Finding Solutions and Preserving Memories: Reading Said's "Culture and Resistance"

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Words like "context" or "academic" are often seen as a less socially relevant item sealed within the walls of the academy. Few people would think that the sorting of historical archives and academic research can bring communication and influence, and even more hope to bring peace than political negotiations between two countries. Said's "Culture and Resistance" can bring us some new ideas.

Culture and Resistance is Edward W. Said's final collection of interviews. The book, in chronological order, includes six interviews with Said on Palestine from 1992 to 2003, seven months before his death. Among them, a core question runs through all the interviews: "How to resist injustice?" How can we maintain our desire for change when not only is being subjected to unfair violence, but even calls for help are being distorted, run, and buried? According to Said: "Culture" plays a key role in holding on to hope in the midst of suffering.

Culture can be a way to resist forgetting. The last chapter of the book, "At the Rallying Point of Victory", describes: In a situation where the Palestinians' survival is at stake, the Palestinians maintain their sense of identity through film, drama, poetry, etc. Resisting the world completely erases their traces. But beyond that, culture has another facet: it also has an "analytical power" in situations of unjust suffering. Through culture, we look at the "enemy" back into their historical context, questioning the "enemy"'s official discourse about ourselves, but also loosening our established impressions of the other. In the present situation, culture has the potential to find new paths with us.

What role can knowledge play?

One of the advantages of this book is that the interviews are arranged in chronological order: readers can also feel the gradual tension of the external situation, and the live interaction between the changes in Said's views. Of course, Said has his consistent philosophy and insistence that there should be room for the "other", whether it is for the Palestinians or for the Israelis. However, the tense situation between Israel and Palestine also seems to make the room for intellectuals to play less and less. After all, what role can knowledge play in society?

One way is to change people's thinking from the individual through education and information dissemination. Said himself, as a university teacher, took himself as an example, Said argued that in addition to bringing students worthy authors, the acquisition of "critical reading" ability is also very important. He said, "No book is created out of thin air." Because the original material and the content of the book are the result of a series of choices made by the author. Therefore, not only can the book be regarded as a self-sufficient individual, but the book can be placed between the author and the society, and the interaction between them can be observed. In this process, we will find that texts always go out of themselves and relate to other texts; readers may also be shaken by it, and put back the "national boundaries", "concepts", etc., which were previously taken for granted, back to their historical Think in context.

Another important effect of knowledge is that it enables communication, discussion and dialogue. Said did not refuse to read and listen to the Israelis because he opposed the actions of the Israeli government. That's why he observed that a new generation of Israeli historians, by combing through historical materials in Israel and Palestine, also re-examined their government's national discourse. The possibility of questioning the official discourse has emerged among the Israeli community. Although such debates are still confined to Jewish/Israelites, Palestinian perspectives are not introduced. But Said emphasized that the point is not to criticize the limitations of this debate, but to draw more people into the discussion by virtue of this situation. Especially when political negotiations continue to be frustrated, Palestinians may be able to actively engage in dialogue with Israelis, demonstrating the fact that Palestinians live in the same space, both historically and now.

Culture and strategies of resistance

Regardless of the specific strategy of resistance, increasing communication and resources must be an important basis for perseverance. In the "Single State Programme" interview (Chapter 1 of this book), Said spoke about the "loneliness of Palestinians". In addition to Palestinians being restricted by the Israeli government's life and going abroad, very few Arabs are willing to come to Palestine. The reason is that the Arabs "use this [refusal to enter Israel and Palestine] as a symbol of support for the Palestinians". However, the actual impact of this approach is that Palestine cannot get medical, educational and other assistance from Arab countries. Said emphasized: Entering the gate of Israel is not a compromise with injustice; on the contrary, it is to enter Palestine through Israel, and it is a declaration of standing with the Palestinians.

Although in order to help others, we must have a moderate amount of wiggle room. But another tactic of resistance also lies in correcting unjust, untrue official accounts. The Israeli government uses education and the media to rationalize the Israeli army's drive out of Palestinians by calling Palestinians who originally settled in the same land "nomads". And it also obliterates the fact that the army expels and kills Palestinians in order to get a place to live. However, no matter how much Palestinians hate the actions of the Israeli government, this must be viewed separately from the "Israelis" who are new settlers. In fact, the Others/Israelis have also inhabited the same land. Fighting for the conscience of the Israeli people is absolutely the only way for Palestinians to be free. Therefore, in Said's view: the history of the Palestinians and the Israelis has long been intertwined, and is actually the history of "the same land". So Said also said: "The key is not just to study history, but also to study maps and geography." In this way, people's conscience is awakened, and the "other" is given concrete history and space.

In addition to enlisting the support of others, the Palestinians' efforts prove that even in difficult circumstances, it is possible to preserve ethnic memory. In the last chapter of the book, Said argues that since the Palestinians have no central government, they also have no official discourse and no organized memory. But in the folk, almost every household keeps old letters, old photos, old newspaper clippings, etc., which are left and witness the life of people in the previous era. In addition to objects, language also plays a role in preserving identity and ethnic sentiment. Each person's language is related to the interlocutor, and in the course of a person's conversation, his language is both related and different from the object (such as the caregiver, etc.) of the acquired language; it also brings the traces of the past into the future. Furthermore, the memory should not only be preserved in the ethnic group, but should also spread the history of people's suffering; as Said said, one of the most immediate reasons is: "Because it is a story that may disappear at any time". One of the responsibilities of intellectuals is to convey suffering through stories, reminding people that we are not talking about something abstract, but "people" who can be injured and killed.

In the six interviews included in the book, later on, we can see Said's disappointment with the status quo of representative democracy. On this point: "Culture" is also one of the keys to our ability to shake the existing system. According to Said's observation, he found that although the representative democratic government has many flaws in its policies and implementation, the media disseminates it, implying that dissidents are "the street", barbarians, and subhumans, so they The protests are not relevant to "the general public". Suppressing dissent through the power of the media makes it difficult for the public to reflect on the government's governance amid the bombardment of a lot of information. Moreover, the opposition party was completely absorbed into the system and could not play its opposite function. Therefore, Said believes that the dissemination of information is very relevant to politics. In order to correct the track of representative democratic government, it seems that the media's discourse should be reversed and the public's critical awareness should be aroused. In collectives such as universities, churches, and labor movements, there is still the possibility of transmitting the truth and rebuilding the opposite.

make room for others

After reading this book, intellectuals will feel the difficulties of reality even more. But as Said constantly emphasizes in the book: "Book" and "people" both appear in a specific space and context. Said criticized Arab intellectuals and said: Arab countries have little democracy, in addition to the dictatorship of the government, it is also related to the lack of citizenship among intellectuals. Intellectuals often pin their hopes on changes in international politics, but have no interest in studying their neighbors/enemies. But in fact: only by winning more people in a peaceful way can a longer-term and sound system be established. Said said the oppressed should bring a message of peace to their neighbors/enemies: "We live here and you live here, it cannot be denied. You must find out the truth about your past, find out our past the truth."

This is what Said has always mentioned: leave room for "the other"; and also appeal to the conscience of the enemy: "leave room for the other!" Therefore, he has always emphasized "1948" the importance of this age. In 1948, the Israelis expelled and refused to allow Palestinians fleeing the fighting to return, and 800,000 Palestinians have never been able to return to their hometowns to settle. Twenty years after Said's death, as he had foreseen: as long as the Israeli government is unwilling to recognize "1948" and that the Palestinians are already living in the same space; political negotiations will always be difficult to take effect.