Said’s Orientalism was written from a perspective of personal loss and defeated national identity

Evidence

Rustum writes as a free man and a member of a free society: a Syrian, Arab by speech, citizen of a still-independent Ottoman state unlike Michael Rustum, Edward Said has no generally accepted identity, his very people are in dispute. It is possible that Edward’ Said and his generation sometimes feel that they stand on nothing more solid than the remnants of the destroyed society of Michael Rustum’s Syria, and on memory. Others in Asia and Africa have had their successes in this age of national liberation; here, in painful contrast, there has been desperate resistance against overwhelming odds and, until now, defeat. It is not just any “Arab” who wrote this book, but one with a particular background and experience. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 849

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s scaffolding goal: the colonial psychology of statelessness and identity — a writer whose people are ‘in dispute’ lacks the secure identity a free citizen writes from.
• QUESTION: The Muslim/Christian and Ottoman-citizen vs. stateless-Palestinian contrast is worth chasing — how does a scholar’s legal-political status shape which critique they can produce?
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 849