Columbia University Professor Edward Said discussed cultural and individual exile and identity last night in front of a standing-room-only crowd in 105 Dartmouth Hall.
Said told the audience his desire to record the events of his youth in an upcoming memoir, "Not Quite Right," was prompted by the onset of illness early in the 1990s and his realization that the countries where he grew up -- British Palestine, Lebanon and colonial Egypt-- had all disappeared from the world map.
"It's strange to realize all the places you grew up are just scorched earth," he said.
Said told the audience that for a writer without a homeland, writing about one's past becomes a place for the writer to live.
Said shared recollections of being treated as inferior or as an outsider because of his status as a Palestinian refugee after the 1948 establishment of Israel. In addition, his father's U.S. citizenship complicated his nationality.
"I was a Palestinian going to a British school in Egypt with an English first name and an American passport, and absolutely no real identity," he said.
Throughout his life, Said was envious of friends who spoke one language or had lived in one country all their lives.
Said commented that his cultural confusion continued throughout his tenure at an American boarding school and American universities.
At Columbia, he said, he has always taught courses from the Western canon, and although he would like to, has never taught a class on the Arab literary tradition.
The 1967 war for Israeli independence prompted Said's entrance into politics, he said. As a proponent for Palestinian nationalism, he said he has been called a Nazi and an apologist for terrorists. His family has been threatened and his office has been burned.
Said explained that people also find the idea of Palestinians unusual or strange. Friends would visit his home to see how he decorated and lived, or would request to eat with him to observe his table manners.
"Being Palestinian is like being a mythological creature like the unicorn," he said.
He said he supports the co-existence of Jews and Arabs and feels neither side has military options that will settle the dispute.
Said told the audience his increasing identification with the Palestinian world has brought a new "worldly" tone to his writing.
Throughout his life, Said explained, he felt he could never belong in a specific culture or place, not because he himself was special, but because he did not fit in with his surroundings.
While writing his memoir, Said told the audience, he realized the phenomenon of moving from one culture and homeland and then feeling displaced was not something unique to his life.
The 20th Century's history, Said said, is one of great mass migrations and people adjusting to new languages and environments. To understand this trend, one must realize many people have trouble reconciling parts of their past and culture with their new present home.
