I was surprised to find so many connections between “What is Eastern Europe? A Philosophical Approach” and Edward Said’s memoir “Out of Place.” The two pieces are inherently about different places, but the notion of borderlands, and the borderland self translates to Said’s struggle with identity and the confusion over Palestine itself, ‘a place that no longer exists.’ (Said xi)
“Out of Place” begins with the invention of “Edward” a role that the author continuously found himself distant from. The inner Edward, was not the American Edward his parents wanted him to be. He was an Arab in colonial schools, and a blatant falsity at the American school with his plain white socks. And so he felt. According to Sushytska’s framework, for Edward, the “other” was within the self, the “non-west” within the west. (Sushytska 11)
Similarly, at the beginning of his book Said states, “I have never known what language I spoke first, Arabic or English, or which one was really mine beyond any doubt.” (Said 4) This contradicts what Merleau-Ponty says about language (cited in Sushytska’s work), “We may speak several languages, but one of them always remains the one in which we live…” (Sushytska 9) By not knowing his lived language, it becomes more reasonable that Said eventually finds solace by finally acquiring his academic mind as his lived space, but also seemingly impossible.
In “What is Eastern Europe?” three kinds of borderland interaction (Sushytska 8) parallel Said’s awakening of his relationship to his space and identity. In the first stage, young Edward hasn’t acknowledged feeling “Out of Place” as anything more than his personal failure, and doesn’t seem to notice his surroundings as he does when grows older.
The second type of relation to borderlands is one that acknowledges the “spatial forms,” develops attitudes, but is not conscious. Moving outside of the space changes this person. In Said’s memoir I found that his borderland interaction paralleled the differences of his vacationing in Lebanon compared to his life in Cairo, and his level of comfort at his Palestinian school compared to his colonial school.
The third kind of interaction is simply a conscious one. This point in the story is difficult for me to place on an exact moment, but it exerts itself as an articulation of the feelings that have been developing throughout his life.
An interesting point in the story for me was how he found community being a troublemaker with the other Arab boys. It confronted the colonial powers at hand, serving as a microcosm for Egypt at the time. Most striking was when he locked his teacher in the closet, presenting it as a zoo with the Englishman in his “natural state.” This screamed “otherness” to me, (also reminding me of Africans and Native Americans being exhibits in early carnivals), and remained in my memory as a bench mark that got “Edward” to the point of writing “Orientalism.”
The most significant connection I made between “What is Eastern Europe?” and “Out of Place” was the similar conclusions on the formation and reformation of identity. This helped me communicate the refute of nationalism (specifically Zionism) I felt by Said’s peace with himself. “I occasionally experience myself as a cluster of flowing currents. I prefer this to the idea of a solid self…and at their best [the currents], they require no reconciling, no harmonizing. They are ‘off’ and out of place, but at least they are always in motion…” Sushytska brings up movement (Sushytska 11) and Heraclitus’ idea that the self is continually becoming and re-becoming the self. (Sushytska 3) The nation-state proves the antithesis by being a static form of identity that excludes the other from its strict borders.
The whole book Said is touchingly out of place, but in the end he views this as a good thing, “With so many dissonances in my life I have learned actually to prefer being not quite right and out of place.” This borderland identity has given Said a “vantage point” (Sushytska 12) to critique the west and colonialism. Sushytska ends her article with the conclusion that the first step to an Eastern European identity of movement is to confront otherness and admit, “…I am already other to myself…” (Sushytska 14) This is how Said begins and frames his memoir.
As a side note:
Palestine is not a country, (unlike the rabble-rousing advice my father gave me when choosing a subject for my sixth grade country report. My teacher told me I couldn’t do Palestine, that it was part of Israel [which is problematic in itself], and when I asked if I could report on Israel told me no and gave it to student with no backbone.) The geography of Palestine has been overtaken, and Palestinians displaced. More over, Palestinians can be Muslim, or Christian, or originally born in Lebanon like Said’s mother.
So to all of the conservative critics of “Out of Place” who claim that Said didn’t even really live in Palestine blah blah blah….. Conscious identity (see step 3) isn’t limited to a physical space. Sushytska relays the work of Mamardashvili in relation to Diaspora, “…one does not have to be physically present in a borderlands in order to actualize a certain way of being. We can ‘carry’ the place with us precisely because it has become us, and we have become it.” (Sushytska 8) I would argue that Palestine shares characteristics with borderlands in its uncertainty, and its ability as an identity (and specifically a complicated one.)
I also saw a lot of connections between Sushytska's work and Said's memoir. Said seems to live in a borderland both physically and psychically and as much as this gives him trouble as a child, as an adult he becomes comfortable with being "out of place." I too have experienced similar feelings of dislocation and have struggled to come to terms with it. I reached a similar conclusion as Said and Sushytska that a fluidity is beneficial and even meaningful. But I can't help but feel that this fluidity of identity is a distinctly American thing and easier to pull off if you have been immersed in American culture. Americans more easily embrace a hodgepodge of culture and diversity is prized. I don't know how useful Sushytska's analysis and Said's conclusions are if you have not been previously exposed to the idea of melding multiple and often conflicting identities. If this idea is not part of your cultural experience then you are not likely to see such a meshing as a strength.
ReplyDelete