Out of Place 

Anjum Niaz

Oct 12th, 2003

http://www.dawn.com/weekly/dmag/dmag3.htm

Indeed, Edward Said is simply unforgettable. That voice is now silenced forever.

Eloquently passionate, a New Yorker since 1963 when he arrived at Columbia to teach English, Edward Said sat with his legs crossed and his frail frame taut as he made a case for Palestinian freedom. The cancer in him had sunk his eyes deeper and pinched his chiselled features to deathly pale, yet had failed to rob him of his splendour. His musician's fingers, although too slender, moved in animated agitation along with the sentences that rhapsodized the hall full of admirers hearing in pin-drop silence what America's leading intellectual had to say.

Indeed, Edward Said was unforgettable. That voice is now silenced forever.

"Those fortunate enough to have studied with him as I did, as well as thousands of others who read his books, had their minds and work changed by his passionately held ideas. He was a brilliant thinker, an inspiring teacher, a courageous and tireless activist and a charming human being. His influence on two generations of literary, political and cultural thinkers has been profound."

Professor Jane Tompkins of University of Illinois has paid her former classmate from Harvard days the highest tribute and rebuked the New York Times for not "doing justice to the memory of a great and distinguished man" in its obituary column.

The NYT is not alone. Those who are negative about Islam jumped to attack Said as soon as news of his death spread. The Wall Street Journal called him a "rock throwing" professor known for his "virulent anti-Israel and anti-America views" who wrote "for the crack-pot web site Counterpunch.org." The WSJ's Indian-origin editorial features editor, Tunku Varadarajan (a Pakistan basher), censured Said for allegedly lying about his Palestinian roots.

And yet, it's an Indian to whom Edward Said dedicated his autobiography Out of Place! Dr Kanti Rai is the doctor who treated Said and became his personal friend. Now Said's family has asked people not to send flowers but donations to Rai to continue his search for a cure for leukemia, the disease that Said fought for 13 years.

Islam has lost its most brilliant defender in America.

Thirty miles outside New York, in a sleepy suburban town made up of mostly whites with manicured lawns and American flags, my car comes to a screeching halt as I see ugly red graffiti strewn across a railway bridge calling to 'Ban Islam'! A couple of furlongs away is the repeat message scrawled this time on the cement wall of a garage. This is the first time I see such a message written in bold, threatening red, bang in the midst of a residential area more consumed with soccer and pizza than Islam! Even the unfortunate owner of the garage whose wall has been vandalized must wonder what the significance of the message is.

It's so out of place!

Probably, the graffiti will stay until the elements - wind, rain and snow - wipe it away. Just as dead animals lie around on roads for days, until their remains get levelled out by moving cars or vultures. Amazing that the richest country in the world has no system of scavenging off animal carcass.

One town over is a Pakistani restaurant called Badshah. Jaleel Butt and his wife, both American citizens, are the proud owners. Both are from Islamabad. While the wife mans the kitchen and maintains "quality control", as Jaleel puts it proudly, he himself holds the fort and personally attends to his customers with delicious Pakistani cuisine always served with a bright smile. His young son chips in as well. In two years, since the place opened, he has built a steady clientele, 80 per cent of which are white Americans preferring his food and the friendly ambiance that comes with it instead of the cold, impersonal fast-food outlets that are dime a dozen everywhere you turn.

Having lived in the US for 17 years, Jaleel says he has never felt "uncomfortable" nor known any kind of harassment or discrimination. "I feel safe - my house is open, no one has broken in nor destroyed my car. We live in an environment that offers us security and equal opportunity to make money."

He thinks while ordinary Americans have no quarrel with Muslims and Islam, it's the hype created by the media that is so detrimental to diversity. "Pakistanis who have chosen to make America their home are law-abiding, hard-working people who have already sacrificed by leaving behind their country and family for a better life here - why would they favour those who in the name of Islam advocate terrorism?"

Jaleel Butt is a model Pakistani American who has earned respect in the community and worked hard to climb up the slippery totem pole to reach a social and financial status that he enjoys today. As for his religion - well, he prefers to quietly practice and not preach.

But 24-year-old Nabeel Siddiqui - the only son of his parents - who too came to the US with dreams of making it big, lay in a Newark Trauma Centre a couple of miles away from where Butt lives. He finally lost his life after being attacked by four teenage hoodlums who ordered in a pizza that he delivered and got battered on the head. One side of his brain got severely damaged.

It was only last month that he graduated from the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Computer Science.Was the young Nabeel's ambition to live, work and earn money in the US out of place?

Meanwhile, 5,000 miles away on the other side of America is another Pakistani couple who have endowed $1.7 million to the University of Illinois to establish a fellowship in Computer Science to encourage exceptional Pakistani students to attend graduate school in computer science.

And last month the couple announced a gift of $2.5 million to establish "The Sohaib and Sara Abbasi Programme in Islamic Studies" at Stanford University, California.

Sohaib Abbasi is a former senior vice president of Oracle Corporation.

"Our decision to endow this programme at Stanford is based on a desire to see expanded opportunities for the study of Islam in Stanford's curriculum," says Sohaib Abbasi. "We are privileged to participate in the formation of the Islamic Studies Programme at Stanford that will foster a better understanding of Islam, Muslims and the Islamic civilization. We look forward to Stanford becoming one of the preeminent institutions for Islamic studies in North America."

Is such magnanimity out of place?

Sara and Sohaib are endowing millions to educational institutions in America in a bid to build bridges between Islam and other religions, between Americans and Pakistanis. The success story that they are today enables them to play this part.

In today's cluster of flowing currents, can the legacy of Edward Said; the honest toil of Jaleel Butt; the tragedy of Nabeel Siddiqui and the mighty benevolence of Sara and Sohaib Abbasi really make a dent in how Islam is viewed by America and how Pakistanis are treated by their adopted country?

Will Pakistanis ever be accepted or will they always be out of sync? Why did Edward Said call his autobiography Out of Place?

Edward Said, for one, failed to eschew 'filiation' - alliance based on birth, nationality or profession) in favour of 'affiliation' - allegiances born out of 'social and political conviction, economic and historical circumstances, voluntary effort and willed determination'. But his enemies think otherwise: "He was ultimately grandstanding for the West - for Western eyes, Western salons and Western applause."