Edward W. Said: Exile and Stranger

Representations of the Intellectual
The renowned literary and cultural critic, Edward W Said, who died earlier in this millennium was an intellectual at its best. In 1993 he was invited to hold the Reith Lectures, which is a series of six lectures broadcast live on BBC (Edward W Said, Representations of the Intellectual: the Reith Lectures. New York: Vintage Books, 1996).
The title of these lectures is ‘representations of the intellectual’. He was a Palestinian who grew up in Jerusalem and Cairo but who ended up as a professor in New York. In an honest and independent way he became a spokesperson for the Palestinian people and he embodied the perhaps most difficult part of the existence of the Palestinian people, namely of being exiled as it seems for good.
The title may not make much sense at first. The term ‘intellectual’ has in British usage (and also Swedish for example) become a rather negative word of somebody who is snobbish or who gives the impression of knowing better than others or who wants to show off what he/she knows.
Not so in Edward Said’s case. An intellectual is to him rather a person who can think for himself/herself, and who is prepared to share important inner convictions, not least when it is unpopular to do so.
‘Representations’ can mean two things. First it is about what this intellectual represents, for example the Palestinian people, the poor, the truth in a particular situation etc. Secondly it also means the image or model of something. In Swedish one could use the word ‘föreställningar’. In other words, ‘representation’ also is about that very person, the core of that person’s personality, what that person stands for.
It is rather meaningless to be an intellectual unless there is a public platform from which to speak. At the same time that person cannot hide the personal side. As what is said in public also is part of that person’s core belief that also has to come out into the open.
The true intellectual is not part of the establishment or political or other power structures. He/she speaks from a position of powerlessness. In addition, what has to be said many times is embarrassing, contrary and even unpleasant. There is an inner urge to speak out, to tell the truth, yes to speak the truth to power.
He or she is not a pacifier or consensus builder and is not a person who seeks reconciliation at all costs. On the contrary, the need to be truthful makes this most of the time impossible. It is many times to be a ‘border line being’, a person who lives in the tension between loneliness and alignment.
What I now have said can easily be found, but more explicated than here in the first lecture of Edward Said.
Why do I write about Edward Said today? In my preparations for other writings I simply had to look at his text again. There may be two reasons why he means a lot to me; first, because people of the third world take to him, perhaps not knowing exactly why. I remember a commemoration that was held after his death some five years ago. It took place at University of Cape Town. He had previously visited Cape Town at two occasions. People had been very responsive to what he said then. The sense was, I think, that he was seen as one of them (especially black South African academics). Just like them, he was very much a child of the Western culture and education and yet, he was never accepted as a real Westerner. This alienation, this never being accepted, and this endless tension between what you are and what you are not…
Secondly, I look up to him, as some one who learnt to appreciate his ‘outsidership’, it became a must to him. As a Palestinian he was forced into this situation. I could never claim that. As a Swedish citizen (even when the revenue people are harassing me) I can always return to where I came from; but through the years I have gained access to another country, which has become my life’s involvement. I have made myself a stranger without wanting it or knowing it. Now there will always be this great belonging and at the same time this estrangement. Said has helped us to accept this as a way of life that also can be, oddly enough, enjoyed, with the irony of fate.