Edward Said is one of my intellectual heroes. If you have not read Orientalism, you must. I found this piece on his love of music a lovely read. It really helps put a human face on the man behind one of the most important intellectual ideas of the 20th century.
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REFRESHING OUR MEMORIES OF EDWARD SAID
Apparently, the year that passed since Edward Said died saw a certain revival of the one state solution among Palestinians, among the Fateh Palestinians for example. It seems that even those who preferred, as Said did most of his lifetime, the two-states’ solution for Palestine, felt that the reality on the ground in Israel/Palestine defeated this particular solution. It seems that those who were committed to the Palestinian refugees’ right of return, also realized, as Said did for some time, that a two states structure as such held no hope for any reasonable or feasible solution for this particular problem, which is at the heart of the conflict and may be the key to its settlement. Yet, the two-state, not one-state, solution is or seems to be the only starting point for trade-offs and the only realistic path to Said’s very ideal of a bi-national state in Israel/Palestine in the future. Moreover, Said’s realistic utopia is badly in need of reformulation in unequivocally non-secular terms, if ever it is to become equally attractive for Palestinians and Israelis.
Please read the article at
http://jelloul.blogspot.com/2004/12/refreshing-our-memories-of-edward-said.html