CAIRO: This year’s Edward Said memorial lecture at the American University in Cairo was delivered by Dr Cornel West: a philosopher, activist, cultural icon, occasional film actor and professor of religion and African American studies at Princeton University.
He has won critical praise for his work on race, democracy and imperialism, and his books have sold hundreds of thousands of copies worldwide. He sat down with Daily News Egypt for a conversation on imperialism, justice and what it means to be American.
Daily News Egypt: You are in town to deliver a lecture in honor of Edward Said, who was a close friend of yours. How does that feel?
Cornel West: You know, I get sentimental thinking about Edward. He was a real soul mate, and that kind of thing doesn’t happen too often. He was 18 years older than me. We met when I was 24 years old and he was 42, but he always treated me like an equal.
DNE: Your work, like Said’s, confronts institutionalized injustice head-on. But some have said that in a country as socially divided as Egypt, an elite university like AUC itself represents an institutional injustice. How do you feel about that?
It’s hard. I think universities all over the world face these kinds of challenges. It’s hard for a university president to be both a moral leader and a fundraiser for the institution.
And as far as students go, all over the world young people are seduced by the idea of the bourgeois good life, by fitting into the mainstream, the malestream. You have to look for that Socratic, prophetic, courageous slice of humanity willing to look outside of that.
DNE: Much of your work discusses the importance of justice, human dignity and democracy. Many people say that here in Egypt, all three are threatened.
Democracy and the value of every person are at the center of my vision, and in that is an implicit critique of authoritarianism and militarism. I don’t want to come in to a country like Egypt, which is so ancient and so complex, and criticize things in the spirit of arrogance or condescension. But at the same time you have got to take a stand.
In my lecture yesterday I made an allusion to the relationship between the United States and Egypt. It’s worth billions of dollars, and those are my tax dollars too. Working for justice is about identifying the facts and the truth of the matter and that is one of the challenges of remaining true to the life of the mind in a context where democracy has had such trouble gaining traction.
DNE: But in a situation like the one currently facing Egypt, the facts and the truth are both contested subjects. It’s not always so easy to pin them down.
To really identify the facts and the truth, you need to keep putting forward your argument and showing the ways in which the distortions of the truth are tied to the interests of those in power. The key is to connect those distorted interpretations on the one hand to intrinsic interest on the other. Fighting for the truth doesn’t always mean your argument will win in the short term, it means that you continue to put it forward again and again no matter what.
DNE: You have been a critic of American foreign policy for a long time, and began calling it “imperialism years ago, which is a word many Americans find controversial. What ways have you seen American imperialism change in your lifetime?
I think that Joseph Nye’s distinction between soft and hard power is a very important one. The United States has been an empire for a long time, but outside of Latin America and Vietnam it has mostly used its soft, cultural power to convince and seduce people, and to highlight the best about the country. The use of hard power and force, outright coercion, violence and military action has increased a great deal under Bush. I think Iraq is just the tip of the iceberg, and there has been an ugly backlash against America which I think is no surprise. This happens to any empire, make no mistake.
DNE: How do people in the United States respond to your criticisms?
Critiques of anti-imperialism at home are often seen as anti-American. But I am not anti-American, I am anti-injustice, whether it is happening in Cuba or Burma or Egypt. As a Christian and a democrat, sometimes it is hard to get that message through to people. Americans have a self-image that we are an innocent, pure, unadulterated force for good in the world. There are some very good things in the American democratic experiment, and some very ugly things.
I consider myself as American as George W. Bush, and we are both as American as cherry pie. I represent the other America, the America that has much less power but has deep roots in American history – Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King Jr, Fanny Lou Hamer, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heshem, and Edward Said himself. We are as American as any group.
DNE: As both a committed democrat and a committed anti-imperialist, what is your take on American calls for democratization in the Middle East?
I think that America ought to be explicit in the view that democracy is a desirable way of life. But it is important to say this in the spirit of humility and dialogue, not force or coercion. This include being self-critical about the limitations and shortcomings of our own democracy. But I do believe that democracy is desirable around the world, whether that means China or Singapore or Cuba or Egypt.
Part of the problem with American policies, especially under Bush, has been that the rhetoric of democracy has had very little to do with actually promoting genuine democracy. We saw that when it came to the coup in Venezuela – there you had a democratically elected president who was nearly overthrown in a coup, and all of a sudden we saw that America’s commitment to democracy didn’t cut too deep. America’s moral high ground has been lost.
DNE: Do you think that America can bounce back?
Sure, American can absolutely bounce back, if enough citizens are devoted to justice out of a vision of deep love for each other and the common good. It will take a tremendous amount of vision, courage and determination – I am not naïve about that. But I think that people are tired of the politics of greed and fear, and hungry for a politics based on compassion and justice.
One day the empire will die. All empires go – it is part of the ebb and flow of history. My concern is with the democratic practices and procedures within the empire, because the two do coexist. Aspects of democracy are still there, like the rule of law. They may be weakened but they are not gone, and they are worth fighting for – intellectually, morally and politically.
DNE: When you say that you are as American as cherry pie, what exactly does that mean?
I like to tell the truth so that people can see that the forces for good in America are American, too. I can accent that while I talk about income inequality, structures of domination and the Bush administration. You can be truthful as well as not one-sided. When I go to speak in Cuba or Venezuela they expect me to bash America, but my mama is American, so there must be something positive going on. My tradition is American, and I didn’t become a committed democrat because I dropped out of heaven – I learned it in America.
I should say that as a Christian and a democrat I always put the flag under the cross. I put democracy over nationalism. So that makes me an internationalist in a fundamental way. A lot of people question my patriotism because of my concern for the unjust policies of America – to be concerned with justice across the board is always to risk being called unpatriotic. But if you ask me, it is all a part of the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. As he said, “an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. And Martin is as American as cherry pie too, no doubt about that.rican as cherry pie too, no doubt about that.
