Edward Said "States"

Edward Said in “States” reflects on the way the Palestinian view has been forgotten and receives hardly any historical recognition. He explains how the ongoing conflict between Islam and Palestine is slowly deteriorating the nation and emotionally depleting the Palestinian people as a whole. What really conveys Said’s points and helps his expressed situations come to life are pictures inserted in his essay which he calls “a series of portraits without names, without contexts.” Said’s portraits deeply display the emotions of the people which helps to strongly connect to them to the audience, as if we are there and can feel their pain. Said connects each picture with a description, by  viewing them one can experience a genuine view of exactly how wretched the Palestinians are, in a way words cannot describe. A particular picture that stood out to me was one of two children who appeared to be living out of in a beaten up, old, and abandoned car. It is heart-breaking to see that children are suffering from the conflicts and poverty in Palestine. In addition to the poverty, little to no prosperity is evident in the lives of Palestinians just as depicted in a particular picture portraying a tourist shop in which “customers are rare.” A great sense of identity by the people and you can see into their emotions that they yearn for change or to just be acknowledged.

Edward Said’s “States,” is a very culturally eye-opening essay to the troubles of the Palestinian society. I believe the argument Said is trying to make is that our society is too self-centered to acknowledge the poverty and hardships of others. Palestine is suffering in ways unimaginable to the majority of Americans. We live in a world where the thought of a lost identity of the question of “do I belong here?” Doesn’t even cross our minds. My question then is: How will we make these hardships well known in our culture, and how can we show compassion towards other hurting societies to help?