Joseph Massad: This is how Edward Said and I were attacked by some Westerners for our defense of Arab civilization

Professor Joseph Massad spoke in an episode (7/31/2022) of the “Al-Muqabala” program about his enrollment in the “Freer” School in the Jordanian capital, Amman, where he was born in 1963, after his family was forced to seek refuge due to the Israeli occupation, and then he moved to the states The United States of America majored in engineering at a university in New Mexico.

But it seems that this state - which was subjected to the American occupation - refused to keep "Mas'ad" in constant contact with his history and the history of his Palestinian people, as he touched in this state the meanings of racism and discrimination between people on the basis of color.

As for the bloody and horrific scenes in the Sabra and Shatila massacre against the Palestinians in Lebanon, they constituted a turning point in the life of Massad, who decided to leave engineering and go completely to study politics and specialize in it.

It happened at that time that he got to know a Palestinian young man about 10 years older than him, who says that he opened his horizons to him regarding the Palestinian cause, and provided him with many important books that you talk about, the most important of which was the book "The Palestinian Issue and the Olive Branch" by David Hearst, and another book entitled " The Palestinian Question" by Edward Said.

And about his meeting with Edward Said, Joseph Massad says that this happened when he was studying at the university in the United States, so a friend gave him a book entitled “The Palestinian Question” by Edward Said, but he did not like the book because it is difficult and complicated, and he had never heard of the brilliant Palestinian-American thinker Edward Saeed, who enriched global libraries with political books in which he discussed the Palestinian issue and presented different images of Arab culture and civilization from those that the West had drawn and sought to devote.

Joseph Massad adds that in 1990 he met Edward Said for the first time in a conference in the capital, Washington, and years later, "Massad" joined Columbia University, which is one of the most famous universities in the United States, from which 3 American presidents graduated, and 104 of its students won the Nobel Prize, and dozens of students studied there. Leaders and heads of state, Edward Said was studying comparative literature.

Massad added that in the second year of his studies at the university, there were two subjects taught by Edward Said, and Edward used to meet all the students studying with him.

Regarding this interview, Joseph Massad says, "I went to meet him and we talked for a long time until he kicked me out of the office for the long time I spent with him."

After Joseph Massad graduated in 1998, he was hired at the university in 1999 as an assistant professor, at that time Edward Said was a colleague in the college, which allowed him to meet with the thinker Saeed on a daily basis, which contributed to transforming the relationship between them into a personality, and they formed one opinion against the Zionist lobbies within university and beyond.

In 2001, after the events of the September 2001 attacks, the Zionist "lobbies" (pressure groups) increased their pressure against Joseph Massad, and demanded that he not be installed in his job at the university, and after the death of Edward Said in 2004 the pressure increased against Joseph Massad because they did not want another Edward Said. .

In the context of these pressures, the Zionist “lobbies” produced a film in which students who were not Joseph Massad’s students took part, claiming that they were intimidated in the courses he teaches, especially those related to the Palestinian issue. They are not his students.

Also, many university professors and liberals - some of them Jews - stood by him and defended his right to defend his rights.

Western civilization

And about his view of Western civilization and how the Arabs see it;

Joseph Massad expressed his complete rejection of considering the Arab nation backward, and he also rejects the concept of Europe because it is "fluid" and does not express a coherent entity, according to him.

He stressed that there is no difference between Asia and Europe geographically because of their connection to each other, preferring to give the name Northwest Asia.

Joseph Massad accused the Europeans of deliberately limiting culture to them, allocating it to them, and claiming that they stand at the top of the ladder of civilization, and distributed the rest of the Indian, Chinese, Arab and Persian civilizations on the steps of this ladder. They also rejected the civilizations of many peoples out of racism, such as the peoples of Africa, the Americas, and the Australian aborigines.

He affirmed his conviction that the Europeans and Americans continued to steal the Arab, African and East Asian countries even after the end of their colonization, stressing that the industries and infrastructure in these countries are from the money that was stolen from the people.

And on the orientalists accusing the Arabic language and the Holy Qur’an of being late for the Arabs;

Joseph Massad described these accusations as false, explaining that there are Arab attempts, initiated by the thinker Mahdi Amel, to prove that the problem lies in capitalism. He also noted the conviction of thinkers Hussein Mroueh and Al-Tayeb Tizini that economic issues contribute to cultural backwardness.