manheadlines-manhattan

Edward Said, a Columbia University professor, literary critic and a leading advocate in the United States of the Palestinian cause, has died, his editor said Thursday. He was 67.

Said died Wednesday night at a New York hospital, said editor Shelley Wanger at Knopf publishers. He had suffered from leukemia at least since the early 1990s.

Born in 1935 in Jerusalem -- then part of British-ruled Palestine -- Said spent almost all his adult life in the United States. A professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia, he wrote passionately about the Palestinian cause but also on a variety of other subjects, from English literature, his academic specialty, to music and culture.

His books ranged from "The Question of Palestine" in 1979 and "After the Last Sky" in 1986 -- both about the Arab-Israeli conflict -- to "Musical Elaborations" in 1991, and "Cultural Imperialism" in 1993.

[LiberalVoice]

1. A sad day.

A good man for a good cause:(

[pippin]

3. a brilliant man all round

His book "Orientalism" was a landmark in defining cultural imperialism. A real "renaissance man" he was also a brilliant pianist.

Was mesmerized by his writing and lectures as a grad student. Am deeply saddened.

[UserNamesAreFree]

8. I've seen many comments

on "Orientalism". Ashamed to say I haven't read it. The couple of articles I recall from Said did raise compelling points. A gifted writer and man, obviously.

[AliceWonderland]

2. Sad - a gifted man

I hadn't realized he was ill. The last time I saw him speak, just a couple of years ago, he looked younger than his years, actually. I have two of his books on my shelf. Sad day.

[bluesoul]

4. Farewell

So sad. I regularly read his brilliant articles on Counterpunch.org.

Rest in peace, Said :-(

[LastDemInIdaho]

7. Oh yes, that ever so balanced Counterpunch.org

Their fair reports of Israel and "Palestine" are such a breath of fresh air.

[Equinox]

10. LastDemInIdaho, take your trash to another thread.

This thread is about a man who is deceased. Not about Counterpunch. Bug off.

[Aidoneus]

11. he already took his trash to another thread

In a GD thread on the great man's passing, all he could ask was Said's position on "suicide bombers".

[Equinox]

17. Such a ridiculous statement to make....

Last I heard, Mr. Said didn't condone them.

Doesn't make him any less dead. Jeez...the nerve of some people and the lengths they will go to to demonize Palestinians or anyone who advocates justice for them. You're not safe even in death.

[Equinox]

18. I can already see the smear campaign, ala Rachel Corrie.

Sad....truly sad.

[MariMayans]

22. He threw a rock at empty ground once

The usual suspects refered to it as "terrorism", I'm not shitting you.

[Equinox]

24. What? Mr. Said did this? And someone called it Terrorism?

I'm not sure I follow. I'm a bit dense today.

[MariMayans]

25. sorry..

Yeah, Said threw a rock in the general direction of an Israeli guard tower when Israel finally pulled out of Lebanon.

[Equinox]

26. Ridiculous....

...:eyes:

[Aidoneus]

34. yeah, he did

after the liberation of South Lebanon in May of 2000 and the SLA/IDF retreat back to the real border (those are just pesky things anyway..), it was a semi-routine spectacle at the Fatima Gate on the border to hurl stones; Said was one "celebrity" to do so to much criticism from the usual suspects, ex-Nablus mayor & PNC member Bassam al-Shakaa another from his wheelchair. I don't know if anyone was ever actually hit or if the particular army post was even within a stone's range (I've seen a picture from one angle and I doubt it was..), but it was all symbolic anyway. This was a few months before the al-Aqsa intifada began among the Palestinians--after all of the damage & deaths there by the IDF/SLA, that was an especially big thing.

Additions to the formula are always interesting. :eyes:
--routinely bombing the hell out of dozens of cities = "anti-terror operation"
--throwing a probably-harmless rock = "TERRORISM! EVIL! NASTY! ICKY!"

[bluesoul]

35. Symbol

Said threw that stone as a symbolic gesture of support fot the Palestinian people. He didn't hit anyone

[Aidoneus]

28. even Hitchens found nice things to say about him

then there was the Telegraph, Frontpagemag, Free Republic and others who saw it more fit to dump on him, unsurprisingly it seems that the "good riddence" brigade has reps here as well.

[MariMayans]

29. It was sort of smarmy..

That he threw in a few swipes at him in a eulogy of all places speaks volumes about what a turd Hitchens is.

[MrPrax]

5. Sad - A Great One Gone

and so young...

Too bad it isn't posted in other places at DU

[The Magistrate]

6. It Is, Sir

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=132044

[Lithos]

12. Mr. Prax

Please check your inbox.

Lithos
FA/NS Moderator
Democratic Underground

[Equinox]

9. May he rest in peace and may his dreams come true.

He's finally home.

[Violet_Crumble]

13. Some tributes to Edward Said...

I haven't read much of his stuff and I've only just started on 'Orientalism' in the past week, but leukemia's a horrible disease and he fought it for a long time....


http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=22&ItemID=4252

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=22&ItemID=4249

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=22&ItemID=4251

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=22&ItemID=4250

Violet...

[bemildred]

14. LA Times obituary

A somewhat more detailed picture of the man:

Edward W. Said, an influential Columbia University
professor of literature whose public role as the
West's most eloquent spokesman for the
Palestinian cause brought him both condemnation
and awe over the past three decades, died at a
New York hospital Wednesday after a long battle
with chronic leukemia. He was 67.

Said was a fascinating, complex figure who
sometimes spoke of his two quite separate lives.
He was a Princeton- and Harvard-trained literary
scholar who could knowledgeably expound on the
works of such great Western writers as Joseph
Conrad, Rudyard Kipling and Jane Austen. He also
was an engaged academic, a thinker and an
activist whose articulate and emotional advocacy
of Palestinian sovereignty brought him wide media
exposure and an unwelcome degree of notoriety.

In the Arab world, Said was revered as "Mr.
Palestine in America," who brought a luminous
intelligence to the challenge of humanizing the
Western world's perceptions of the Palestinian
struggle.

"He put us, the Palestinian cause, within the
consciousness of people who would much rather
have been dismissive," Palestinian legislator Hanan
Ashrawi told The Times on Thursday. "He brought
Palestine to the world of intellect, and made it part
of the public discourse, particularly in the West."

LA Times (reg. req.)

[dudeness]

15. sorely missed

RIP.. edward said

[dudeness]

16. saids legacy

Barenboim made headlines a year ago when, coaxed by longtime friend and Palestinian humanist Edward Said, he gave his first piano recital in Ramallah at the National Conservatory of Palestine (part of Birzeit University). At the comclusion of that recital - believed to be the first in Palestinian territory by a Jewish artist since Yehudi Menuhin played there decades ago - Barenboim joined Arab pianist Saleem Abboud Ashkar in a round of four-hand Schubert. „I felt the need to stretch out my hand, to bring together people who are suffering such animosities," Barenboim said at the time.

Month later, in Weimar, the conductor stretched his hand out even farther. From August 1 to 18, Barenboim and coaches led daily orchestra rehearsals at the Belvedere Music Grammar School, a boarding school for young musicians. Evenings after dinner, the youths piled back into the rehearsal hall for impromptu discussions moderated by the Argentine-born Israeli conductor and Palestinian Said (whose political stance favors co-existence and multiple nationalities for the lands claimed by Israel and Palestine). Life, art, and matters of musical and multiple identity were tossed about and challenged, usually fortified by some midnight music making from Ma and Barenboim.


http://www.divan-weimar.de/english/press/presse_6.htm

[Equinox]

19. I was listening to NPR this morning...

and not one mention of him. They did, however, have a nice piece on Robert Palmer's passing.

:argh: :wtf:

[laura888]

20. No NPR - but was on Democracy Now...

...yesterday. Had a recording of a lengthy speech he gave earlier this summer - which was excellent.

[Equinox]

21. Oh...I'll check and see if they have an audio link....

I'll see if I can find it.

Edit: Thanks

[Equinox]

23. Go here for a wealth of links:

http://www.democracynow.org/static/said.shtml

[Violet_Crumble]

27. Robert Fisk article...

By Robert Fisk


The Independent
27 September, 2003

<snip>


After Arafat went along with the Oslo accords, Said was the first - rightly - to attack him. Arafat had never seen a Jewish settlement in the occupied territories, he said. There wasn't a single Palestinian lawyer present during the Oslo negotiations. Said was immediately condemned - all of us who said that Oslo would be a catastrophic failure were - as "anti-peace" and, by vicious extension, "pro-terrorist".

Said would weary of the need to repeat the Palestinian story, the importance of denouncing the old lies - one of them, which especially enraged him, was the myth that Arab radio stations had called upon the Palestinian Arabs of 1948 to abandon their homes in the new Israeli state - but he would repeat, over and over again, the importance of re-telling the tale of Palestinian tragedy.

He was abused by anonymous callers, his office was visited by a fire-bomber, and he was libelled many times by Jewish Americans who hated that he, a professor of literature at Columbia University, could so eloquently and vigorously defend his occupied people.

An attempt was made, in his dying days, to deprive him of his academic job by some cruel supporters of Israel who claimed - the same old, mendacious slur - that he was an anti-Semite. Columbia, in a long but slightly ambivalent statement, defended him. When the Jewish head of Harvard expressed his concern about the rise of "anti-Semitism" in the United States - by those who dared to criticise Israel - Said wrote scathingly that a Jewish academic who was head of Harvard "complains about anti-Semitism!"

http://www.countercurrents.org/fisk-270903.htm

[rini]

30. "The truth will set you free"

So sad, Edward Said, scholar and liar has died. It took his death for the truth to come out.
Palestinian refugee, I don't think so, Said, like Arafat was born in and raised Cairo. The son of an Arab/American father who owned a most profitable business, Said grew up in luxury, and attended exclusive private schools. As a matter of fact, during his childhood, there may or may not have been a lovely home in Jerusalem, but as he never set foot in Jreusalem as a child, it is a moot point. When Nasser privatized the economy,the family came back to the states.
It was here, in the states that he found his calling, just as McCarthy "discovered" a communist conspiracy, Said, an Arab/Christian discovered Jews leading the poor Palestinian people down the road to doom as the Jews lead Jesus to Calvary.



http://www.commentarymagazine.com/9909/weiner.html.

[Violet_Crumble]

31. Yr link doesn't work...

Which is probably a blessing. Thank you for adding a disgusting pile of slanderous bullshit to a thread that was full of tributes to a man who's death didn't deserve the kind of crap you just posted....

Violet...

[Name removed]

32. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[bluesoul]

33. Hmmm

Commentary Magazine is hardly an objective source since it has a clear bias.