EDWARD SAID and Palestine (1986)

Apr 6, 2013 | EDWARD SAID (1935-2003). Palestinian-born intellectual and world-famous literary critic. Author of 'Orientalism' and 'The Question of Palestine'. Professor of English Literature at Columbia University, NYC until his death. From the BBC series 'Exiles'.

WIKIPEDIA: Edward Said »

World-renowned scholar Edward Said dies »

Concert for J'lem 'Arab Capital' Begins
THE JERUSALEM POST: Maestro Daniel Barenboim brought his troupe of young Arab and Israeli classical musicians to Geneva on Friday for a concert dedicated to the late Palestinian-American academic Edward Said and the contentious choice of Jerusalem as this year's "Arab Cultural Capital."

In a news conference that featured the iconoclastic Israeli conductor's usual combination of humor and gravitas, art and politics, Barenboim said his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra offered another way of examining ideals of justice, humaneness and understanding that are often lacking in the Middle East conflict.

The 10-year-old orchestra founded by Barenboim and Said includes Israeli and Palestinian musicians, as well as performers from Arab countries such as Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, and non-Arab states Turkey and Iran.

Barenboim said it was fitting that such a diverse group celebrate the Arab League's naming of Jerusalem as a cultural capital, even if the choice has angered Israeli authorities who say the entire city is the Jewish state's undivided and eternal capital.

"The Arab World is not just Muslims. It's also Christians and Jews," said the Argentinian-born Barenboim, who moved to Israel when he was 9, but has become well-known in recent years for his outspoken support of Palestinian statehood and criticism of the Israeli government.

"West Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and East Jerusalem will inevitably be the Palestinian capital," he said. "The city is neither Israeli nor Palestinian. It is universal." >>> Associated Press, Geneva | Saturday, Aufust 08, 2009

The Sensual Orient Has Become Chaste
RADIO NETHERLANDS WORLDWIDE: Dutch writers and artists in the 19th century took great interest in the Middle East. Art historian Jan de Hond wrote his dissertation about these orientalists. Some were out to prove the superiority of their own Western culture, while others were searching for something missing at home, such as free love.

In the 19th century, thousands of European writers and artists travelled to the Islamic countries around the Mediterranean. Their books and paintings found immense popularity among a large section of the public. French and British writers and artists were perhaps more obsessed with oriental culture than others but Orientalism was also a phenomenon in the Netherlands and it interested writers such as Marcellus Emants and Louis Couperus and the artist Marius Bauer.

What lay at the bottom of the enormous interest in the Orient? According to the Palestinian literary theorist Edward Said, the image that European writers and artists constructed of the Orient was dependent on colonialism. In order to justify colonialism, the Orient was presented as the opposite of the occident and the opposite of how Europeans saw themselves. Europe was dynamic, enlightened, rational and democratic and the Orient was seen as static, backward, irrational and despotic. In the 1970s, Mr Said's book, Orientalism became the bible of left-wing Arab intellectuals. One-dimensional >>> By Michel Hoebink | 29-02-2008

Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)