WEBVTT 00:00:07.810 --> 00:00:14.371 Edward Said on Orientalism 00:01:19.129 --> 00:01:21.880 When future scholars take a look back at the 00:01:21.880 --> 00:01:24.682 intellectual history of the last quarter of the 20th century, 00:01:24.682 --> 00:01:27.720 the work of Professor Edward Said of Columbia University 00:01:27.720 --> 00:01:31.151 will be identified as very important and intellectual. 00:01:31.151 --> 00:01:35.042 In particular, Said's 1978 book, Orientalism, 00:01:35.042 --> 00:01:38.082 will be regarded as profoundly significant. 00:01:38.082 --> 00:01:41.461 Orientalism revolutionized the study of the 00:01:41.461 --> 00:01:44.021 Middle East and helped to create and shape entire 00:01:44.021 --> 00:01:46.592 new fields of study, such as post-colonial theory, 00:01:46.592 --> 00:01:51.324 as well as influencing disciplines as diverse as English, history, 00:01:51.324 --> 00:01:55.061 anthropology, political science, and cultural studies. 00:01:55.061 --> 00:01:59.340 The book has now been translated into 26 languages 00:01:59.340 --> 00:02:02.604 and is required reading at many universities and colleges. 00:02:02.604 --> 00:02:05.461 It is also one of the most controversial 00:02:05.461 --> 00:02:07.620 scholarly books of the last 30 years, 00:02:07.620 --> 00:02:09.611 sparking intense debate and disagreement. 00:02:09.611 --> 00:02:13.780 Orientalism tries to answer the question of why, 00:02:13.780 --> 00:02:15.621 when we think of the Middle East, for example, 00:02:15.621 --> 00:02:19.341 we have a preconceived notion of what kind of people live there, 00:02:19.341 --> 00:02:20.831 what they believe, how they act, 00:02:20.831 --> 00:02:25.101 even though we may never have been there or indeed even met anyone from there. 00:02:25.101 --> 00:02:30.380 More generally, orientalism asks, how do we come to understand people, 00:02:30.380 --> 00:02:34.570 strangers, who look different to us by virtue of the color of their skin? 00:02:34.570 --> 00:02:38.414 The central argument of orientalism is that the 00:02:38.414 --> 00:02:41.390 way we acquire this knowledge is not innocent or objective, 00:02:41.390 --> 00:02:45.772 but the end result of a process that reflects certain interests. 00:02:45.772 --> 00:02:49.091 That is, it is highly motivated. 00:02:49.091 --> 00:02:52.221 Specifically, Said argues that the way the west -- 00:02:52.221 --> 00:02:56.132 Europe and the US -- looks at the countries and peoples of the Middle East - 00:02:56.132 --> 00:02:59.552 is through a lens that distorts the actual reality 00:02:59.552 --> 00:03:01.902 of those places and those people. 00:03:01.902 --> 00:03:04.921 He calls this lens through which we view that part of the world, 00:03:04.921 --> 00:03:08.952 orientalism: a framework that we use to understand the 00:03:08.952 --> 00:03:11.061 unfamiliar and the strange, 00:03:11.061 --> 00:03:14.411 to make the peoples of the Middle East appear different and threatening. 00:03:14.411 --> 00:03:18.152 Professor Said's contribution to how we understand 00:03:18.152 --> 00:03:21.544 this general process of what we could call stereotyping, 00:03:21.544 --> 00:03:23.501 has been immense. 00:03:23.501 --> 00:03:26.441 The aim of this program is to explore these issues 00:03:26.441 --> 00:03:29.014 through an interview with him. 00:03:29.014 --> 00:03:34.111 He starts by discussing the context within which he conceived orientalism. 00:03:34.111 --> 00:03:39.873 Edward Said: Well, my interest in orientalism began for two reasons. 00:03:39.873 --> 00:03:42.232 One was an immediate thing. 00:03:42.232 --> 00:03:46.741 That is to say, the Arab-Israeli war of 1973, 00:03:46.741 --> 00:03:51.213 which had been preceded by a lot of images and discussions 00:03:51.213 --> 00:03:53.352 in the media and the popular press. 00:03:53.352 --> 00:03:55.122 You know, about how the Arabs are cowardly, 00:03:55.122 --> 00:03:56.473 and they don't know how to fight, 00:03:56.473 --> 00:03:59.752 and they're always gonna be beaten because they're not modern. 00:03:59.752 --> 00:04:02.813 And then everybody was very surprised when the Egyptian army 00:04:02.813 --> 00:04:07.132 crossed the canal in early October 1973 and demonstrated that, 00:04:07.132 --> 00:04:09.411 you know, like anybody else, they could fight. 00:04:09.411 --> 00:04:14.401 So that was one immediate impulse. 00:04:14.401 --> 00:04:18.654 And the second one, which has a much longer history in my own life, 00:04:18.654 --> 00:04:23.212 was the constant sort of disparity I felt between what my experience 00:04:23.212 --> 00:04:26.762 of being an Arab was and the representation of that, 00:04:26.762 --> 00:04:31.201 that one saw in art -- I mean, I'm talking about very great art -- 00:04:31.201 --> 00:04:36.995 like de la Croix, and Angh Jerome, and people like that. 00:04:36.995 --> 00:04:41.553 Novelists who wrote about the Orient, like Disraeli or Flaubert. 00:04:41.553 --> 00:04:44.852 And, you know, the fact that those representations of the 00:04:44.852 --> 00:04:49.753 Orient had very little to do with what I knew about my own background in life. 00:04:49.753 --> 00:04:52.003 So I decided to write the history of that. 00:04:52.003 --> 00:05:05.883 [Music] 00:05:05.883 --> 00:05:08.791 If somebody, let's say, in the 1850s or 60s, 00:05:08.791 --> 00:05:16.952 in Paris or London, wished to talk about or read about India, 00:05:16.952 --> 00:05:21.322 or Egypt or Syria, there would be very little chance 00:05:21.322 --> 00:05:30.360 for that person to simply address the subject as we like to 00:05:30.360 --> 00:05:33.753 think in a kind of free and creative way. 00:05:33.753 --> 00:05:36.093 A great deal of writing had gone before. 00:05:36.093 --> 00:05:40.702 And this writing was an organized form of writing, 00:05:40.702 --> 00:05:42.872 like an organized science, 00:05:42.872 --> 00:05:47.601 of what I have called orientalism and it seemed to me that there was 00:05:47.601 --> 00:05:51.052 a kind of repertory of images that kept coming up, 00:05:51.052 --> 00:05:57.022 you know, the sensual woman, who's there to be sort of used by the man. 00:05:57.022 --> 00:06:00.431 The East as a kind of mysterious place, 00:06:00.431 --> 00:06:02.993 full of secrets and monsters, you know; 00:06:02.993 --> 00:06:05.253 the marvels of the East was a phrase that was used. 00:06:05.253 --> 00:06:06.593 And the more I looked, 00:06:06.593 --> 00:06:09.511 the more I saw that this was really quite consistent with itself -- 00:06:09.511 --> 00:06:13.561 you know, it had very little to do with people that had actually been there. 00:06:13.561 --> 00:06:15.231 And even if they had been there, 00:06:15.231 --> 00:06:17.052 there wasn't much modification; in other words, 00:06:17.052 --> 00:06:19.922 you didn't get what you could call realistic representations of 00:06:19.922 --> 00:06:22.332 the Orient either in literature or in painting or 00:06:22.332 --> 00:06:25.002 in music or any of the arts. 00:06:25.002 --> 00:06:30.174 And this extended even further into descriptions of the Arabs by experts. 00:06:30.174 --> 00:06:33.152 You know, people who had studied them. 00:06:33.152 --> 00:06:35.824 And I noticed that even in the 20th century, 00:06:35.824 --> 00:06:39.109 some of the same images that you found in the 19th century, 00:06:40.613 --> 00:06:43.522 amongst scholars like Edward William Lane, 00:06:43.522 --> 00:06:47.183 who wrote his book on the modern Egyptians in the early 1830s. 00:06:47.183 --> 00:06:50.442 And then you read somebody in the 1920s. 00:06:50.442 --> 00:06:52.212 And they're more or less saying the same thing. 00:06:52.212 --> 00:06:55.951 One great example that I always give is of the wonderful French poet, 00:06:55.951 --> 00:07:01.371 Gerard de Nerval, who went on a voyage to the Orient, as he called it. 00:07:01.371 --> 00:07:03.592 And I was reading this book of his travels in Syria and 00:07:03.592 --> 00:07:05.572 there was something very familiar about it. 00:07:05.572 --> 00:07:08.182 You know, it sounded like something else that I had read. 00:07:08.182 --> 00:07:10.822 And then I realized that what he was doing almost unconsciously was 00:07:10.822 --> 00:07:13.103 quoting Lane on the Egyptians, 00:07:13.103 --> 00:07:15.312 on the theory that the orientals are all the same no matter 00:07:15.312 --> 00:07:19.073 where you find 'em, whether it's in India or Syria or in Egypt; 00:07:19.073 --> 00:07:21.061 it's basically the same essence. 00:07:21.061 --> 00:07:24.102 So there developed a kind of image of the timeless Orient, 00:07:24.102 --> 00:07:27.394 as if the orient, unlike the west, doesn't develop; it stays the same. 00:07:27.394 --> 00:07:29.603 And that's one of the problems with orientalism, 00:07:29.603 --> 00:07:34.012 is it creates an image outside of history, 00:07:34.012 --> 00:07:38.242 of something that is placid and still and eternal. 00:07:38.242 --> 00:07:42.083 Which is simply contradicted by the fact of history. 00:07:42.083 --> 00:07:45.443 So that's it in one sense. 00:07:45.443 --> 00:07:50.722 It's a creation of, you might say, an ideal other for Europe. 00:07:50.722 --> 00:08:01.393 [Music] 00:08:03.203 --> 00:08:05.654 Professor Said's analysis of orientalism isn't just 00:08:05.654 --> 00:08:07.932 a description of its content, 00:08:07.932 --> 00:08:11.463 but a sustained argument for why it looks the way it does. 00:08:11.463 --> 00:08:13.493 It's an examination of a quite concrete, 00:08:13.493 --> 00:08:17.004 historical and institutional context that creates it. 00:08:17.004 --> 00:08:21.743 Specifically, Said locates the construction of orientalism within 00:08:21.743 --> 00:08:25.432 the history of imperial conquest. 00:08:25.432 --> 00:08:27.333 As empires spread across the globe, 00:08:27.333 --> 00:08:30.202 historically the British and the French have been the 00:08:30.202 --> 00:08:32.322 most important in terms of the East. 00:08:32.322 --> 00:08:34.111 They conquer not only militarily, 00:08:34.111 --> 00:08:36.863 but also what we could call ideologically. 00:08:36.863 --> 00:08:39.871 The question for these empires is, 00:08:39.871 --> 00:08:42.533 how do we understand the natives that we are encountering 00:08:42.533 --> 00:08:45.432 so we can conquer and subdue them easier. 00:08:45.432 --> 00:08:48.083 This process of using large, 00:08:48.083 --> 00:08:51.023 abstract categories to explain people who are different, 00:08:51.023 --> 00:08:54.542 whose skin is a different color, has been going on for a long time, 00:08:54.542 --> 00:08:58.112 as far back as there has been contact between different cultures and peoples. 00:08:58.112 --> 00:09:01.632 But orientalism makes this general process more formal, 00:09:01.632 --> 00:09:05.275 in that it presents itself as objective knowledge. 00:09:05.275 --> 00:09:08.824 Said identifies Napoleon's conquest of Egypt in 1798 00:09:08.824 --> 00:09:14.012 as marking a new kind of imperial and colonial conquest that 00:09:14.012 --> 00:09:17.264 inaugurates the project of orientalism. 00:09:17.264 --> 00:09:20.572 Said: There was a kind of break that occurred after Napoleon 00:09:20.572 --> 00:09:22.753 came to Egypt in 1798. 00:09:22.753 --> 00:09:26.113 I think it's the first really important imperial, 00:09:26.113 --> 00:09:30.514 modern imperial expedition. 00:09:30.514 --> 00:09:32.056 So he invades the place. 00:09:32.056 --> 00:09:35.582 But he doesn't invade it the way the Spaniards invaded the New World. 00:09:35.582 --> 00:09:37.244 Looking for loot. 00:09:37.244 --> 00:09:43.012 He comes instead with an enormous army of soldiers but also scientists. 00:09:43.012 --> 00:09:49.404 Botanists, architects, philologists, biologists, historians, 00:09:49.404 --> 00:09:55.592 whose job it was to record Egypt in every conceivable way and 00:09:55.592 --> 00:09:59.413 produce a kind of scientific survey of Egypt 00:09:59.413 --> 00:10:02.742 which was designed not for the Egyptian, but for the European. 00:10:02.742 --> 00:10:05.253 And of course what strikes you first of all, 00:10:05.253 --> 00:10:07.904 about the volumes they produced is their enormous size; 00:10:07.904 --> 00:10:10.004 they're a meter square. 00:10:10.004 --> 00:10:13.554 And all across them is written the power and 00:10:13.554 --> 00:10:17.373 prestige of a modern European country that can do to the 00:10:17.373 --> 00:10:20.653 Egyptians what the Egyptians cannot do to the French. 00:10:20.653 --> 00:10:23.922 There is no comparable Egyptian survey of France. 00:10:23.922 --> 00:10:27.624 To produce knowledge you have to have the power to be 00:10:27.624 --> 00:10:33.603 there and to see in expert ways things that the natives themselves can't see. 00:10:33.603 --> 00:10:45.213 [Music.] 00:10:45.213 --> 00:10:50.616 The differences between different kinds of orientalisms are, 00:10:50.616 --> 00:10:55.614 in effect, the differences between experiences of what is called the Orient. 00:10:55.614 --> 00:10:59.045 I mean, the difference between Britain and France on the one hand, 00:10:59.045 --> 00:11:01.044 and the United States on the other, 00:11:01.044 --> 00:11:03.832 is that Britain and France had colonies in the Orient; 00:11:03.832 --> 00:11:07.944 I mean they had a longstanding relationship. 00:11:07.944 --> 00:11:12.964 And imperial row in a place like India. 00:11:12.964 --> 00:11:14.964 So there's a kind of a -- 00:11:14.964 --> 00:11:21.644 there's a kind of archive of actual experiences of being in India, 00:11:21.644 --> 00:11:25.313 of ruling a country for several hundred years, right? 00:11:25.313 --> 00:11:28.993 And the same with the French in North Africa, 00:11:28.993 --> 00:11:30.954 let's say Algeria, or Indo China. 00:11:30.954 --> 00:11:33.635 Direct colonial experience. 00:11:33.635 --> 00:11:39.382 In the case of the Americans, the experience is much less direct. 00:11:39.382 --> 00:11:43.404 There has never been an American occupation of the Near East. 00:11:43.404 --> 00:11:46.184 So I would say the difference between the British and 00:11:46.184 --> 00:11:47.752 French orientalism on the one hand, 00:11:47.752 --> 00:11:49.284 and the American experience in the orient on the other, 00:11:49.284 --> 00:11:54.734 is that the American one is much more, uh, indirect. 00:11:54.734 --> 00:11:58.196 It's much more based on abstractions. 00:11:58.196 --> 00:12:00.785 The second big thing, I think, 00:12:00.785 --> 00:12:03.643 the difference in the American experience from the 00:12:03.643 --> 00:12:05.884 British and the French, of orientalism, 00:12:05.884 --> 00:12:13.635 is that American orientalism is very politicized by the presence of Israel, 00:12:13.635 --> 00:12:16.963 for which America is the main ally. 00:12:16.963 --> 00:12:20.014 President Clinton and I are proud, as are all Americans, 00:12:20.014 --> 00:12:25.235 that the United States was the first nation to recognize the state of Israel. 00:12:25.235 --> 00:12:29.804 Eleven minutes after you proclaimed your independence. 00:12:29.804 --> 00:12:33.873 Said: And what you have in effect is the creation of a Jewish state 00:12:33.873 --> 00:12:38.633 in the middle of the Islamic oriental world in the sense that 00:12:38.633 --> 00:12:41.583 because it's a Jewish state and a western state, 00:12:41.583 --> 00:12:45.804 self-declared, there is a greater coincidence between 00:12:45.804 --> 00:12:50.034 American interests there, than there is between American interests, 00:12:50.034 --> 00:12:52.683 let's say, in places like Iran and Saudi Arabia, 00:12:52.683 --> 00:12:54.854 which are important because of oil. 00:12:54.854 --> 00:12:59.384 I think the presence of this other factor, which is very anti-Islamic, 00:12:59.384 --> 00:13:03.434 where Israel regards the whole Arab world as its enemy is imported into -- 00:13:03.434 --> 00:13:07.285 into American orientalism. 00:13:07.285 --> 00:13:10.184 I mean the idea for example that Hamas terrorists on the West Bank 00:13:10.184 --> 00:13:13.454 are just interested in killing Jewish children, 00:13:13.454 --> 00:13:16.964 is what you derive from looking at this stuff. 00:13:16.964 --> 00:13:18.654 And very little attention is paid to the fact that the 00:13:18.654 --> 00:13:20.733 Israeli occupation of the West Bank in Gaza has been going on for -- 00:13:20.733 --> 00:13:24.605 30 - years - it's the longest military occupation in this century. 00:13:24.605 --> 00:13:27.515 And so you get the impression that the only problem is that, 00:13:27.515 --> 00:13:32.274 you know, Israeli security is threatened by Hamas and suicide bombers and 00:13:32.274 --> 00:13:34.034 all the rest of it. 00:13:34.034 --> 00:13:35.895 Nothing is said about the hundreds of thousands, 00:13:35.895 --> 00:13:38.172 millions of palestianians who are dispossessed and 00:13:38.172 --> 00:13:40.105 living miserable lives as a direct result of what Israel 00:13:40.105 --> 00:13:41.723 has done and is doing. 00:13:41.723 --> 00:13:45.014 So there's a sense in which the Arab struggle for 00:13:45.014 --> 00:13:48.244 national independence in the history of the Palestinians for national 00:13:48.244 --> 00:13:52.194 self-determination is looked at with great hostility as upsetting the 00:13:52.194 --> 00:13:54.204 stabilities of the status quo. 00:13:54.204 --> 00:13:57.333 And that makes it virtually impossible. 00:13:57.333 --> 00:13:58.436 It's a tragedy. 00:13:58.436 --> 00:14:02.343 Virtually impossible for an American to see on television, 00:14:02.343 --> 00:14:06.912 to read books, to see films about the Middle East, 00:14:06.912 --> 00:14:09.625 that are not colored politically by this conflict in 00:14:09.625 --> 00:14:12.926 which the Arabs almost always play the role of terrorists and 00:14:12.926 --> 00:14:16.835 violent people and irrational and so on and so forth. 00:14:16.835 --> 00:14:31.295 [Music.] 00:14:31.295 --> 00:14:35.744 Beastie Boy: That's another thing that America really needs to think about, 00:14:35.744 --> 00:14:37.214 is our racism. 00:14:37.214 --> 00:14:40.382 Racism that comes from the United States towards Muslim people and 00:14:40.382 --> 00:14:42.984 towards Arabic people and that's something that has to stop and 00:14:42.984 --> 00:14:46.544 the United States has to start respecting people from the Middle East 00:14:46.544 --> 00:14:49.884 in order to find a solution to the problem that's been 00:14:49.884 --> 00:14:52.253 building up over many years. 00:14:52.253 --> 00:14:57.354 So I thank everyone for your patience in letting me speak my mind on that. 00:14:57.354 --> 00:15:01.045 Speaker: Many people believe the way that Americans understand 00:15:01.045 --> 00:15:03.423 the Muslim world is very problematic. 00:15:03.423 --> 00:15:07.854 Indeed, anti-Arab racism seems to be almost officially sanctioned. 00:15:07.854 --> 00:15:09.904 You can make generalized and racist statements about 00:15:09.904 --> 00:15:13.835 Arab peoples that would not be tolerated for any other group. 00:15:13.835 --> 00:15:17.885 At the heart of how this new American orientalism operates is a 00:15:17.885 --> 00:15:21.285 threatening and demonized figure of the Islamic terrorist. 00:15:21.285 --> 00:15:23.975 That is emphasized by journalists and Hollywood. 00:15:23.975 --> 00:15:28.515 Now Said recognizes that terrorism exists as a result of the 00:15:28.515 --> 00:15:31.375 violent political situation in the Middle East. 00:15:31.375 --> 00:15:34.055 But he argues that there's a lot more going on there that is 00:15:34.055 --> 00:15:37.245 misunderstood or not seen by the peoples of the west. 00:15:37.245 --> 00:15:42.264 The result of the media's focus on one negative aspect alone means 00:15:42.264 --> 00:15:45.397 that all the peoples of the Islamic world come to be understood in the 00:15:45.397 --> 00:15:48.214 same negative and paranoid way. 00:15:48.214 --> 00:15:50.063 That is, as a threat. 00:15:50.063 --> 00:15:52.144 So that when we think of people who look like that and 00:15:52.144 --> 00:15:53.554 have come from that part of the world, 00:15:53.554 --> 00:15:58.587 we think, fanatic, extreme, violent. 00:15:58.587 --> 00:16:02.136 Said argues that understanding a vast and 00:16:02.136 --> 00:16:04.465 complex region like the Middle East in this narrow way 00:16:04.465 --> 00:16:07.785 takes away from the humanity and diversity of millions of 00:16:07.785 --> 00:16:11.345 ordinary people living decent and humane lives there. 00:16:11.345 --> 00:16:15.336 Reporter: We asked, would he plant a bomb to blow up the Americans if the 00:16:15.336 --> 00:16:19.874 Islamic underground asked him to, the answer was yes. 00:16:19.874 --> 00:16:23.804 After I wrote Orientalism and a book called the Question of Palestine 00:16:23.804 --> 00:16:26.174 in the early 80s. In the late 70s, rather. 00:16:26.174 --> 00:16:27.876 And in the beginning of the 80s, 00:16:27.876 --> 00:16:30.454 I wrote a third book which is called Covering Islam and I thought 00:16:30.454 --> 00:16:32.463 of them as a kind of trilogy. 00:16:32.463 --> 00:16:37.604 And Covering Islam was an account of the coverage of Islam 00:16:37.604 --> 00:16:40.204 in the popular media immediately occasioned by the 00:16:40.204 --> 00:16:44.336 Iranian Revolution which described itself 00:16:44.336 --> 00:16:47.456 as you recall as an Islamic revolution. 00:16:47.456 --> 00:16:56.073 And you know, what I discovered was a huge arsenal of images 00:16:56.073 --> 00:16:58.363 employed by the media. 00:16:58.363 --> 00:17:03.844 Large masses of people waving their fists, black banners, 00:17:03.844 --> 00:17:06.804 you know, the stern-faced Khomeini, 00:17:06.804 --> 00:17:10.004 all of them giving an impression of the utmost negative, 00:17:10.004 --> 00:17:12.735 sort of evil emanation. 00:17:12.735 --> 00:17:16.856 So the impression you got of Islam was that it was a frightening, 00:17:16.856 --> 00:17:23.487 uh, mysterious -- above all, threatening, 00:17:23.487 --> 00:17:26.706 as if the main business of Muslims was to threaten and 00:17:26.706 --> 00:17:29.355 try to kill Americans. 00:17:29.355 --> 00:17:32.974 As recently as last year, in 1996, that is to say, 00:17:32.974 --> 00:17:36.664 almost 16 or 17 years after I wrote Covering Islam, 00:17:36.664 --> 00:17:40.315 I did an update of the book and I wrote a new introduction. 00:17:40.315 --> 00:17:46.527 And I found that quite to my horror and surprise, 00:17:46.527 --> 00:17:49.955 that during those 16 and 17 years with the large number of 00:17:49.955 --> 00:17:52.965 events in the Islamic world taking place, 00:17:52.965 --> 00:17:55.664 which you would think would allow for more familiarity, 00:17:55.664 --> 00:17:59.855 with a more refined sense of what was taking place on, let's say, 00:17:59.855 --> 00:18:06.435 as reflected in television and print journalism, in fact, was the opposite. 00:18:06.435 --> 00:18:09.213 I think the situation got worse. 00:18:09.213 --> 00:18:11.934 And that what you had instead now, 00:18:11.934 --> 00:18:14.755 was a much more threatening picture of Islam, 00:18:14.755 --> 00:18:16.795 represented for example by television and film -- 00:18:16.795 --> 00:18:22.274 called Jihad in America, based on the bombing of the World Trade Center. 00:18:22.274 --> 00:18:26.524 Reporter: I reported on international terrorism for the past ten years and 00:18:26.524 --> 00:18:28.905 since the World Trade Center bombing, 00:18:28.905 --> 00:18:31.746 I've been investigating the networks of Islamic extremists 00:18:31.746 --> 00:18:34.134 committed to Jihad in America. 00:18:34.134 --> 00:18:37.624 For these militants, Jihad is a holy war, 00:18:37.624 --> 00:18:40.416 an armed struggle to defeat nonbelievers or 00:18:40.416 --> 00:18:45.035 infidels and their ultimate goal is to establish an Islamic empire. 00:18:45.035 --> 00:18:48.945 But this gathering did not take place in the Middle East. 00:18:48.945 --> 00:18:51.974 It happened in the heartland of America: Kansas City, Missouri. 00:18:51.974 --> 00:18:55.895 Combatting these groups within the boundaries of the 00:18:55.895 --> 00:18:59.027 Constitution will be the greatest challenge to law enforcement 00:18:59.027 --> 00:19:02.137 since the war on organized crime. 00:19:02.137 --> 00:19:04.635 Said: But never the same generalizations were made, 00:19:04.635 --> 00:19:08.113 let's say, about the Oklahoma City bombing, 00:19:08.113 --> 00:19:09.984 that this was a Christian fundamentalist, etc., etc., 00:19:09.984 --> 00:19:13.774 but the Islamic Jihad had come to America, 00:19:13.774 --> 00:19:16.816 and you had these scenes of the most irresponsible journalism, 00:19:16.816 --> 00:19:20.174 where you would see people talking in Arabic and a voiceover saying, 00:19:20.174 --> 00:19:22.405 "and they are discussing the destruction of America. 00:19:22.405 --> 00:19:25.165 Whereas if you picked up a little of what was being said, 00:19:25.165 --> 00:19:27.574 if you knew the language, it had nothing to do with that. 00:19:27.574 --> 00:19:30.385 And that Islam and the teachings of Islam, 00:19:30.385 --> 00:19:33.645 became synonymous with terror and the demonization of Islam, 00:19:33.645 --> 00:19:37.305 allowed for very little distinction between piety, 00:19:37.305 --> 00:19:39.965 let's say, and violence. 00:19:39.965 --> 00:19:43.976 The so-called independent media in a liberal society like this -- 00:19:43.976 --> 00:19:48.133 in effect are so lazy and are controlled by interests that are 00:19:48.133 --> 00:19:51.464 commercial and political at the same time, 00:19:51.464 --> 00:19:53.896 that there is no investigative reporting. 00:19:53.896 --> 00:19:57.225 It's just basically repeating the line of the government. 00:19:57.225 --> 00:20:00.126 Ted Koppel: Only eight days ago I concluded a broadcast on the 00:20:00.126 --> 00:20:02.296 World Trade Center bombing by telling you what 00:20:02.296 --> 00:20:05.055 senior US law enforcement officials were telling us, 00:20:05.055 --> 00:20:08.135 that the threat of Muslim extremists operating within 00:20:08.135 --> 00:20:12.006 the United States is an ongoing danger, 00:20:12.006 --> 00:20:14.245 something we'll have to live with from now on. 00:20:14.245 --> 00:20:17.427 Said: And repeating the lies of the people who have 00:20:17.427 --> 00:20:20.155 the most influence for whom Islam is a useful, 00:20:20.155 --> 00:20:25.956 foreign, demon, to turn attention away from the inequities and 00:20:25.956 --> 00:20:29.216 problems in our own society. 00:20:29.216 --> 00:20:35.896 So as a result, the human side of the Islamic and especially Arabic world, 00:20:35.896 --> 00:20:41.763 are rarely to be found, and the net result is this vacancy, 00:20:41.763 --> 00:20:44.126 on the one hand, and these easy, 00:20:44.126 --> 00:20:49.245 almost automatic images of terror and violence. 00:20:49.245 --> 00:20:54.715 There is a handy set of images and cliches. 00:20:54.715 --> 00:20:58.375 You know, not just from the newspapers and television, but from movies. 00:20:58.375 --> 00:21:01.565 [Music] 00:21:01.565 --> 00:21:04.704 Oh I come from a land, from a far away place, 00:21:04.704 --> 00:21:08.177 where the caravan camels roam 00:21:08.177 --> 00:21:11.996 Where it's flat and immense and the heat is intense 00:21:11.996 --> 00:21:15.886 It's barbaric, but hey, it's home 00:21:15.886 --> 00:21:17.766 When the wind's from the east, 00:21:17.766 --> 00:21:22.177 and the sun's from the west and the sand in the glass is right; 00:21:22.177 --> 00:21:31.136 come on down, stop on by, hop a carpet and fly to another Arabian night. 00:21:31.136 --> 00:21:36.796 Said: I mean, I myself, growing up in the Middle East in Palestine and Cairo, 00:21:36.796 --> 00:21:40.405 used to delight in films on the Arabian Nights, you know, 00:21:40.405 --> 00:21:46.125 done by Hollywood producers, with John Hall and Maria Montez and Sabu. 00:21:46.125 --> 00:21:49.945 I mean they were talking about a part of the world that I lived in but 00:21:49.945 --> 00:21:54.588 it had this kind of exotic magical quality which was what 00:21:54.588 --> 00:21:56.287 we call today Hollywood. 00:21:56.287 --> 00:21:59.656 So there was that whole reportory of the Sheiks and the desert and 00:21:59.656 --> 00:22:03.054 the galloping around and the cimitars and the dancing girls and all that. 00:22:03.054 --> 00:22:05.486 That's really the material. 00:22:05.486 --> 00:22:08.955 That's the situation in the popular media is basically that 00:22:08.955 --> 00:22:10.686 Muslims are really two things. 00:22:10.686 --> 00:22:13.966 One -- they are villains. They are villains and fanatics. 00:22:13.966 --> 00:22:18.545 I will dispatch the American people to the hell they deserve. 00:22:18.545 --> 00:22:22.545 (Gunfire) 00:22:22.545 --> 00:22:23.857 In the name of Allah! 00:22:23.857 --> 00:22:28.745 And B, many films end up with huge numbers of bodies, Muslim bodies, 00:22:28.745 --> 00:22:34.985 strewn all over the place, the result of Arnold Schwarzenegger or Demi Moore, 00:22:34.985 --> 00:22:37.906 Chuck Norris; lots of films about guerrillas going in to 00:22:37.906 --> 00:22:40.975 kill Muslim terrorists. 00:22:40.975 --> 00:22:44.835 So the idea of Muslim is something to be stamped out. 00:22:44.835 --> 00:23:03.233 (Fighting and swordfighting sounds with music) 00:23:03.233 --> 00:23:06.162 Said: The whole history of these whole orientalist representations 00:23:06.162 --> 00:23:11.573 which portray the Muslim and the oriental as in effect a lesser breed; 00:23:11.573 --> 00:23:15.463 in other words, the only thing they understand is the language of force. 00:23:15.463 --> 00:23:19.152 This is the principle here, that unless you give them a bloody nose, 00:23:19.152 --> 00:23:21.192 they won't understand. We can't talk reason with them. 00:23:21.192 --> 00:23:30.013 (Gunshots and screaming) 00:23:30.013 --> 00:23:32.412 Said: Is the Arab world full of tough terrorists? 00:23:32.412 --> 00:23:35.683 Well, I mean, all you have to do is sort of break down the question into - 00:23:35.683 --> 00:23:42.711 into common sense and say, uh, there are terrorists, as there are everywhere. 00:23:42.711 --> 00:23:46.547 But you know, there's a lot more going on there. 00:23:46.547 --> 00:23:49.921 We're talking about 250, 300 million people. 00:23:49.921 --> 00:23:53.323 And one of the great problems of orientalism to begin with, 00:23:53.323 --> 00:23:55.973 is these vast generalizations about Islam and the nature of Islam. 00:23:55.973 --> 00:24:01.709 There's very little in common that you can talk about as Islam, 00:24:01.709 --> 00:24:05.059 let's say, between Indonesia and Saudi Arabia. 00:24:05.059 --> 00:24:07.990 I mean they're both Muslim countries but you know, 00:24:07.990 --> 00:24:12.838 the difference is in history and language and traditions and so on -- 00:24:12.838 --> 00:24:17.210 it's so vast, that the word Islam has, at best, a tenuous meaning. 00:24:17.210 --> 00:24:20.229 The same is true within the Arab world. 00:24:20.229 --> 00:24:22.738 I mean, Morocco is very different from Saudi Arabia. 00:24:22.738 --> 00:24:25.450 Algeria is very different from Egypt. 00:24:25.450 --> 00:24:26.990 And I would argue and in fact, 00:24:26.990 --> 00:24:31.689 have argued that the predominant mood of the Arab world is very secular. 00:24:31.689 --> 00:24:35.528 You know, it's easy to attract attention and 00:24:35.528 --> 00:24:37.520 certainly the media's attention for some of the 00:24:37.520 --> 00:24:39.399 political reasons that are obvious. 00:24:39.399 --> 00:24:41.810 I mean to discredit the Arabs to make them seem like a threat to the west. 00:24:41.810 --> 00:24:47.448 To keep the idea around at the end of the 00:24:47.448 --> 00:24:50.900 Cold War that there are foreign devils. 00:24:50.900 --> 00:24:53.899 In other words, what are we doing with this gigantic military? 00:24:53.899 --> 00:24:57.450 This huge military budget that is twice as much as the 00:24:57.450 --> 00:25:00.989 entire world's military budget combined? 00:25:00.989 --> 00:25:03.237 So you have to have threat. 00:25:03.237 --> 00:25:07.059 And the result is, it's very hard to find works 00:25:07.059 --> 00:25:09.620 that are sympathetic to the Arabs and Islam. 00:25:09.620 --> 00:25:11.501 Islam is seen as the enemy of Christianity and 00:25:11.501 --> 00:25:13.271 the United States sees itself as a Christian or 00:25:13.271 --> 00:25:16.220 Judeo-Christian country in affiliation with Israel, 00:25:16.220 --> 00:25:18.141 and that Islam is the great enemy. 00:25:18.141 --> 00:25:19.659 The competitor. 00:25:19.659 --> 00:25:21.060 There is a history of that. 00:25:21.060 --> 00:25:23.200 And I give the example of Dodi Fayed, 00:25:23.200 --> 00:25:28.081 the erstwhile suitor of Princess Diana. 00:25:28.081 --> 00:25:29.420 Well, a few days before he died, 00:25:29.420 --> 00:25:34.700 I read through the English press, and it was full of racist cliches, 00:25:34.700 --> 00:25:37.130 all of orientalist discourse. 00:25:37.130 --> 00:25:40.518 I mean that this is -- the Sunday Times, 00:25:40.518 --> 00:25:42.631 one of the leading newspapers in England, 00:25:42.631 --> 00:25:45.530 had a headline to a 15,000 word story, entitled, 00:25:45.530 --> 00:25:48.180 "A Match Made in Mecca." 00:25:48.180 --> 00:25:51.640 And the idea of Muslim conspiracy is trying to infect, 00:25:51.640 --> 00:25:56.548 you know, taking over this white woman by these dark people with Mohammed, 00:25:56.548 --> 00:26:00.830 the prophet Mohammed, who is a historical person in the 7th century, 00:26:00.830 --> 00:26:03.110 somehow stage-managing the whole thing. 00:26:03.110 --> 00:26:05.041 That's the power of the discourse. You see. 00:26:05.041 --> 00:26:09.090 If you are thinking about people and Islam and about that part of the world, 00:26:09.090 --> 00:26:11.910 those are the words you constantly have to use. 00:26:11.910 --> 00:26:15.499 Speaker: And you won't get hurt! I give you my word! 00:26:15.499 --> 00:26:19.451 Woman: No way you wacko. 00:26:20.761 --> 00:26:23.860 Said: The discourse is a regulated system of 00:26:23.860 --> 00:26:27.401 producing knowledge within certain constraints whereby 00:26:27.401 --> 00:26:29.441 certain rules have to be observed. 00:26:29.441 --> 00:26:31.781 Now gay Libya. Exports. 00:26:31.781 --> 00:26:33.449 Yes sir you American pig. 00:26:33.449 --> 00:26:35.269 [Laughs.] Nice touch. 00:26:35.269 --> 00:26:39.049 Said: To think past it, to go beyond it, not to use it, 00:26:39.049 --> 00:26:41.069 is virtually impossible because there's no knowledge 00:26:41.069 --> 00:26:43.972 that isn't codified in this way about that part of the world. 00:26:43.972 --> 00:26:46.310 May I help you? 00:26:46.310 --> 00:26:53.210 (Unintelligible) 00:26:53.210 --> 00:26:54.680 Listen to -- 00:26:54.680 --> 00:26:55.641 Jesus. 00:26:55.641 --> 00:26:57.429 (Unintelligible) 00:26:57.429 --> 00:27:02.000 (Loud noises and explosions) 00:27:02.000 --> 00:27:09.060 Said: And there's a certain sense in which in not really 00:27:09.060 --> 00:27:13.141 mounting a serious critique of it, 00:27:13.153 --> 00:27:16.734 the Arabs have participated and continued to allow themselves 00:27:16.734 --> 00:27:19.673 to be represented as orientals in this orientalist way. 00:27:19.673 --> 00:27:26.085 There is no, for example, information policy of the 20 Arab countries, 00:27:26.085 --> 00:27:30.415 22 Arab countries, to try to give a different picture 00:27:30.415 --> 00:27:33.163 of what their worlds are like. 00:27:33.163 --> 00:27:35.814 Because most of them are dictatorships. 00:27:35.814 --> 00:27:37.914 All of them are dictatorships, without democracy, 00:27:37.914 --> 00:27:40.505 who are in desperate need of US patronage, 00:27:40.505 --> 00:27:43.964 government patronage, to support them. 00:27:43.964 --> 00:27:46.474 So they are not about to criticize the United States. 00:27:46.474 --> 00:27:50.104 Not about to engage in a real dialogue. 00:27:50.104 --> 00:27:53.645 And in that respect, I think the Arabs keep themselves 00:27:53.645 --> 00:28:01.472 collectively in a way that is subordinate and inferior to the west. 00:28:01.472 --> 00:28:04.883 And in fact, fulfills the kinds of representations that 00:28:04.883 --> 00:28:08.185 most westerners have on their minds about the Arabs. 00:28:08.185 --> 00:28:22.864 [Music] 00:28:22.864 --> 00:28:24.505 The attacks came without warning. 00:28:24.505 --> 00:28:27.232 Connie Chung: And according to a US government source, 00:28:27.232 --> 00:28:31.385 told CBS News, that it has Middle East terrorism written all over it. 00:28:31.385 --> 00:28:34.864 Reporter: The attack in Oklahoma City appears to have a familiar mark. 00:28:34.864 --> 00:28:37.053 Speaker: this was done with the attempt to inflict 00:28:37.053 --> 00:28:38.485 as many casualties as possible. 00:28:38.485 --> 00:28:40.655 That is a Middle Eastern trait. 00:28:40.655 --> 00:28:42.994 Reporter: The fact that it was such a powerful bomb in 00:28:42.994 --> 00:28:46.005 Oklahoma City immediately drew investigators to consider 00:28:46.005 --> 00:28:49.234 deadly parallels that all have roots in the Middle East. 00:28:49.234 --> 00:28:52.124 ABC News has learned that the FBI has asked 00:28:52.124 --> 00:28:56.744 the US military to provide up to ten Arabic speakers to 00:28:56.744 --> 00:28:58.003 help in the investigation. 00:28:58.003 --> 00:29:01.303 Said: Well, one of the interesting things about -- 00:29:01.303 --> 00:29:05.874 about the persistence of orientalism-- I mean, 00:29:05.874 --> 00:29:09.393 when you think about it, almost astonishing persistence of it, 00:29:09.393 --> 00:29:13.214 was the Oklahoma City bombing in April of 1995. 00:29:13.214 --> 00:29:16.094 I can give you a personal example. 00:29:16.094 --> 00:29:19.823 I was in Canada giving some lectures at the 00:29:19.823 --> 00:29:25.523 actual time of the bombing and maybe half an hour after 00:29:25.523 --> 00:29:29.344 the event had occurred in the afternoon, 00:29:29.344 --> 00:29:32.148 my office was inundated with phone calls from the media. 00:29:34.126 --> 00:29:36.921 And I rang my office from Canada, 00:29:36.921 --> 00:29:39.491 as I frequently do to find out, you know, 00:29:39.491 --> 00:29:43.452 if there was any message for me that needed attention and so on, 00:29:43.452 --> 00:29:45.372 and she said, every -- 00:29:45.372 --> 00:29:48.141 25 calls had come in from the major networks, 00:29:48.141 --> 00:29:49.923 from the cable channels, 00:29:49.923 --> 00:29:53.093 from the major newspapers and news magazines and so forth, 00:29:53.093 --> 00:29:54.994 all of them wanting to talk to you. 00:29:54.994 --> 00:29:56.090 And I said what about? 00:29:56.090 --> 00:29:57.402 About this event in Oklahoma City. 00:29:57.402 --> 00:29:59.491 And I said, but what does that have to do with anything. 00:29:59.491 --> 00:30:03.511 Well, apparently somebody had volunteered, 00:30:03.511 --> 00:30:06.122 one of these instant commentators, that -- 00:30:06.122 --> 00:30:08.022 the notion that this seemed like a 00:30:08.022 --> 00:30:10.883 Middle East-style bombing and that there were a couple of 00:30:10.883 --> 00:30:15.143 swarthy people around right after the bombing or seen after the bombing. 00:30:15.143 --> 00:30:17.033 Reporter: Within hours of the explosion, 00:30:17.033 --> 00:30:20.781 local police and the FBI had issued the all points bulletin 00:30:20.781 --> 00:30:23.851 looking for three men believed to be of Middle Eastern origin 00:30:23.851 --> 00:30:27.832 Reporter: And sources tell CBS News that unofficially the FBI 00:30:27.832 --> 00:30:30.622 is treating this as a Middle Eastern related incident. 00:30:30.622 --> 00:30:33.741 Steve Emerson: Oklahoma City, I can tell you, 00:30:33.741 --> 00:30:35.463 is probably considered one of the largest centers of 00:30:35.463 --> 00:30:38.063 Islamic radical activity outside the Middle East. 00:30:38.063 --> 00:30:42.463 Said: And so this got them to think that they should talk to me, 00:30:42.463 --> 00:30:43.873 not because I had anything to do with it, 00:30:43.873 --> 00:30:45.692 but because by virtue of being from the Middle East, 00:30:45.692 --> 00:30:48.923 I would have an inside -- insight into this. 00:30:48.923 --> 00:30:53.493 You know, and of course the proposition is so preposterous and so racist. 00:30:53.493 --> 00:30:54.903 Just if you're from the area, 00:30:54.903 --> 00:30:58.400 you would understand who and why this is being done. 00:30:58.400 --> 00:31:00.043 Never thinking for a moment that it was a 00:31:00.043 --> 00:31:04.182 local homegrown boy called McVeigh who was 00:31:04.182 --> 00:31:06.332 totally American in his outlook and was doing it 00:31:06.332 --> 00:31:09.701 out of the best principles of American extermination 00:31:09.701 --> 00:31:12.792 and Ahab-like anger, you know, at the world. 00:31:12.792 --> 00:31:24.552 [Music.] 00:31:24.552 --> 00:31:27.152 Speaker: Professor Said is not only a true theorist. 00:31:27.152 --> 00:31:29.862 He is also a very prominent and active 00:31:29.862 --> 00:31:32.632 representative of the Palestinian people. 00:31:32.632 --> 00:31:35.604 Said grew up in what was then called Palestine 00:31:35.604 --> 00:31:38.344 and is now called Israel and the occupied territories. 00:31:38.344 --> 00:31:41.411 When the state of Israel was founded in 1948, 00:31:41.411 --> 00:31:43.931 like millions of other Palestinians, 00:31:43.931 --> 00:31:47.043 Said and his family were made homeless as well as stateless. 00:31:47.043 --> 00:31:52.454 These exiled Palestinians now mostly lived either 00:31:52.454 --> 00:31:54.280 in the territories under control of Israel or 00:31:54.280 --> 00:31:57.912 in refugee camps in the surrounding countries. 00:31:57.912 --> 00:32:00.261 One of the things that drives Said is the quest for 00:32:00.261 --> 00:32:04.282 justice and a homeland for the Palestinian people. 00:32:04.282 --> 00:32:06.592 And there's a close connection between Said's intellectual 00:32:06.592 --> 00:32:09.041 work and his political activism. 00:32:09.041 --> 00:32:10.942 As he himself remarks, 00:32:10.942 --> 00:32:13.173 he wrote three books that he thinks of as a 00:32:13.173 --> 00:32:17.277 trilogy and that in his mind are closely connected together -- 00:32:17.277 --> 00:32:22.700 Orientalism, Covering Islam, and the Question of Palestine. 00:32:22.700 --> 00:32:24.633 He believes that finding a peaceful, 00:32:24.633 --> 00:32:27.523 humane and just solution to the conflict in the Middle East, 00:32:27.523 --> 00:32:31.532 that is, finding an answer to the question of Palestine, 00:32:31.532 --> 00:32:34.152 will require overcoming the racist legacy of 00:32:34.152 --> 00:32:38.382 orientalism that stresses the separation of people from each other. 00:32:38.382 --> 00:32:42.550 That regards difference as a threat that must be contained or destroyed. 00:32:42.550 --> 00:32:46.432 Because of the complex and bloody history of the Middle East, 00:32:46.432 --> 00:32:49.110 Said regards the situation in Palestine and 00:32:49.110 --> 00:32:53.340 Israel as the ultimate test case facing the 21st century of 00:32:53.340 --> 00:32:56.003 whether we live together in peace and reconciliation 00:32:56.003 --> 00:32:58.304 with our differences or whether we 00:32:58.304 --> 00:33:00.941 live apart in fear and loathing of each other, 00:33:00.941 --> 00:33:03.552 constantly under threat, constantly at war. 00:33:03.552 --> 00:33:06.772 In seeking a way out of this legacy of mistrust and conflict, 00:33:06.772 --> 00:33:11.902 Said draws upon the work of Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci, 00:33:11.902 --> 00:33:14.402 who gives us the tools to think about these 00:33:14.402 --> 00:33:17.555 difficult issues in more productive and humane ways. 00:33:17.555 --> 00:33:21.222 Said: Well, Gramsci in the prison notebooks, 00:33:21.222 --> 00:33:26.122 says something that has always tremendously appealed to me, 00:33:26.122 --> 00:33:30.152 that history deposits in us, our own history, 00:33:30.152 --> 00:33:32.504 our family's history, our nation's history, 00:33:32.504 --> 00:33:37.142 our tradition's history, which has left in us an affinity of traces, 00:33:37.142 --> 00:33:42.051 all kinds of marks, through heredity, 00:33:42.051 --> 00:33:44.424 through collective experience, through individual experience, 00:33:44.424 --> 00:33:45.602 through family experience, 00:33:45.602 --> 00:33:47.952 through relationships between one individual and another, 00:33:47.952 --> 00:33:56.220 a whole book, if you like, a series, an infinity of traces. 00:33:56.220 --> 00:33:58.831 But there's no inventory. 00:33:58.831 --> 00:34:00.992 There is no orderly guide to it. 00:34:00.992 --> 00:34:04.242 So Gramsci says, therefore the task at the 00:34:04.242 --> 00:34:08.540 outset is to try to compile an inventory. 00:34:08.540 --> 00:34:10.701 In other words, to try and make sense of it. 00:34:10.701 --> 00:34:12.951 And this seems to me at any rate to be 00:34:12.951 --> 00:34:16.182 the most interesting sort of human task: 00:34:16.182 --> 00:34:19.192 it's the task of interpretation. 00:34:19.192 --> 00:34:22.433 It's the task of giving history some shape and sense. 00:34:22.433 --> 00:34:24.559 For a particular reason, 00:34:24.559 --> 00:34:26.471 not just to show that my history is better 00:34:26.471 --> 00:34:29.083 than yours or my history is worse than yours, 00:34:29.083 --> 00:34:32.642 I'm a victim and you're somebody who has oppressed people. 00:34:32.642 --> 00:34:34.663 But rather, to understand my history 00:34:34.663 --> 00:34:36.742 in terms of other people's history. 00:34:36.742 --> 00:34:38.013 In other words to try to - 00:34:38.013 --> 00:34:39.571 to move beyond to generalize one's own 00:34:39.571 --> 00:34:43.170 individual experience to the experience of others. 00:34:43.170 --> 00:34:46.561 And I think -- I think the great -- 00:34:46.561 --> 00:34:52.561 goal is in fact to become someone else, 00:34:52.561 --> 00:34:56.571 to transform itself from a unitary identity 00:34:56.571 --> 00:35:01.448 to an identity that includes the other without suppressing it. 00:35:01.448 --> 00:35:04.193 That he says is the great goal, 00:35:04.193 --> 00:35:08.521 and for me I think that would be the case. 00:35:08.521 --> 00:35:09.203 You know. 00:35:09.203 --> 00:35:14.135 And that would be the notion of writing an inventory. 00:35:14.135 --> 00:35:16.042 An historical inventory, 00:35:16.042 --> 00:35:17.652 to not only understand oneself but to 00:35:17.652 --> 00:35:20.251 understand oneself in relation to others and 00:35:20.251 --> 00:35:23.313 to understand others as if you would understand yourself. 00:35:23.313 --> 00:35:25.962 Palestine is so important in this respect 00:35:25.962 --> 00:35:30.603 because of its local complexities, 00:35:30.603 --> 00:35:34.672 as say Arabs, Jews, Arab Muslims and Arab Christians and 00:35:34.672 --> 00:35:38.742 Israeli Jews of themselves, a very mixed background. 00:35:38.742 --> 00:35:40.742 We're talking about Polish Jews, Russian Jews, 00:35:40.742 --> 00:35:44.153 American Jews, Yemeni Jews, Iraqi jaws, Indian Jews; 00:35:44.153 --> 00:35:47.553 it's a fairly complex mosaic. 00:35:47.553 --> 00:35:50.153 Somehow finding a way to live together. 00:35:50.153 --> 00:35:53.873 On land that is drenched, 00:35:53.873 --> 00:35:58.402 saturated with significance on a world scale 00:35:58.402 --> 00:36:00.790 unlike any other country in the world. 00:36:00.790 --> 00:36:04.731 I mean it's holy to three of the major religions. 00:36:04.731 --> 00:36:07.152 And every inch of it has been combed over and 00:36:07.152 --> 00:36:10.101 fought over for the last several thousand years and 00:36:10.101 --> 00:36:13.782 the pattern so far has been the Zionist pattern, 00:36:13.782 --> 00:36:16.244 which is to say that it was promised to us, 00:36:16.244 --> 00:36:17.921 we are the chosen people. 00:36:17.921 --> 00:36:19.653 Everybody else is sort of second rate. 00:36:19.653 --> 00:36:22.851 Throw 'em out or treat 'em as a second class citizen. 00:36:22.851 --> 00:36:27.182 And in contrast to that, some of us, 00:36:27.182 --> 00:36:29.891 not everybody but many Palestinians have said, well, 00:36:29.891 --> 00:36:33.292 we realize that we are being asked to pay the price 00:36:33.292 --> 00:36:37.492 for what happened to the Jews in Europe after the holocaust. 00:36:37.492 --> 00:36:41.141 It's an entire Christian and European catastrophe 00:36:41.141 --> 00:36:43.622 in which the Arabs played no part. 00:36:43.622 --> 00:36:47.541 And we are being dispossessed, displaced by our -- 00:36:47.541 --> 00:36:52.631 we've become the victims of the victim but as I say, 00:36:52.631 --> 00:36:54.410 not all of us say, well, 00:36:54.410 --> 00:36:57.071 they should be thrown out because we have been 00:36:57.071 --> 00:36:59.171 thrown out and so we have another vision, 00:36:59.171 --> 00:37:02.322 which is a vision of co-existence in which Jew and Arab, 00:37:02.322 --> 00:37:07.500 Muslim, Christian, and Jew can live together in some 00:37:07.500 --> 00:37:11.962 polity in which I think it requires a kind of creativity and invention. 00:37:11.962 --> 00:37:13.873 That is possible. 00:37:13.873 --> 00:37:15.843 Vision. 00:37:15.843 --> 00:37:20.212 That would replace the authoritarian hierarchical model. 00:37:20.212 --> 00:37:23.013 But this idea that somehow we should protect ourselves against the 00:37:23.013 --> 00:37:25.443 infiltrations, the infections of the other, 00:37:25.443 --> 00:37:30.203 is I think the most dangerous idea. 00:37:30.203 --> 00:37:33.901 At the end of the 20th century and unless we find ways 00:37:33.901 --> 00:37:37.220 to do it and there are no shortcuts to it, 00:37:37.220 --> 00:37:40.563 unless we find ways to do this, 00:37:40.563 --> 00:37:43.513 there's going to be wholesale violence of a sort 00:37:43.513 --> 00:37:48.755 represented by the Gulf War, by the killings in Bosnia, 00:37:48.755 --> 00:37:50.794 the Rwandan massacres and so on. 00:37:50.794 --> 00:37:53.904 I mean those are the pattern of emerging conflict 00:37:53.904 --> 00:37:55.954 that is extremely dangerous and needs to be 00:37:55.954 --> 00:37:58.093 counteracted and I think therefore it's correct 00:37:58.093 --> 00:38:00.234 to say that the challenge is -- 00:38:00.234 --> 00:38:05.883 I wouldn't call it anything other than coexistence. 00:38:05.883 --> 00:38:09.372 How does one co-exist with peoples whose religions are different. 00:38:09.372 --> 00:38:12.763 Whose traditions and languages are different. 00:38:12.763 --> 00:38:15.133 But who form part of the same community. 00:38:15.133 --> 00:38:17.833 A polity. In a national sense. 00:38:17.833 --> 00:38:23.144 How do we accept difference without violence and hostility. 00:38:23.144 --> 00:38:27.502 I've been interested in a field called comparative literature most -- 00:38:27.502 --> 00:38:29.314 all of my adult life. 00:38:29.314 --> 00:38:32.314 The ideal of comparative literature is not to show how 00:38:32.314 --> 00:38:35.253 English literature is really a secondary phenomenon of 00:38:35.253 --> 00:38:37.324 French literature or Arabic literature is -- 00:38:37.324 --> 00:38:39.954 you know, a kind of poor cousin to 00:38:39.954 --> 00:38:41.744 Persian literature or any of those silly things, 00:38:41.744 --> 00:38:46.734 but to show them existing, you might say, as contrapuntal lines. 00:38:46.734 --> 00:38:49.354 In a great composition by which difference 00:38:49.354 --> 00:38:54.923 is respectively understood without coercion. 00:38:54.923 --> 00:38:58.945 And it's that attitude that I think we need. 00:38:58.945 --> 00:39:53.944 [Music]