Review
   Gauri Viswanathan (ed) (2002) Power,
  Politics and Culture: interviews with Edward
   W Said. New York: Vintage.
  Derek Hook
  South Africa is a consistent point of reference in Edward Said's recent
  career-spanning collection of interviews. This is perhaps unsurprising
  given that as much as half of Said's prodigious output has been devoted to
 advancing the Palestinian cause, a cause which he sees as having much to
 learn from the South African experience. Said of course is the celebrated
 author of Orientalism and Culture and Imperialism, two titles whose
 unorthodox blend of literary/cultural criticism and politics largely
 inaugurated the field of postcolonial studies. This overlap of traditional
 academic activity and more forthright politics has been the hallmark of
 Said's originality, and this title replicates such an approach, split as its
 contents are into sections on theory and criticism, and the other on
 Palestinian activism.
    The parallels between the struggle of black South Africa and that of
 Palestine looms large for Said, and it is here more than anywhere that he
 best develops such comparisons. Hence his thoughts on the historical
differences between the ANC and PLO (the former 'strategically very firm
and tactically flexible', the latter 'exactly the opposite' [2002:406]), and
on the similarities between Afrikaner and Israeli territorial claims (the
Afrikaner possessed 'aproto-Zionist ideology' [2002:452]). Likewise, his
musings on a model for integration: here the binational solution of a shared
sovereignty he poses for Israel/Palestine is held up against the 'political
realism' of the South African model based on goals of'coexistence and
equality with a hope of truth and reconciliation'. The overwhelming lesson
of South Africa's recent political history, for Said, however, is that of
looking carefully 'at a complex history of ethnic antagonism' understanding
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Derek Hook
it and then 'moving on', rather than being mired in a rhetoric of blame
which redivides constituencies along the old lines of separation (2002:451).
    We have less 'Said the author' than 'Said the speaking intellectual' on
show here As quickly becomes apparent, there are very different risks
mvolved in publishing a collection of interviews than m remaining within
the more guarded domain of the strictly written word. Whether it is his
intention or not, Said's text reminds us of the importance of the interview,
of the spoken interchange, as a vital medium of intellectual activity -
particularly so when activism forms a central part of the project. Of course
the interview can make for a precarious situation for the intellectual.
 Whereas the printed word means that the author has had the time to
 consider his or her thoughts, to think them through, the spontaneity of the
 interview necessitates a 'thinking on one's feet'. Moreover, here it is the
 interviewer - for the most part - who is best prepared. It is here the case that
 sometimes Said's interlocuters make the best points; that the text, perhaps
 somewhat ironically, foregrounds some of the most trenchant critiques of
 his own position. One critic laments the 'flat-footedness' of Said's attack
 on Western media representations of the Arab, implying that Said's rather
 stark analysis of these mechanisms itself leans towards the stereotypical.
     Far closer to touching a nerve is the point of a Calcutta interviewer who
 asks whether it is not the case that, as a result of his influence on colonial
 discourse studies, that Indian history writing has been derailed from its
 social history agenda. As much as Said insists on the historical groundedness
 of his work, the interviewer is right. Although Said has a great deal to offer
 us as a critic, his critical system has detracted attention from Marxist
 conceptions of history, ideology and capital. As important as Said's
  assertion of' worldliness' is - that is, his aversion to intellectuals as super-
  specialised technicists with elaborate jargons and little or no contact with
  the real world of power, authority and struggle - at times his approach to
  critical activity seems dangerously atheoretical. This is especially the case
  when he suggests that 'the intellectual role is essentially that of ...
  heightening consciousness, becoming aware of tensions, complexities'
  (2002:385). At times, Said's implicit trust in a 'critical consciousness'
  seems not to take full cognisance of the ideological nature of power, that
  in itself might produce something akin to a false consciousness, even in the
  hallowed form of ostensibly progressive critical activities.
      This book also illustrates Said's own situation or, more to the point, the
   double-edged sword of what it means to be a popular intellectual. There are
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  gains to be had here. When the book's dustcover identifies Said as 'the most
  widely known Palestinian intellectual in the west', we are not confronting
 a facile exaggeration. The profile that Said was able to lend the Palestinian
 cause as a result of his prominence has been considerable. This popularity,
 however, has also meant that Said has been prey to some systematic
 misreadings, perhaps chief amongst which is the 'identity politics'
 appropriation of Said that proclaims that a staunch ethnic or nationalist
 identity is the foremost weapon against cultural dispossession,
marginalisation, or racism. Said repeatedly opposes such a view, baldly
 stating that a 'principal role of the intellectual is ... to break up these large,
transcultural identities' (2002:391).
    Such a politics of identity leads all too easily to insularity, to forms of
separatism and xenophobia. In contrast to such approaches, Said prefers a
far more serviceable form of'rootedness'. 'There's only one way to anchor
oneself, he claims, 'and that is by affiliation with a cause, with a political
movement ... [through] identification with matters involving justice,
principle, truth, conviction' (2002:366). This is no doubt a more difficult
and more elusive goal than it might first appear, and one that is at times
perhaps less ideologically straightforward than Said would have us believe.
As a goal of intellectual activity, though, it certainly has its merits.
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