The sense of being between cultures

By Sunil Govinnage

“The sense of being between cultures `has been very, very strong for me. I would say that’s the single strongest strand running through my life: the fact that I am always in and out of things, and never really of anything for very long.” Edward Said

Though Edward Said was born in Jerusalem (on November 1, 1935) due to the wishes and choices of his parents as a child, Said lived "between worlds" in roaming between Cairo and Jerusalem until he reached the age of 12. At the age of 16, his parents sent him from Cairo to a ‘Puritanical’ boarding school where he began to broaden not only his intellectual curiosity but also learning the art of music and developed good skills as a pianist.

His movements between worlds have been a major issue that he had to grapple with as a Palestine exile, and later as an American scholar and intellectual, and above all, as a cultural critic who provided several important theories including Orientalism, not only for his contemporaries but for many emerging theorists and intellectuals who are influenced by his work as tools to understand and analyse the world around them exploring and expanding Said’s work on Orientalism, culture and imperialism and many other theories he had left us with.

In the first instance, it was not his choice to select a life that kept him moving between cultures. During an interview Said has highlighted this issue: “... my father had American citizenship, and I was by inheritance therefore American and Palestinian at the same time…”

Though the themes of feeling out of place, the meaning and the need to live in interweaving cultures, and being far from ‘home’, affected him significantly, and echoed throughout his brilliant academic and private life. In this last article on the work and life of Edward Said, I endeavour to look at his life between cultures.

Edward Said, Imperialist!

A Harvard trained right winger, Stanley Kurtz wrote in an article titled ‘Edward Said, Imperialist -The hegemonic impulse of post-colonialism (2001): “SAID’S HAS BEEN A LIFE of no fixed attachments. Reared as a Christian by parents who were part Arab and part American; educated in an elite British colonial boarding school that forbade the use of Arabic; sent alone to the United States to complete his education while still a youth, Said became a loner—out of place in either America or the Middle East.

By the time he began his academic career, Said had been completely Americanized, so Americanized that he held himself aloof from other Arab immigrants. Yet his sense of being betwixt and between cultures—without a real home—still burned.”

Despite such criticisms, it is important to understand (with similar efforts invested to understand Said’s work on Orienatalism) why and what Said has written on the theme of “Out of Place” and examine the foundation for his thoughts behind his philosophy and outlook in this regard.

Stanley Kurtz also believes that the basic premise of post-colonial theory is that “it is immoral for a scholar to put his knowledge of foreign languages and cultures at the service of American power” and cites Edward Said's work in this area as most harmful.

However, other scholars who have also examined the issue that Said had to live between cultures consider it as one of his strengths. Ramin Jahanbegloo, a well-known Iranian-Canadian philosopher with a PhD in philosophy from the Sorbonne writes: “Said’s conception of intellectual thinking cannot, in this sense, be identified either with the liberal tradition or with the claims advanced by a number of radicals. In this sense, the trope of “outsiderhood” is a prominent one in Said’s life and works. His childhood sense of being always ‘out of place’ as a Palestinian exile, was never entirely lost, but was rather transformed into a powerful intellectual spirit of criticism.”

Jahanbegloo adds further: “The idea of cultural border-crossing that Said refers to should be considered not as a paradox of identity, but as an indicative of the complex post-colonial and exilic consciousness. The intensity of this exilic consciousness is exemplified in his book on Palestine, After the last Sky, where he underlines: “Identity, who we are, where we come from, what we are- is difficult to maintain in exile…. We are the other.”

Said’s intellectual project is profoundly guided by this sense of ‘otherness’ or ‘outsiderhood’. Most of Said’s own works greatest strengths and insights, results from this position of marginality where he reflects on the intellectual advantages of being an outsider both his native country and his domiciled USA.

Said’s sense of ‘outsiderhood’

Said’s great sense of ‘outsiderhood’ helped him to question the myths and previously assumed perspectives through this outlook raising questions such as “who we are, where we come from, what we are?” informing the world what he believed in his book titled, Representations of Intellectual as follows:

“[A]s an intellectual I present my concerns before an audience or constituency. But this is not just a matter of how I articulate them, but also of what I myself, as someone who is trying to advance the cause of freedom and justice also represent. I say or write these things after much reflection they are what I believe; and I also want to persuade others of this view. There is therefore, this quite complicated mix between the private and the public worlds, my own history, values, writings and positions as they derive from my experiences, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, how these enter into the social world where people debate and make decisions about war and freedom and justice.”

It is evident that Said’s firm belief on the role of Intellectual has stemmed from a “mix between the private and the public worlds, [his] own history, values…” suggest that his worldly perspective is a direct result not only due to his ‘outsiderhood’, but also due to his living; the sense of being between cultures is clearly comes out Said’s insightful memoirs “Out of Place: Memories of Edward Said”. It may not be considered a biography but a tedious meditation on his identity, exile, and above all, a description of psychological scars of dispossession.

This disposition that Said has articulated in words has also been transformed into cinematic images based on his memoirs.

The film ‘Out of Place’ is a good mixture of Said's memoirs and other key writings blended craft fully from readings of his work including family home movies, dating back to 1947 adding a touch of personal history. It also includes interviews with family who offer personal reminiscences, Arab, Israeli and American thinkers, including many of Said's colleagues and friends lan Pappe, Elias Khoury, Azmi Bishara, Daniel Barenboim, Rashid Khalidi, Michel Warschawski, Noam Chomsky and Dan Rabinowitz, among many others.

The film was directed by Sato Makoto and music score came from Daniel Barenboim, the world renowned Israeli pianist and conductor, who took Palestinian citizenship later in life.

The Japanese author, Oe Kenzaburo, the 1994 recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature wrote the following about the film:

"The serene, beautiful camera presses ever on through the landscape of Edward Said's absence. The many folds of the pain of Palestine and Israel are illumined. Said cuts across people's vibrant memories. And Said's hopes appear above us."

As Kenzaburo points out, Edward Said’s enduring exile and the feeling of dispossession along with his hopes and aspirations have kept him going giving him the ability to “appear above us [others].”

The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra partnership

Edward Said’s partnership with conductor and pianist, Daniel Barenboim brought about the West-Eastern Divan Workshop and Orchestra (through the Barenboim-Said Foundation), promoted music and co-operation through projects targeted at young Arabs and Israelis.

The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra was not a fantasy of social harmony but was useful in addressing complex and hard political realities in which it functioned.

Though now it is an international phenomenon, the orchestra began as a small-scale series of music workshops. The workshops developed in 1999 to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Goethe’s birthcomprised chamber music and was named the West-Eastern Divan was given,

As reported in the Jewish Quarterly, “[a]s part of Weimar's programme of 'Cultural Capital of Europe' events, Barenboim was asked to establish a workshop to bring together young musicians from across the Middle East. With the support and enthusiasm of Edward Said, Barenboim invited applications from young musicians from Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Israel. With the support and interest of Said, Barenboim invited applications from players in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Israel. The response was overwhelming.”

Barenboim views the venture as creating a new and innovative channel of communication and cooperation between assumed antagonists. Speaking in his 2006 Reith lectures, Barenboim stated categorically that “the orchestra cannot bring peace.” However, he suggested that it can ‘bring understanding. It can awaken the curiosity, and then perhaps the courage, to listen to the narrative of the other, and at the very least accepts its legitimacy.’ Music, and specifically the orchestral experience, is celebrated as the ideal vehicle for open interaction.

On describing a young Syrian and young Israeli musician sharing a music stand, Barenboim stated: ‘they were trying to play the same note, to play with the same dynamic, with the same stroke of the bow. They were trying to do something together, something about which they both cared… Well, having achieved that one note, they can’t look at each other the same way, they have shared a common experience.’

Despite all the criticisms aimed at Edward Said by right wing critics around the world form the USA to Australia, he had provided us with a new philosophical framework and perspectives that could enlighten the intellectual condition in today’s world and provided us with new perspectives on our human world.

In 1994, three years after he was diagnosed with leukaemia, Said started writing his memoirs, ‘Out of place.’ As articulated by him, it “it is a record of an essentially lost or forgotten world.” He said: “All families invent their parents and children, give each of them a history, character, fate, and even a language. There was always something wrong with how I was invented and meant to fit in with the world of my parents and four sisters. Whether this was because I constantly misread my part or because of some deep flaws in my being I could not tell most of my early life... [I]t took me about fifty years to become accustomed to, or more exactly to feel less uncomfortable with…”

As he has articulated in his memoirs, most of his life Edward Said felt, an urgency for intellectual exploration and resistance which provided him with his new place whether it was the case in or look at the issue of Palatine people’s struggle for their own sense of place. Said’s discovery of his “new place” became an authentic space that brought together all those who were struggling against all forms issues about injustice and colonial authority.

In my understanding of Said’s work, he did form a unique approach; the role of global public intellectual. Many of Edward Said’s admirers and followers will continue to be inspired by his courage and many will undoubtedly continue his journey by sharing and promoting what he believed about the world around us. However, there is no doubt that his death leaves a visible gap in public and intellectual life across the world.

Edward Said died in 2003 after a decade-long battle with leukaemia.

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