Al Jazeera World

Pakistan plays an increasingly important role in the world's geopolitical dynamics, as the only predominantly Muslim country with nuclear weapons. But with a new government faced with an economy in crisis - can the nuclear powered state overcome its internal challenges. The relations with its neighbour India are at yet another low… but after four wars in seven decades, they've taken some confidence building measures But are they ready to settle their differences? Pakistan is closer than ever to its other neighbour, China. Islamabad and Beijing have started a $62 billion [≈ all real estate in Bronx, NYC, 2010] bilateral agreement as part of China's global belt and road initiative. Both countries deny any military aspect to their flourishing ties pact but how is this relationship impacting Pakistan's other important relationship - that’s with the United States? President Trump first blasted Islamabad but then asked Pakistan for help to find peace in Afghanistan. But after decades of US failure and an imminent troop withdrawal can and will Pakistan take over regional security? Arif Alvi, President of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, talks to Al Jazeera.

President Joseph Kabila came to power in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2001, taking over from his father, Laurent Kabila, who was assassinated by one of his own child soldier bodyguards. Joseph Kabila was initially credited with bringing relative peace and reviving the mining of the country's vast mineral reserves. But conflicts persist and millions of Congolese remain trapped in extreme poverty amid widespread allegations of corruption. His second and final constitutional mandate ended two years ago, but he stayed in power, amid growing protests and calls for him to step aside. Congolese are finally due to head to the polls on Sunday to choose a new leader. Joseph Kabila, the president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, talks to Al Jazeera. - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

In February, heads of state, top-ranking government and military officials and leaders of international organisations traditionally gather in Munich, Germany to debate global events and foreign policy issues. "Munich is the place to go to hear bold policies announced, new ideas and approaches tested, old partnerships reaffirmed and new ones formed," then-US vice president Joe Biden said in 2013. With changing political dynamics among world leaders, the Munich Security Conference and similar meetings are now taking on extra importance. "We are facing various intrusion attempts in our cyberspace and into our democratic life ... We have to protect ourselves with respect to China, Russia and even the United States," said French President Emmanuel Macron in November 2018. But how bad are the prospects for managing global tensions and trouble spots? What risks and opportunities lie ahead in 2019? And what's the state of NATO under President Donald Trump? "I can't think of a decade when the Transatlantic Alliance didn't have a problem," Wolfgang Ischinger, chairman of the Munich Security Conference, tells Al Jazeera. "There is a clear commitment by the United States in the military field. The US has not deserted Europe, but ... at the political level, some of the words spoken, some of the tweets tweeted [by President Trump] have created uncertainties in the minds of many Europeans. That's bad," says Ischinger. But "since there is no alternative, we have to do our best in order to make sure it (the Alliance) will continue to exist and will continue to work". He states that due to the rise of European nationalism, "we are having a pretty tough fight about whether we in Western Europe can maintain a position ... as a pillar of the liberal international order, which is under rather dramatic threat today". Ischinger believes that a more common European defence policy and the creation of a European army is inevitable. "It's necessary ... if there is a question mark about the reliability of our American partner (and) if we have a huge question mark about Russian intentions. Look what's going on in the Russian neighbourhood. There are Russian troops in Ukraine; there are Russian troops in parts of what used to be Georgia; there are Russian troops still in Moldova. There is still the unresolved conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. All around this zone surrounding Russia, we have military issues." As a result, Ischinger says, "We as Europeans need to hedge against the possibility that there might be yet another, a military issue coming our way. That is unfortunately the case." "All our welfare, all our social expenditures, all our accumulated wealth, all our employment is worth nothing if we don't have security," stresses Ischinger. "Just imagine another war. We are as we speak, having a war in the heart of Europe. Let's call a spade a spade. What's going on in Ukraine is a war. We have 10,000 people dead now since 2014. And please, don't tell me that this is not something that we, Europeans, we in the Transatlantic community, need to worry about." "The European Union should be far more capable than it is today, to speak with one voice and to defend and represent the interests of 500 million people. That's the European Union." - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

The peace treaty signed by government leaders and separatist rebels in Mali in 2015 was meant to usher in a new era of peace and stability in the northwest African country. But progress in implementing the agreement has been slow and insecurity has grown. The violence that began with the uprising and seizure of territory in the North has now spread into previously stable central Mali. Armed groups have taken advantage of inter-ethnic grievances and local resentment towards the government to spread fear and chaos, forcing thousands to flee. President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who has ruled since 2013, was re-elected in August 2018 for a second term. He announced a government reshuffle aimed at restoring peace, stability and foreign investment - all important to boost the economy and reduce poverty. As part of the reshuffle, Kamissa Camara was appointed Mali's new foreign minister of foreign affairs. Is the 35-year-old's appointment the beginning of comprehensive institutional reforms? And with armed groups reorganising and extending violence from the northern to the central regions of the country, how can peace be achieved in the foreseeable future? "There is a terrorist issue in the Sahel region and also in the world," Camara tells Al Jazeera. "It's really difficult, or I would say even inaccurate, to take the significant issues of Mali out of the issues of the Sahel region. The terrorist issue is not a Malian issue. We have been experiencing it all over the world." While she confirms that there's intercommunal violence, Camara says the situation "cannot be simply described as a terrorist situation ... It's a pastoralist issue between Fulani herders that are against Bozo herders ... It's a complex security situation that has been exacerbated by terrorist groups, that has been utilised by terrorist groups so now it is being perceived as an ethnic conflict, which is not necessarily the root of it." In 2017, five Sahel countries, including Mali, joined forces to establish a multinational security force with the aim of defeating armed groups in the region. More than a year after it was set up, this G5 Sahel force has yet to fully become operational. Among other factors, Camara says, "there's definitely a lack of funding for the joint force to be fully operational. We currently have need of over 400 million euros per year [roughly $458m]. For now it's our job to make sure that the international community understands that this joint force is the only sustainable solution we currently have in order to curtail the fragile security situation that we have in the Sahel region. "We are trying to find solutions to our own problems, and this is what the international community has been pushing African countries to do ... What we are trying to do is for five Sahel countries that are facing the same security issues, to work together in order to curtail a growing terrorist threat." Mali's increasing security challenges have also affected the human rights situation in the country. In October 2018, UN human rights expert, Alioune Tine, stated that "the Malian state has not fulfilled its sovereign role in protecting property and people, and bringing perpetrators of criminal acts to justice." Asked about a new Al Jazeera report from the Mali-Mauritania border in which some Malians who had left accuse Malian soldiers of going through their villages, pillaging, and harassing them, Camara says: "I have never heard of such a thing. Never." But, she says, "we are definitely always willing to investigate." "Human rights violations are alleged violations until they're proven right. And the Malian government does take this issue very seriously. We do have teams on the ground. We do investigate. We also work with local society organisations to make sure that any accusations that we are hearing about are accurate. Again, we take this issue very seriously, and measures are being taken." Despite regional security challenges, Mali's gross domestic product (GDP) growth is stable at around six percent and there's been a rise in agricultural productivity. The IMF and World Bank continue to support Mali financially. "Mali is a very resilient country," says Camara. "Mali has gone through a lot since 2011. We have ... gone through a military coup, an insurgency, but we also have had a lot of successes. We organised two peaceful presidential elections. We have a peace process that is ongoing. We have the DDR [disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration programme] that just started. We have a full ministry in charge of the peace process. We have a six percent growth rate ..." - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

Germany's former foreign minister discusses the GCC crisis, the Khashoggi crisis and Europe's role in a changing world. - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

The United Nations has long faced criticism over its efficacy, particularly with regards to its means of enforcing its resolutions. As nationalism rises in Europe, conflicts continue to cause hardship for millions of people in Yemen and elsewhere, and the international community continue to grapple with the fallout from the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, some - including the body's most powerful member, the United States - are questioning the role of the UN. In June, Maria Fernanda Espinosa became only the fourth woman to be appointed as President of the United Nations’ General Assembly in the seven decades since its founding. The Ecuadorian diplomat - who also serves as the country's foreign minister - says multilateralism is still crucial in tackling the raft of global challenges. “We need a stronger United Nations, we need a stronger General Assembly. We need to undertake this very profound structural reform process that we are undergoing," she tells Al Jazeera in a lively and wide-ranging interview. “It’s not an issue that is done by magic [...] Multilateralism is more needed than ever because we are facing so many global challenges and the only response to global challenges is through global leadership," says Espinosa. However, when considering disputes in the Middle East, including the ongoing Gulf Crisis and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Espinosa strongly advocated a regional response. “Dialogue is the only weapon, really, truly, efficient weapon to end any kind of conflict [...] The call would be to look from a regional perspective, how to address the difficulties Gulf countries are facing and how they come together because they have more issues that unite them than issues that separate them," she says adding that dialogue would be to the benefit of the people in the region. A resolution was “long due” on Palestine, according to Espinosa who acknowledged that the UN resolutions were not having the desired effect. “We have passed I don’t know how many resolutions, both in Security Council and in the General Assembly, and the call I had made as President of the General Assembly is for the compliance of the agreements we have made on the Palestinian issue. “When we get organised and act on this issue there are so many hundreds of thousands of people who are suffering humanitarian issue in Palestine, in the Gaza Strip. We know that it’s painful and we need a collective response”. While avoiding criticising the Saudi investigation into Khashoggi’s killing, Espinosa called for a thorough and independent probe, but said this would have to be requested by concerned UN member states and considered by the Secretariat. “What is important is that there is no impunity on this issue,” she said, adding that Khashoggi’s murder stands in contrast to UN values. “Journalists should be protected and live in safe environments to deliver on their work. The United Nations as an organisation is in favour of the right to free press and safe working environments for journalists”. More from Talk To Al Jazeera on: YouTube - http://aje.io/ttajYT Facebook - http://facebook.com/talktoaj Twitter - http://twitter.com/talktoaljazeera Website - http://www.aljazeera.com/talktojazeera/ - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

Filmmaker: Ashraf Mashharawi On December 15, 2016, a 49-year-old Tunisian man was shot dead outside his home in Sfax, 270 kilometres south-east of Tunis. Mohammed al-Zawari had been known locally as an aviation engineer interested in drone technology, but in fact, he had led a double life, leading a drone development project for the military wing of Hamas, the Qassam Brigades. According to Al Jazeera Arabic's investigation by Tamer Almisshal, several parties were involved in a coordinated plot against al-Zawari, who up until his death was called 'Mourad' by many of those who knew him, including his wife. Almisshal believes it has all the hallmarks of an extrajudicial killing by Israel's intelligence agency, Mossad, but these cases are notoriously difficult to prove and must for the moment remain speculation. Al-Zawari first left Tunisia in 1991 as a dissident against the regime of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. He managed to travel using a fake passport and worked in a military manufacturing installation in Sudan. He only returned home after the 2011 revolution that forced Ben Ali out of the country. Shortly after his death, Hamas announced that the drone expert had worked for the Qassam Brigades for a decade. They credited him with developing the Ababeel drones used against Israel in Gaza in the summer of 2014. "By the 2008 Israeli aggression against Gaza, the team had manufactured 30 drones in an Iranian military factory," according to a Qassam Brigades member going by the name of 'Abu Mohamed'. Another Brigades member, Abu Mujahid, says drones were important to them because "we can conduct it with precision against military targets and avoid civilians." Al-Zawari is credited with developing Hamas' Ababeel drones used against Israel in Gaza in the summer of 2014 [screengrab/Al Jazeera] As well as building drones, al-Zawari did innovative research into remote-controlled submarines, as potential combat devices for the Qassam Brigades. Israeli journalist Moav Vardi went to Tunisia to investigate the Zawari case. "It's not a criminal assassination by a gang, or a neighbour's quarrel," he says. "From what it seems, Israel has the interest and the ability to carry out such an operation." Almisshal reveals that the assassination took months to plan and involved several people in different teams. The two men who carried out the killing allegedly had Bosnian and Croatian passports. Another went by the name of Chris Smith who'd contacted Sfax University where al-Zawari was doing postgraduate research. In another team was a Tunisian journalist tasked with surveilling Zawari. How the assassins arrived in and left the country is a confidential part of the Tunisian investigation, as the police case is still ongoing. There have been other alleged Mossad assassinations outside Israeli territory. For instance, Israel admitted responsibility for the 1988 killing of a senior Palestinian commander Abu Jihad, whose real name was Khalil al-Wazir, at his home in Tunis, Tunisia. Wazir was a friend and deputy to then Palestinian chief Yasser Arafat, who headed the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). Mossad is also alleged to have been behind the 2010 murder of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a Dubai hotel. He was the Hamas logistics commander for the Qassam Brigades; and of the Black September founder Ali Hassan Salameh, or The Red Prince, using a car loaded with heavy explosives in Beirut in 1979. In March 2018, two men were arrested in connection with Zawari's murder, Croatian Alen Camdzic and Bosnian Elvir Sarac. In May, Croatia's highest court blocked Camdzic's extradition to Tunisia and Sarac was released after a Bosnian court refused to hand him over to Tunisia, saying there was no extradition deal between the countries. Until the Tunisian authorities manage to extradite the two men, the case of the murder of Mohamed al-Zawari cannot begin to be resolved - whoever was behind it. - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

Filmmaker: Abdullah Chhadeh The ongoing conflict in Syria has forced not only Syrians, but Iraqis and Palestinian refugees out of the country and into Lebanon in search of safety. Sitting in a Beirut cafe, Syrian screenwriter Najeeb Nseir is unable to accept being labelled a refugee. "I tell people I'm a tourist," he says. "The idea of the refugee is humiliating ... seeking refuge in Arab countries is the humiliating thing." He remembers a time when Syria was home to refugees from around the Middle East but says "no one had imagined Syrians would become refugees." The massive influx of millions of refugees into Europe in 2015 sparked a global rise in far-right anti-immigration movements, claiming to fight for a way of life they believe to be under threat. Lebanon has not been immune to that trend, meaning the Lebanese perspective is increasingly one of 'Lebanese first'. "Beirut's no longer a welcoming city," says Palestinian filmmaker Fajr Yacoub, who confesses he copes with displacement "by making films and writing novels." His parents fled Haifa in 1948 and he grew up in a Palestinian refugee camp Syria. He's now managing to survive as a fiction and documentary filmmaker and while his work has won recognition, he laments, "once it [Beirut] ignited creativity of certain Palestinian artists." War, conflict and displacement force people like Fajr to reimagine their notion of 'homeland'. Unlike Syrians and Iraqi refugees who may eventually return home, "Palestinians will always be refugees" because "Palestine doesn't exist," says Fajr. Forced to accept that he'll never return to the Palestine of his parents, he maintains that "a homeland is no longer defined by geographical borders or a place where my parents lived, my father grew up or my granddad played ... you take [it] with you wherever you go." Iraqi visual artist Salam Omar has also let go of a physical concept of a homeland. "I've invented a new homeland in my imagination," explains Salam. "Now, my homeland is my new and old friends in Beirut or in exile." Omar escaped the sectarian fighting in post-invasion Iraq and hoped to make Syria his permanent home. "It was very hard to leave my house in Syria because ... the dream was big," says the teary-eyed 60-year old. "I arranged my paintings and created an art gallery at home. I dreamt of inviting my friends and Arab artists." For Omar, emigrating a second time has been tougher than leaving Iraq, but he does find artistic expression, experimenting with silk-screen designs on urban building facades. He believes artists have a duty to record and archive the events around them. Connecting to others around the world in these modern times is easy, so "I'm not isolated from the world". In the 1970s and 1980s, Lebanon and Beirut became bywords for chaos and destruction. It's often been said that Lebanon is a battleground for other countries' proxy wars - and according to the latest United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) figures, one in four people living in Lebanon today is a Syrian refugee. Around 45,000 Palestinians from Syria have now sought refuge in Lebanon, joining the estimated 400,000 Palestinian refugees already living in the country. UNHCR says Iraqi refugees in Lebanon are just under 30,000. The tensions are real, as well as the pressure on the infrastructure of housing, water, education and health in a small country barely able to provide for its five million citizens. Since the making of this film, Fajr Yacoub has moved from Beirut to Sweden, making him a refugee thrice over. He's taking Swedish-language classes and is due to become a Swedish citizen in 10 months. More from Al Jazeera World on: YouTube - http://aje.io/aljazeeraworldYT Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AlJazeeraWorld Twitter - https://twitter.com/AlJazeera_World Visit our website - http://www.aljazeera.com/aljazeeraworld Subscribe to AJE on YouTube - http://aje.io/YTsubscribe - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

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Filmmaker: Rania Rafei In 2015, the World Health Organisation published 'Healthy Ageing', its assessment of and vision for the elderly, between now and the year 2030. It talks about retirement ideally being "the process of developing and maintaining the functional ability that enables wellbeing in older age". It defines functional ability as "having the capabilities that enable all people to be and do what they have reason to value". The five men and women from Morocco and Lebanon in this film have met both of these challenges head on – and in quite different but inspiring ways. When older people in the Arab world approach retirement, their greatest worries are often financial - but also to do with exactly what they'll do with their time once they stop working. Their image of retirement is often as some kind of death sentence, a period of inertia, boredom, physical weakness and sometimes depression. But as people in many parts of the world are now living longer, is this stereotype starting to change? For the five retirees in A New Lease Of Life, life after work is all about continuing to be mentally and physically able, of devoting their life to relationships, to the arts – and to their own health and well-being. "Age isn't how old you are. It's about being incapable. It's when the mind and body slow down," says retired paediatrician Abdulwahab Al-Amin. Post-retirement culture in the Arab world poorly developed, leaving many people confused about how to lead their later lives. Having an unstructured schedule can have an emotional impact – so finding a hobby can be essential to 'healthy ageing'. "A lot of people complain about retirement," says Al-Amin. "They don't have any hobbies or duties because their kids have grown up … you'd find them complaining about having nothing to do". By contrast, Al-Amin now spends his time writing and publishing his memoirs, unpacking life events going back to his first love and to the Lebanese civil war. All five characters are breaking the mould in different ways. Some have had high profile jobs but are now using their time to explore and rediscover some of the life-long passions they never had time for while working. Firyal Lathgi is a retired school administrator who used to paint when she was young but didn't pursue it. "I didn't take it seriously" she says. Then her husband persuaded her to pick it up again. "I eventually decided to try. I had nothing to lose". Spending three to four hours a day painting, she now produces around 45 paintings a year and stages local exhibitions. Spending years working his way up the ranks of the Lebanese Army, retired officer Ahmed Onaisi has also taken up painting. "When I retired I became free" he says. To him freedom meant having the time to prioritise his health and putting painting at the centre of his life. "A hobby becomes more than just a hobby. It becomes a necessity." Similarly, Abdulwahab Baradah had let his music lapse but has now taken it up again. He fell ill and this motivated him to find a music teacher. Now he devotes all this spare time to playing the oud and performing with a choir. Abulsalam Sulaiman lives deep in the Moroccan countryside and used to work in tourism. When the work dried up, he took up the flute and now plays solo as well as in a band - and his music is a big part of his spiritual life. "All I can think about is the flute", he says. "It helps me in reverence to God". All five of these inspiring characters share Ahmed Onaisi's conviction that "a retiree who has no hobby lives a huge void as if he's counting the days until he dies" – and collectively defy retirement and old age by pursuing passions that have given them all a new lease of life. More from Al Jazeera World on: YouTube - http://aje.io/aljazeeraworldYT Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AlJazeeraWorld Twitter - https://twitter.com/AlJazeera_World Visit our website - http://www.aljazeera.com/aljazeeraworld Subscribe to AJE on YouTube - http://aje.io/YTsubscribe - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

The east of Australia is in the grip of drought. Parts of the states of New South Wales and Victoria received virtually no rain at all over the Australian winter, and that lack of rain came after more than a year of much-dryer-than-average conditions. Farmers across the country are struggling to grow crops and feed their animals. "The grind of a drought gets to you. You get a 50 kilometre per hour wind blowing in your face all day and there's a bit of dust mixed through it and you've still got to feed your stock and that .... It's just the fact that you're out there every day and things are going backwards not forwards," says sheep and cattle farmer Wayne Dunford. Agriculture contributes three percent to Australia's gross domestic product (GDP). The industry is worth more $40bn a year and directly employs 300,000 people. It also has a unique place in the Australian psyche - and in politics. "This is a way of life that is important to Australia's future. And as a result of that I think that means there's a special responsibility here," says Prime Minister Scott Morrison. "I'll make sure that way of life continues to be preserved." The way colonial settlers tamed a rugged land to produce crops and graze animals is part of Australia's history and has become part of its self-identity. Even though most Australians live in cities, they have a strong affinity with what's known as 'the bush'; and have sympathy for those growing their food there. Linda Botterill is a political scientist who has worked in the offices of two government ministers for agriculture. She says the political attachment to farming is rooted in Australians' cultural affinity with those who work the land. "Drought makes great television. And in Australia - visually - our droughts are really confronting. So people in the city who don't necessarily understand the economics of agriculture - who have this deep cultural sympathy for farmers - want their governments to act." Australia's national and state governments have just announced an aid package worth almost $2bn for farmers hit by drought. But what used to be an uncontroversial government expenditure is now, for the first time, attracting critical eyes. Disapproving economists say that aid packages unlike any in other industries distort the agriculture industry. They also claim subsidies keep uneconomic farms alive artificially and discourage necessary prudence and innovation. "If you want to be in agriculture then you've got to take the good and the bad times," says Melbourne-based economist John Freebairn. "I feel sympathy for them. But ... farmers voluntarily choose farming .... From the perspective of individual farmers and of the nation, we would want them to be involved in farming if on average the money they make during the good times will carry them through the bad times. If the farmer can't do that and the country can't do that, then we're better off shifting those people to some other activity," he says. "Why subsidise farming but not tourism or manufacturing or restaurants? ... You're really taking resources away from one side of the economy ... to subsidise the agricultural sector. Why would you want a bigger agricultural sector and a smaller services and manufacturing sector?" As eastern Australia is in the grip of drought, what is the best solution for the country and its farmers? Talk to Al Jazeera travelled to inland New South Wales to talk to farmers about how bad this drought has been and to those who are now questioning financial help for farmers. - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

Filmmakers: Heba Bourini and Mohammad Jameel Born to affluent parents in Palestine under the British mandate in 1935, Edward W Said devoted his adult life to raising awareness of the Palestinian cause on the world stage. A literature professor at Columbia University and celebrated intellectual, "he was a scholar and an ordinary man's person," according to the Independent's Middle East correspondent, Robert Fisk. A fatal diagnosis with leukaemia in 1991 prompted him to start working on Out of Place: A Memoir, a coming-of-age story of exile and a celebration of his irrecoverable past. In this masterpiece, Said rediscovers the lost Arab world of his early years in Palestine, as well as in Lebanon and Egypt. Raised as a Protestant in a predominately Eastern Orthodox community in Jerusalem, he realised early in life that he had something of a split identity. His first name was British, his last name Arabic and he carried an American passport through his father's US army service in the first world war. Describing her English faculty colleague's seminal work, Gauri Viswanathan says, "He saw being out of place as a psychological state of things … as a physical characterisation. He saw out of place as also a moving reflection on being out of place - the place being Palestine." While living and working in pro-Israeli New York City, the 1967 Arab-Israeli War marked a defining point in his life. The war changed the map of the Middle East and has affected the path to Arab-Israeli peace until today because of the way it redrew borders, implemented Israel's territorial claims and confirmed its military dominance in the region. "I was no longer the same person after 1967", wrote Said. "The shock of that war drove me back to where it had all started, the struggle over Palestine." At Columbia University, Said's preoccupation with the Arab world began to show in his published work, as he produced one of the most significant books of the 20th century. Orientalism challenged western preconceptions about the 'other', arguing it saw it as exotic, backward, uncivilised and sometimes dangerous. The book effectively gave birth to the academic discipline of post-colonial studies. Said became something of a superstar in some academic circles and began trying to change the stereotype of Palestine and the Palestinians among Americans - and was also elected to the Palestine National Council, the governing body of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO). But he predictably fell foul of the US pro-Israel lobby and a far-right Jewish magazine labelled him the 'professor of terror'. Said was an accomplished musician and pianist and as his health failed in the late 1990s, he took a step away from politics and devoted the last years of his life to music, seeing it as a universal language. He wanted to break down barriers and find a common language between Israelis and Arabs - and so co-founded the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra with Argentine-Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim. This disappointed some of his peers who were quick to point out that this meant what they saw as normalisation with a coloniser. "I reminded him that he taught us not to separate art and music from politics," says Lebanese writer Samah Idriss. Columbia University Professor Hamid Dabashi captures the essence and impact of his friend and colleague: "With the death of Edward Said we immigrant intellectuals ceased to be immigrant and became native to a new organicity. We are the fulfilments of his battles. He theorised himself to be out of place so timely and so punctiliously, so that after him we are no longer out of place, at home where ever we can hang our hat and say no to power … "We are all free-floating. Said was very site specific about Palestine - and thereby he made the Palestinian predicament a metaphysical allegory, and he grounded it in the physical agony and heroism of his people… The new intellectual organicity that Said enabled requires that you roll up your sleeves, get down and dirty, so that in the midst of chaos you can seek solace, of darkness, light, of despair, hope." More from Al Jazeera World on: YouTube - http://aje.io/aljazeeraworldYT Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AlJazeeraWorld Twitter - https://twitter.com/AlJazeera_World Visit our website - http://www.aljazeera.com/aljazeeraworld Subscribe to AJE on YouTube - http://aje.io/YTsubscribe - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

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