6 C o l u m b i a U n i v e r s i t y RECORD March 28, 2003

MI D N I G H T’S CH I L D R E N HU M A N I T I E S F E S T I VA L

Edward Said Reflects on Themes of Colonialism and Magical Realism in Midnight’s Children

Complex themes of colonialism,magical realism, history and destinydramatically collide in SalmanRushdie’s Midnight’s Children with“extraordinary power, wit andinsight,” explains University Profes-sor Edward Said.

Akeel Bilgrami, Johnsonian Pro-fessor of Philosophy welcomed Saidto the stage on March 5, in Casa Ital-iana for an intimate conversationabout Salman Rushdie’s work as partof the month long Humanities Festi-val celebrating Midnight’s Children.The two discussed the cultural, politi-cal and social backdrop of Rushdie’smajor epic of modern India, as well assome of his other celebrated works.

In Midnight’s Children, Rushdietells the story of India’s indepen-dence and Pakistan’s creation, a con-vergence of two worlds, pre andpost-colonial India, and how, as Saiddescribes “at the strike of midnight[Indians] began their lives with greathopes.” Acclaimed as one of themost enduring novels of the 20thcentury, Midnight’s Children alsodemonstrates Rushdie’s uniquegenius in portraying the idea of histo-ry as displaced, according to Said.

Protagonist Saleem Sinai is one of1,001 midnight’s children born at thestroke of midnight on India’s first dayof independence, Aug. 15, 1947.Switched at birth, Saleem is actuallya Hindu child raised by wealthyMuslims. The character’s life, and hissearch for true identity, is allegorical

to India’s search for self through thefirst years of independence, the parti-tion of India and Pakistan to the riseof Indira Ghandhi, war, and theimposition of martial law. Historyalmost comes full-circle in Mid-night’s Children— from the oppres-sion of imperialism up to1947, to thesuppression of civil rights in 1975.

Said, a long-time personal friendof Rushdie, praised the writer’s lin-guistic style, describing his musicalprose as “verbal fireworks.” He alsohighlighted Rushdie’s skills as anessayist—particularly citing hisesteem for “Imaginary Homelands,”a collection of essays from 1981-1991 on racism in multiculturalBritain. Said, Bilgrami and the audi-ence debated Rushdie’s major influ-ences—Franz Kafka, NadineGordimer, and the magical realismof Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

The themes of magical realism,recreating traditions and recastinghistory, also figure in Rushdie’s laterworks, including the author’s mostfamous novel, The Satanic Verses.Rushdie, who, according to Said,underestimated world reaction to thebook, gave the speaker an advancedmanuscript to read. Said poked fun athis regret of losing the original text ina move.

The 1988 tale, which the authorclaimed in a Time magazine reviewwas “[not] about Islam but aboutmigration, metamorphosis, dividedselves, love, death, London andBombay,” brought him a death sen-tence from the Ayatollah Khomeiniand forced Rushdie into hiding. Said

believes the author’s years of livingunderground affected the writerdeeply. “He felt confusion, denialand anger for the onslaught against“Verses.” There was a sense his ownpeople turned against him.”

Rushdie’s experience with Islamand his political views have“changed over time,” concludedSaid in a lively audience questionand answer period. Debate rangedfrom subjects as diverse as the crisesin Kashmir and the Mideast, to

Rushdie’s take on the looming warwith Iraq.

Political issues in Midnight’s Chil-dren echo Rushdie’s continued con-cerns about the state of the worldtoday, but the novel’s major underly-ing theme is the author’s true love forhis country. Even if we get the sensethat in Rushdie’s contemporaryIndia, “colonialism never ends,”characters in the novel are aware ofthe role they each play in shapingIndia’s future.

Said, a professor of English andcomparative literature is known asboth a scholar of modern literatureand theory as well as a scholar of Mid-dle East politics. He also is the authorof the groundbreaking book Oriental-ism, a seminal evaluation of Westernmisperceptions of the East (MuslimOrient), which set the stage for post-colonial studies. Other works includeQuestion of Palestine, Culture andImperialism and Politics of Dispos-session.

BY KATIE MOORE

Akeel Bilgrami, left, and Edward Said on stage in Casa Italiana for a conversation on Salman Rushdie.

Writers Discuss the the Effects of Politics and Oppression on Their Medium

The first sign of oppression iswhen the government tries to takeyour freedom of expression, saidEduardo Machado, associate profes-sor of Theatre Arts, during the Writ-ers and Oppression Humanities Fes-tival panel discussion on Mar. 7.Reflecting on the pressures he feelsas a Cuban-American writer, Macha-do added, “every movement, everyaction, every word is seen as politi-cally motivated.”

When he first started writing plays,Machado said he was in a place ofnaivete. He thought he was writingabout his family—what they did andhow they struggled—but audiencesand critics politicized his work.

“I became an unofficial spokesper-son for Cuba and the politics aroundit,” said Machado. “As part of aminority you can speak for them,always trying to keep their best inter-est and popular topics in mind, orabout them, as you see them, honest-

ly, brutally. I chose to criticize them.Connecting politics and writing isimpossible to avoid. Because of mysubjects and ideas, I am an ally tosome and an enemy to others. ToCuba, I am pushing ahead. But I amstill the enemy to my people in exileand still feared and hated by the[Cuban] government.”

Machado talked about having alarger audience than patrons and crit-ics. He said he has been watched bythe Cuban government. “It wasn’t thatthey directly accused me, instead theyused countless other people in my lifeto let me know of my actions and pos-sible consequences,” he said. Over theyears he indicated that he has been thetarget of bomb threats, death threatsand has had emails intercepted.

“If someone wants to silence you,it must mean you have something tosay,” he rationalized.

While freedom of speech exists inAmerica, Machado says the UnitedStates is censored by dollars. Pro-ducers also are censors, he said, cut-ting out anything that would insult

ticket-buyers.As an example, Machado cited his

play, When the Sea Drowns in Sand,which debuted to rave reviews at the2001 Humana Festival. The play tellsthe story of a Cuban-born man whoreturns to his homeland some 30years after being exiled to the UnitedStates. The play was inspired byMachado's own experience as a"Peter Pan" child —taken during thenight without his parents to the Unit-ed States—and his return to Cuba asan adult.

When it came time for the play toopen commercially at the CherryLane Theatre that fall under the titleHavana is Waiting, Machado said theproducers decided to change hispolitically-charged ending denounc-ing the embargo. They preferred toend on a note offriendship, withoutthe strong politicalmessage.

The followingyear, he was askedto write a play for“A Brave NewWorld,” a series ofplays offering atheatrical tribute onthe anniversary ofthe September 11attacks. His playabout racial profil-ing was removedfrom the lineupbecause, Machadosays, “it was too angry and woulddepress the audience.”

Fellow panelist, School of the Artsprofessor and daughter of Cubanimmigrants, Coco Fusco sharedsome of Machado’s thoughts, includ-

ing those that censorship is still pre-sent and that there is a correlationbetween oppression and the dollar.

Repression, violence and oppres-sion are artistic subjects because theyare not desirable, said Fusco, but alsobecause they are somewhat of a sell-ing point for consumers.

Fusco said she worries about the“criminalization of public expres-sion” and “public culture beinghijacked.”

Although another panelist, authorRussell Banks, does not considerhimself an oppressed writer, hespeaks for oppressed writers as presi-dent of the International Parliamentof Writers. This organization assistswriters around the world in need ofasylum, offering safehouses for thoseunder direct and indirect threat, in

more than 30 cities,mostly in WesternEurope. The ideafor the organizationtook root in Stras-burg, Germany, in1993, at an interna-tional literary festi-val when themayor offered asy-lum to festival par-ticipant SalmanRushdie. Althoughthis was during thefatwa, Rushdiedeclined assistancefor himself, butsuggested that

other writers around the world couldbenefit from the aid.

In the program’s ten years of exis-tence, more than 100 writers havesought assistance. Banks has noticeda troubling shift in recent years. Pre-

viously, writers were seeking toescape a situation with a state, but theorganization is seeing an increase inrequests from writers who haveoffended religious fundamentalistgroups or warlords, making it moredifficult to identify the “enemy” andget the writer to safety.

We are seeing more and morecases of writers fleeing a kind of fun-damentalism, said Banks, and Iexpect it will only get worse.

Moderator and SOA professorMichael Scammell described the ulti-mate form of censorship as asassina-tion, and the next form as imprison-ment. As vice president of Internation-al P.E.N., an association of writers thatpromotes freedom of expression anddefends writers suffering fromoppressive regimes, Scammell isinvolved with the Writers in PrisonCommittee, which monitors the casesof nearly 900 writers annually, includ-ing writers imprisoned, tortured,threatened, attacked, disappeared andkilled for the practice of their profes-sion, and lobbies on their behalf.

Eduardo Machado

Coco Fusco

Russell Banks

Michael Scammell

BY KRISTIN STERLING

PHO

TO

SB

YM

ICH

AE

LD

AM

ES

PHOTO BY MICHAEL DAMES