Through a simple campus lecture, Edward Said precipitated a rupture at Ohio’s Oberlin College. But like many things in his life, the debate did not touch the substance of Said’s theory or politics. Instead, his enemies were obsessed by what he stood for — a Palestinian nationalism that scared them because it was not easily stereotyped or dismissed. Through this vignette, I also learnt about the limitations and myopia of liberal campus politics. Naeem Mohaiemen remembers Edward Said. Read more about Edward Said: Campus hysteria in the face of truth