HEADLINE:   exile's map    

PUBLICATION: Cape Argus

PAGE NUMBER: 18

AUTHOR:     Zubeida Jaffer

DATE:       2001-02-28 06:26:22

An exile's map of one land at peace

The Palestinian writer Edward Said sees no hope of peace in the Middle East through division. Only by sharing can Israelis and Palestinians end the bloodshed, he believes. Special Writer Zubeida Jaffer reports

In the words of Nobel laureate Nadine Gordimer, Edward Said is  not "out of place", as the title of his autobiography suggests, but "in place among the truly important intellects of the 20th century". 

Introducing the Columbia University professor at a conference on values and democracy in education at Kirstenbosch at the weekend, Gordimer described him as an independent spokesman for the Palestianian people who had become a "target for many arrows". 

Both eminent intellectual and passionate advocate for a cause, Said said he could understand the longing of the Jewish people for Israel but could not understand why that longing had to displace the Palestinians. "That is profoundly unjust." 

Addressing a public meeting at the University of Cape Town this week, he said historically Jewish communities in the Arab world had never been subjected to the kind of anti-Semitism practised in Europe or the Holocaust of Europe. 

"We are paying the bill for Hitler," he said. 

As a child, he lived through the uprooting of his family from their native land - a process which left thousands of Palestinians without homes.  

Today those in exile like himself number about 4 million, none of whom enjoys rights of return or access to the land of their birth. In 1948, only 6.7% of the land belonged to Jews. After 1967, 93% of the land was transformed into Jewish land, held in trust. 

"No Arab can buy that land. Any Jew anywhere in the world has the right to go to Israel, while no Palestinian has that right." 

For just over 30 minutes, Said spoke with passion about the Palestinian cause in a very different tone to his hour-long academic presentation at the weekend education conference. 

Invited by Education Minister Kader Asmal, Said spoke at Kirstenbosch on the importance of the book and reading. His address was titled "The Confluence of Civilisations: The Book, Performance Art and Music in the 21st Century". 

At the conference, Said was the consummate academic, providing only a tiny glimpse into the mind of activism and passion.

At UCT the measured literary mind became the passionate campaigner for Palestinian rights, calling on his audience to understand and support his struggle. 

Agitated, unable easily to find the right words to describe his outrage at conditions in the Gaza Strip, he finally said it would make Soweto seem like Miami Beach. 

Not an apt description but an expression of his agitation. 

"The Gaza Strip is surrounded by electric wire. It is a vast cage," he said. 

Said has been an outspoken critic of the Israeli government and has recently not spared the Palestinian leadership either. 

"Long years of exile has turned the PLO into a desperate body unable to do much except guarantee the rights of the inner circle, the mafia, I am sorry to say," he said. "We have a corrupt regime under (Yasser) Arafat in which there is no public sector." 

But in the absence of realistic alternatives, Said continues to acknowledge  Arafat as leader. 

"While he is a tragic and complex figure, he is still our leader," he said. "He unified Palestinians during the darkest moments and kept hope alive." 

He is careful in describing the present leadership impasse as temporary. 

But at the weekend conference, he intimated that he hoped for the emergence of a younger layer of leaders with a commitment to inclusivity. 

What was also needed from such a leadership was something akin to the generosity of the South African black majority. Peace needed a recognition on the Israeli side that co-existence was possible. 

He does not support the view that the Palestinian cause is an Islamic one. Palestinians are both Christian and Muslim. Said, himself a Christian, says it is a secular struggle.  

"It has religious components but not principally," he said. "People react against injustice. On the Israeli side, there is a religious component - this is discrimination of non-Jews by Jews. They have brought this element in, not us." 

At UCT, he had harsh words both for the past involvement of the British government and the present role of the United States government. 

"Britain bears a heavy responsibility here," he said. He was referring to the starting point of the conflict in 1917, when the British Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour, promised Palestine to the Jewish people.  

The British at the time recognised a well-organised Zionist movement which had started in Europe at the end of the 19th 

century. 

The movement had conceived of returning Jews to a place where they could be free of anti-Semitism.

"What Balfour did was promise the territory of one people to another," said Said. 

Said is an American citizen but is "ashamed" of his adoptive country's role in the Middle East peace process. 

"It is very much on the Israeli side," he said. "The US subsidy to Israel is the highest paid by any power in the history of foreign aid - $5 billion a year." 

Financial support ran parallel to political and military support. "The US protects Israel at the United Nations," he said. "It has vetoed up to 60 resolutions condemning Israeli actions." 

During the present uprising, the largest single military transfer came from the US. 

"Fifty helicopters were transferred in October last year and used to attack civilian houses," he said. 

In response to a student, he conceded that every story had two sides but said a distinction had to be drawn between what was just and what was unjust.  

"The Zionist movement was a movement of conquest and dispossession," he said. "It was an armed movement." 

What one saw today was an uprising of mainly young people armed with rocks against one of the most heavily armed powers in the world. 

Said, who has been diagnosed with leukaemia and describes himself as a "sick man", sees no hope in an arrangement whereby peace proposals signed at Oslo insist on dividing people into separate 

"Bantustans".  

He calls for a system of one person, one vote for all and the co-existence of all people in the land of Palestine, also known as Israel. 

"The only hope is that the two peoples will understand that the other will simply not go away." 

He sees no hope of a military solution. "Arab states have frequently betrayed us," he said. What he did see as hopeful was the efforts inside Israel at joint non-violent struggle, which involved the beginnings of co-operation between Israelis and Palestinians. The peace process as it stood, with its insistence on division of peoples, could not  go anywhere. "It is at an end," he said.

l For the full text of Said's Kirstenbosch speech, go to the Cape Argus website at   www.capeargus.co.za