left unsaid

Speaking of Edward Said, I remember years ago a Columbia student telling me that a group of them would go round the library removing Said’s books from the shelves and hiding them away – in palaeontology or whatever. It was an orchestrated campaign – the student (who was a friend at the time) was completely open about this Of course, what prompted them to do this were Said’s writings about and on behalf of the Palestinians.. Bear in mind also that Said’s apartment and university office were almost always under police protection, that he was inundated with death threats and so on. Now if a Professor supporting, for example, certain Israeli policies (occupation, the Wall, settlements) was subject to this kind of intimidation, imagine the uproar. And imagine how immediately this would be used to support a rhetoric of ‘left-wing extremism’ ‘enemies of free speech’ and so on. Now I don’t recall the right, who are constantly opining about ‘left intimidation on campuses’ getting particularly vexed about what was happening to Said, or pointing the finger at ‘Zionist extremists’ etc. I may be wrong. Not that I want to make a big point about it. Just an elementary one: typically people invoke universals like ‘freedom of speech’ when it affects their particular interests or chosen gang/ community. When it affects someone they don’t like they’ll find some little contextual glitch to prevent the universal being applied, or else they won’t even try to be consistent.