Re: "Read Edward Said" Re: ADC Mourns Passing of Prof. Edward Said

["LouPaulsen" <LouPaulsen@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Yoshie Furuhashi" <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>

Attempting to use my words on the occasion of Dr. Said's death to score some
points, Furuhashi quotes an earlier post of mine..

> At 3:17 PM +0000 9/25/03, loupaulsen@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> >Whenever anyone asked me, "What can I read to understand the
> >Palestinian struggle?" my response would always include the words,
> >"Read Edward Said."

And then Furuhashi goes on to post an article by Dr. Said from January,
2002, reading in part:

> A closer look at the Palestinian reality tells a somewhat more
> encouraging story. Recent polls have shown that between them, Arafat
> and his Islamist opponents (who refer to themselves unjustly as "the
> resistance") get somewhere between 40 and 45 per cent popular
> approval. This means that a silent majority of Palestinians is
> neither for the Authority's misplaced trust in Oslo (or for its
> lawless regime of corruption and repression) nor for Hamas's
> violence.

[etc.]

On the other hand, a recent poll indicated that 75% of the population of the
West Bank and Gaza approved of the Haifa bombing.  But, more importantly:

> Why not re-read Edward Said?
> --
> Yoshie

Why not, indeed!  Why not re-read Edward Said with some care?  Did Ms.
Furuhashi miss THIS sentence in the article she herself posted:

> Having for a year wrung their
> collective hands and complained about the absence of a Palestinian
> peace movement (since when does a militarily occupied people have
> responsibility for a peace movement?),

(since when indeed!)

> the alleged peaceniks who can
> actually influence Israel's military have a clear political duty to
> organise against the occupation right now, unconditionally and
> without unseemly demands on the already laden Palestinians.

Unconditionally!

And without unseemly demands!

Can we take those as our marching orders, please, and hear no more about how
'the Palestinians have to obey the Geneva Conventions' and so on?

Edward Said was a great Palestinian scholar, speaker, and writer.  He was
not the ONLY one, but he had a unique ability to denounce imperialism and
Zionism in passionate and fact-laden argument that people here in the West
can understand.  He explained WHY there were suicide bombings.  That's what
will be tragically lacking now.

Edward Said was on the Palestine National Council.

Yoshie Furuhashi was never on the Palestine National Council, I believe.

Lou Paulsen was never on the Palestine National Council.

Lou Paulsen has not been invited to take a position of leadership in the
Palestinian revolutionary movement, which is just as well, because Lou
Paulsen does not have the delusion that he knows enough about the strategic,
tactical, political, psychological, etc.,  situation in Palestine that he
can run the Palestinian revolution.

If we re-read Edward Said CAREFULLY, we will be able to discern what parts
of his writing were intended as part of the internal debate among
knowledgeable Palestinians, which he naturally participated in; what parts
were intended for an audience in the Arab states; and what parts were
intended as advice to ourselves.

If there is an article by Dr. Said denouncing the left in the west for
overtolerance of Palestinian violence, or taking issue with the statement
approved at the Rutgers conference that it is not our task to DICTATE
strategy and tactics to the Palestinian people, I for one haven't seen it.

Not least among the damage done by a great fighter's death is that liberals
always find some way to pick up the corpse and beat the left over the head
with it.

Lou Paulsen
Chicago


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