- I can only agree with Professor
Edward Said when he called the cancellation of his lecture
outrageous. The speech that the renowned Palestinian American
professor was supposed to give on May 6, in commemoration of
Freud’s birth, has been cancelled by the Freud Society of
Vienna.
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- Johann August Schulein, the
society’s president retracted the invitation because of
"the political development in the Middle East and the
consequences expected."
-
- Schulein further excused the
deinvitation because he said that many members of the society
would not accept attending a lecture of an "engaged
Palestinian" who throws stones at Israelis soldiers.
-
- The incident occurred when Dr.
Said was having a stone-throwing contest with his son near the
Lebanese border. The stone itself, Said has said, was a
"symbolic gesture of joy" in celebration of the end
of the Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon.
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- Dr. Said is one of the most
brilliant writers on Palestinian, Arab and Muslim affairs. He
is also a professor of English and Comparative Literature at
Columbia University. His speech was to be about Freud’s
fascination with the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Palestine
and Greece.
-
- It is indeed an irony that the
professor’s presence in Vienna is being denied when Freud
himself was driven out of the same city because he was a Jew.
It is also a very lame excuse to cancel Dr. Said’s lecture
because of a stone he threw at no one in particular. The
closest Israeli guardhouse was half a mile away.
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- Stones that are thrown within
the Palestinian Occupied Territories are themselves symbols of
freedom and the Palestinian struggle for liberty and
self-determination. These are the inalienable rights of all.
It is for these reasons that the Americans themselves fought
the British in the American Revolution not so long ago. And it
is for these very same ideals that the Scottish William
Wallace sacrificed his life so that his people could be free
of the tyranny they were living under.
-
- That Schulein fails to
comprehend what is really happening in Palestine is a tragedy
in itself. As the Jews remember their own persecutions and
their quest for freedom and the right to practice what they
believe in, so should they recognize that the Palestinians are
entitled to the same rights on their own soil.
-
- That stones are considered
lethal weapons against a heavily armed Israeli militia is
preposterous and shows how unrealistic Western perception is
of events that take place in the Middle East. Simply because
an Israeli is a Jew, does not give him the right to go out and
slaughter Palestinian civilians.
-
- Professor Said is not only the
champion of Palestinian causes, but he is also a champion of
universal principles. To ban him from lecturing at the society
is detrimental to the freedom of speech and freedom of thought
that are dear to us all.
