“I’ve been living here for 50 years, and I’ve never felt quite as alienated,” he told a crowd gathered at Chapman University in Orange, California. Born in Jerusalem in 1935, he moved to Cairo with his family in 1947 and then came to the United States in 1951, experiencing the discomforts of being a member of an often marginalized and demonized ethnic minority. Said’s vantage point is tandem: first, as a cultural historian, and secondly, as someone who belongs to both sides of the discussion – he’s a Palestinian-Arab as well as an American. In these cautious times, Edward Said is one of the few speaking out about the situation, elegantly tracing the long, tawdry history of anti-Arab animosity. It is an old silence, one which has allowed the demonizing of Arabs to become woven into all aspects of the political and cultural fabric. With the one-year anniversary of September 11 approaching, and as recurring “terrorism alerts” continue to fuel waves of panic and paranoia, the American public remains overwhelmingly mute about violations of civil rights perpetrated against Arabs and Muslims in the U.S.
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