Notes for Columbia/Said story

 

I suppose one should be grateful one is not over there. Being Protestant one is born one station over the Palestinian Muslims who have suffered endlessly: the Ottomans, the Syrians, the British, the French, even the Arabians.

Every student mispronounces  my name: "Sed" "Sayed" "Sayaad" "Sayyeed" "Sah-eed" 

I'm trying not to indulge the time-honored tradition of dating my students, though a few graduates have shown interest. One was male: I've been mistaken for a homosexual since Northfield Mount Hermon. One cannot simply be a dandy in the twentieth century. Instead I'm going with a business school Lebanese girl named Mariam who calls herself "Wall Street Friends of SDS." 

Flank within SDS wants Said to come to a meeting to take a stand to speak for Palestine. Student named Sam Berkowitz who brings up Palestine during discussion of Conrad and sees it as part and parcel of the struggle against the Vietnam War. Said is extremely reluctant to bring it up and asks students to confine the discussion to literature "But literature is political!" the student exclaims. After class Berkowitz stays and says "Professor Sed there are more of us than people think who see what's happening to you." "It's not happening to me, I'm over here." "Somebody needs to give the Palestinian perspective. Everybody thinks these  

Party at the Trillings in honor of Jean-Paul Sartre. 

Diana invites Edward to give his opinion on the Six Day War: "Lionel speaks of you every day as our brightest new light. He says Edward could be the scholar of the age and people will quote your literary criticism for generations." 

Edward gives a careful answer through the lens of Conrad and Goethe.

Wilson begins questioning him seriously as literature with a slight political bite. 

Edward says one sentence that surprises everyone.

Mary McCarthy: "I had no idea you were such a pan-Arabist." 

D. Trilling: "Surely nationalism is something someone with your bildung would outgrow." 

Said: "Isn't Zionism a form of nationalism?" 

Room goes silent. 

L. Trilling: "I think what Edward is saying is that Palestinians only want the same dignity Jews want. Even if he's misunderstood it slightly." 

D. Trilling: "Please correct me if I'm wrong Edward, but isn't that operating on the assumption that Palestinians are their own people, which many experts still dispute." 

Said: "Well, I'm no expert on orientalism but I would think I know my own people." 

D. Trilling: "Edward, please, you're among friends. You can tell us. Did anybody call themselves Palestinian twenty years ago?" 

Said: (pauses) "Not often, I'll concede, but there had to be a name for us. We weren't quite Syrian, not quite Lebanese, not quite Egyptian." 

D. Trilling: "But surely, your people could have been Israeli had they cooperated!" 

Said: (longer pause, micro-expression of annoyance then back to smiling) "I don't think that was possible." 

D. Trilling: "Please don't be angry with me Edward. I just mean that surely there was a moment of possible cooperation before the Mufti allied himself with Hitler." 

Said: "al-Husseini was perfectly willing to cooperate with Ben-Gurion until he realized that the Yishuv meant to resettle Jews as a majority on Palestinian land." 

McCarthy: "Surely you're not telling us that the Mufti was some perfectly reasonable man until he decided to annihilate all the Jews." 

Said: "Not at all, but I believe one has to consider the point of view of the other side however objectionable one finds it." 

Edmund Wilson: "Even when the other point of view is repugnant and murderous?" 

Said: "Especially when the other point of view is repugnant and murderous." 

D. Trilling: "Oh, Edward." 

Said: "Everyone, you must understand that it's just as important for Palestinians to consider the Israeli point of view." 

Wilson: "Why would there even be a question of the Jewish point of view after the Holocaust?" 

Said: "Please, you must understand that Palestinians view Israeli settlers on the land as thieves and sometimes even murderers." 

D. Trilling: (looks incredulous) "I'm... truly... truly shocked to hear you say that. What could Israel possibly have done to make the Palestinians think so badly of them?"

Said: "Diana, I'm sorry, this is a very personal issue for Palestinians. My people were thrown off the land by Israeli soldiers." 

Wilson: "Edward! That was disproven a hundred times." 

Said: "I've heard so many eyewitness testimonies." 

McCarthy: "Were you there?" 

Said: "...No." 

McCarthy: "And you trust the testimony of a totalitarian pan-nationalist movement?" 

Said: "The people themselves are not totalitarians." 

Wilson: "Well I've seen them with my own eyes in Israel, and they subscribe to totalitarianism every bit as much as any Soviet." 

Said: "My people are not Nazis!" 

Wilson: "I said Soviet. They may not believe it, but please entertain Edward that they may be coerced by their leadership into giving false testimony." 

Said: "They're not being coerced. How could anyone coerce? No Palestinian leadership is that powerful!" 

D. Trilling: "Wasn't it the dictators of other Arab countries who told Palestinians to leave their towns and they could resettle when the war was won?" 

Jacques Barzun: "Pardon me, Diana, if I may."

D. Trilling: "Of course, Jacques." 

Barzun: "There was credible eyewitness testimony at De'er Yassin that Israeli soldiers threw Palestinians out of their town: a requisition for military necessity. But afterward there was a mass panic that caused thousands of Arabs to leave their homes and head for territory held by Jordan and Egypt." 

Said: "That is not what happened." 

Wilson: "Indeed that is not what happened. Edward, grievance is not fact. You are asking the world to make Palestinians into pure victims at the expense of Jewish suffering."

Said: "I'm just asking people to recognize Palestinian suffering with the attention they pay to Jewish suffering." 

Cynthia Ozick: "As though there is any comparison between what you've endured and what we've endured." 

McCarthy: "What grievances does Edward have? Listen to yourself, Edward, you're not Palestinian, you're pure Andover-Exeter! You're more a gentile than any of us!" 

Said: (sets wineglass down on the table) "My friends, I thank you so much for this invitation, but I do have a Conrad article to finish on deadline." 

Everyone: "NO NO NO! PLEASE STAY! PLEASE STAY!" 

Diana: This is the sort of hazing we all went through Edward. I apologize, truly. This was not meant to be an ambush. There's just so much to talk about on this subject, but I realize now this issue means a great deal to you, probably more than it does to us. We will be mindful of what you think in the future. 

Ozick: "It does mean a great deal to him. Norman told me what you said at the SDS meeting." 

Said: "Norman?" 

Ozick: "Podhoretz. He told me you made a speech in which you declared that the struggle of Palestine against Israel is the struggle of Vietnam against the US." 

(silence) 

Ozick: "As it happens, Norman agrees with you, even if his orientation is reciprocal, but he thought we should know." 

L. Trilling (awkwardly turns to Sartre sitting in the corner): Jean-Paul, what do you think of all this?" 

Sartre: "(pauses to gather his thoughts...) It is truly the choice of being in itself, after being becomes irrelevant." 

(everyone nods: Wilson says "Outstanding.")
Sartre: "The facticity is undeniable, but one must be careful that the look is not bad faith."

(general murmurs of approval) 

After the exchange is over and the circle breaks up Lionel whispers to Said: "Edward, please stay to the end of the party. I'd like to speak to you. Please don't mind Diana, she says terrible things when she's intoxicated. She's already gone to the back to lie down." 

-------

later

"We need scholars more than ever to speak up for the complexity of liberal humanism and I'd thought you were that voice. It would be terribly disappointing if we lost you to Fanon and Foucault." 

I know what this means. Never bring up Palestine again or I don't get tenure. 

end of story