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Edward W. Said

In keeping with worldwide tribute to an important intellectual, memorial services for Edward W. Said, a prolific yet controversial writer and supporter of the Palestinian movement, will be held at UCLA on Saturday.

The event, sponsored by the United Arab Society of UCLA and American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, will reflect on the life and legacy of the well-known writer and social critic.

Edward W. Said died on Sept. 25, in a New York hospital. He had suffered from chronic lymphoid leukemia since 1992.

Like his life, memorial services for Said have taken an international scope, with tributes taking place in Britain, Brazil and numerous other countries.

Said was perhaps the most prominent advocate of Palestinian independence in the United States, and sometimes expressed views more radical than those of Palestinian leadership members. At times, he sharply criticized Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for being too lenient when he dealt with Israel.

In 2000 Said stirred controversy when he threw a rock toward an Israeli guardhouse on the Lebanese border. Said was a Columbia University professor at the time.

Though he denounced terrorism and suicide bombings, Said accused Israel and its “homicidal” prime minister, Ariel Sharon, of worse “barbarity” against unarmed Palestinians.

“Are Palestinian civilian men, women and children no more than rats or cockroaches that can be attacked and killed in the thousands without so much as a word of compassion or in their defense?” he wrote last year in The Nation, a liberal U.S. magazine.

Said was a prominent member of the Palestinian parliament-in-exile for 14 years, until he finally stepped down in 1991.

After the signing of the Oslo peace accords two years later between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, Said criticized Arafat because he believed the PLO leader had sold out the Palestinian cause.

In a lecture at Tufts University, Said said Arafat and the Palestinian Authority “have become willing collaborators with the (Israeli) military occupation, a sort of Vichy government for Palestinians.”

On Feb. 20 Said visited the UCLA community to speak about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, addressing a crowd of some 1,800.

Said said the current Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is brutal, citing widespread violations of Palestinian human rights.

During that forum, UCLA Hillel’s Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller disagreed with some of Said’s statements, particularly that the Jews in Palestine in 1948 drove out 800,000 Palestinians in an unprovoked attack.

Said had a strong stance on an emotionally charged and controversial subject, and many see him as an important intellectual and inspiration.

Sondra Hale, a professor of anthropology and women’s studies at UCLA, considers Said “one of the important thinkers of the 20th century.”

Hale, who met Said, said she had been influenced by his works, and she is currently co-organizing a symposium intended to highlight the various contributions Said has had on a number of disciplines.

“His accomplishments, academic and humanistic, often get overlooked because of his stand for the Palestinian cause,” she said.

His 1978 work, “Orientalism,” focused on the history of the West “(coming) to terms” with the so-called “Muslim Orient.” The book helped launch a new academic field of post-colonial studies.

Miriam Segura, a second-year biology student and member of the student board at Hillel, felt it was important to memorialize Said’s life.

“It’s important to memorialize someone’s life, irrespective of whether or not one agrees with his or her politics,” she said.

With reports from Bruin wire services. The memorial service will take place at Schoenberg Hall on Saturday at 7 p.m.