Al Jazeera World

Filmmaker: Sibel Karakurt

On 11th July 2018, the Munich Regional Court found Beate Zschape of the National Socialist Underground guilty on ten counts of racially-motivated murder and sentenced her to life imprisonment. It also found four other defendants guilty of related crimes.

The trial had lasted five years and had been expected finally to draw a line under the murders of eight ethnic Turks and an ethnic Greek, as well as a German policewoman between 2000 and 2007. But lenient sentences for two of the accused rankled among the victims' families.

Gamze Kubasik spoke on their behalf. "Beate Zschape has been sentenced for life, I am content with that. I can live with (the verdict for) Carsten Schultze as well, also with the sentence for Holger Gerlach. But (the verdicts for) Andre Eminger and Ralf Wohlleben I found very disappointing and very sad. I first had to contain myself and needed some time to calm down. They got a very mild sentence in my opinion the court passed a very, very mild sentence for them. To me, they were just as guilty, and in one category like the two murderers who are dead now, and like Beate Zschape".

There were protests at the lower sentences in a case which had been running in Germany for 18 years. The police investigation had been painfully slow and the only connection it identified was that all the victims had been shot with the same gun, a rare Czech-manufactured Ceska 83 pistol.

Rather than looking more closely at a racial motive, the investigation had focused on possible mafia and drug-related connections; while the media stereotyped the serial killings as the 'Kebab' or 'Doner Murders', even though only one of the victims worked in a food outlet.

Police investigated the family lives of the victims, their supposed business connections and social backgrounds but did not find anything in common among the victims other than their ethnicity and the murder weapon.

The victim's families were disappointed, if not angered, particularly when it eventually emerged – almost by accident, that the far-right wing National Socialist Underground (NSU) had been responsible. The then 36-year-old Beate Zschape gave herself up, but her two alleged accomplices had already been found dead.

On 8th November 2012, Beate Zschape was charged with forming a terrorist organisation, the NSU; of murdering eight ethnic Turks, one ethnic Greek and a policewoman; and with fifteen robberies, two bombings and other attacks.

A 500 page indictment was prepared by the Federal Prosecution Office and presented to Munich Higher Regional Court - and the hearings began on the 6th of May 2013. It was one of Germany's highest-profile trials since World War Two – and involved five defendants, 600 witnesses, more than 50 lawyers, 488 pages of criminal charges and 280,000 pages of interrogation records.

On trial with Zschape were Ralf Wohllebn (charged with helping her to find the Ceska 83 gun), Carsten Sultze, Holger Gerlach and Andrea Emminger, who were charged with providing money, guns, identity cards and cars to the NSU group.

"It was particularly atrocious that these criminals were undiscovered for so long because their motives were based on anti-foreigner sentiment and neo-nazi ideology," says Karl Huber, President of the Munich Higher Regional Court.

Chancellor Angela Merkel apologised to the families of the victims in 2012, saying "Hardly anyone thought the perpetrators of these murders were right-wing terrorists. Some family members were unfairly suspected. It was really heartbreaking. And for this, I am really sorry."

The case raised serious questions about the social conditions in Germany that enabled the NSU to carry out the crimes. The Bundestag instigated a committee of enquiry into the neglect in the investigation of a racist motive for the murders enabling the killers to evade detection for over a decade.

The trial also took place as a new right-wing Alternative For Germany (AfD) party gained 94 seats in the Bundestag in the 2017 elections, suggesting that the Ceska Murders reflect a wider shift towards anti-immigration ideologies and far-right politics across Germany as a whole.

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Filmmaker: Odai Alslaiti

In 1962, Algeria proclaimed independence from France following eight years of war and over a century of colonial rule. Unlike the neighbouring protectorates of Tunisia or Morocco, Algeria was considered inalienable French territory, an extension of the mainland.

By the mid-20th century, over a million European settlers had the privileges of French citizenship in Algeria, while the Arab Muslim majority enjoyed few benefits from the French presence.

Larbi Ben Mhidi was a prominent revolutionary leader during the War of Independence. One of the six founding members of the National Liberation Front (FLN), Ben Mhidi expressed his desire to end the occupation through his writing, a stage production and ultimately military action - and bringing it to the wider world.

"Larbi said the moment of truth had arrived and that they had to take action," recalls war veteran Abdelkader Lamoudi. So at midnight on November 1, 1954, the FLN declared an all-out war against the French.

Its armed wing, the Algerian National Army (ALN) had very few troops. But through underground networks and strategically targeted guerilla operations against French military installations and economic interests, Ben Mhidi helped rally support across the country, demanding a free Algeria.

"Throw the revolution into the street", he famously declared, "and the people will embrace it."

Throw the revolution into the street, and the people will embrace it.

Larbi Ben Mhidi, Algerian revolutionary fighter

By 1956, Ben Mhidi had been made revolutionary commander in the capital, Algiers. He declared: "For each FLN soldier guillotined, a hundred Frenchmen will be cut down" - and began the Battle of Algiers.

Based in the old city, the Casbah, Ben Mhidi continued successfully to evade the French and oversee an urban bombing campaign - until he was tracked down to an apartment in the European quarter on February 23, 1957, by a unit led by the Commander of the Third Colonial Parachute Regiment, Lieutenant-Colonel Marcel Bigeard.

According to journalist Montasser Oubetroune, when he was arrested, "his facial expression showed a determination that no one could destroy." He lectured his captors with "a lesson in military ethics and international laws", presenting himself as a military leader of the Algerian state.

Ben Mhidi was questioned by Bigeard for two weeks - but his refusal to crack under pressure earned him the respect of his interrogators. He was then handed over to Major Paul Aussaresses who took him to an isolated location outside Algiers where he was tortured and executed on the night of March 3, 1957.

At the time, the French claimed Ben Mhidi's death was suicide - but Aussaresses (by then a retired general) revealed the true story of his death several decades later. In an interview with Le Monde in December 2000, Aussaresse said he'd acted with the tacit approval of the French government. The following year he expanded on his account in his book, "Special Services: Algeria 1955-57."

The book detailed his death squad's beating of prisoners, use of electric shock on the genitals and waterboarding. He said he usually executed a prisoner whether they talked or not, often doing the job himself. He recalled rounding up 1,500 unarmed prisoners, almost all of them Muslims, then selecting "the die-hards" and having them shot, covering it up as suicide.

Aussaresses' lack of remorse triggered a furore in both Algeria and France. The then president, Jacques Chirac, said he was "horrified" and "the full truth must come out about these unjustifiable acts," he said. "Nothing can justify them."

Aussaresses was eventually stripped of his rank.

The 1954-1962 War of Independence saw a death toll of 1.5 million Algerians. In the 1950s, the French deployed over half-a-million troops to Algeria - and, with the army left more or less to its own devices, torture and other abuses were common.

On September 13, 2018, French President Emmanuel Macron acknowledged France's role in the systematic torture of Algerian detainees and other atrocities during the Algerian War of Independence, as reported by Al Jazeera.

Larbi Ben Mhidi is still revered in Algeria today for his bravery and role in the resistance against French colonial rule, which resulted in independence five years after his murder.

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Filmmaker: Bouchra Ijork

High in the Atlas Mountains in central Morocco are remote villages almost entirely dominated by Amazigh women, a result of the geographical divide between the urban and rural poor, the volatility of Moroccan agriculture and lack of regional development. Their menfolk migrate for long periods to do agricultural or city work in other parts of the country.

While the absentee men send money back home, the women are left to care for the children, tend to crops and farm animals without any outside support. "Wives can't accompany their husbands," says Fatma Kadjik, from Tiklit village, so married women have to learn to survive on their own.

In 2005, Morocco began its National Human Development Initiative Support Project with a million dollar budget aimed at improving people's living conditions and reducing poverty. By 2014, the overall poverty rate had been cut by about half, but there's still a large gap between urban and rural poverty. Literacy is also low, especially among girls, who are often unable to continue their education beyond primary school.

While life expectancy is not much lower than in Europe, harsh living conditions and poor access to healthcare affect longevity. It's a tough life for these resilient women, especially if as young girls they've been married off early.

"Imagine a girl married at the age of 13 or 14 having three or four children. At 19, she already looks 50. She's no longer beautiful and healthy," points out Saida Oukhali, from Oum Rabia.

She and her friend Aicha Jadda were both married at 16 but have since divorced, carrying a stigma in this conservative Amazigh society. "We weren't mature enough for the responsibility of marriage," says Saida. "Divorce is a big problem. You're exploited and no longer respected."

Ignoring village gossip, these young women now express themselves through music and song, where separation, hardship and women's suffering are recurring themes.

Village women with children have a heavier burden to bear. "We never rest. We keep running all day until night falls," says Fatima Kadjik, who lives with her sister-in-law, Hafida. She describes a typical day: "Hafida and I wake up at 6am to make bread and get the girls ready for school. After, I take the cow to the field to graze. Then we wash the wheat, lay it to dry and prepare lunch. By then the kids are back from school. I give the cow water and take it to graze."

Her husband, Abdellah Hasbi, acknowledges that this is difficult existence and hopes things will change for the next generation. "I'm worried about the younger generation ... Projects should be launched in this region, to create jobs for young people."

Men like Abdellah get seasonal work in farming but Moroccan agriculture is volatile and only 18 percent of the country is arable, adding to these people's vulnerability and insecurity.

While NGOs have stepped in to try and up-skill young people in of these communities - and this is the key to breaking the cycle that locks these women into such an unforgiving way of life. It might ultimately affect traditional Amazigh culture but it would more of the people of the Atlas the chance of becoming more valued members of Moroccan society as a whole.

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The first notable, historical mention of the Kurds is widely thought to be the Sharafnama, or The Book of Honour, by the medieval Kurdish poet Sharaf al-Din Bitlisi in 1597. Written by a Kurd about his own people, Sharafnama arguably put Kurdish culture and history on the map.

A people who saw themselves on a par with Persians and Arabs had announced themselves to the world.

The Kurds originate from the mountain regions of the northern Middle East and currently number between 25 million and 35 million and occupy an area spanning the borders of Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Iran and Armenia. They are the fourth largest ethnic group in the region - outnumbered by both Arabs and North Africans - and have a difficult relationship with other ethnic groups and countries in the region.

The Kurds have anticipated, negotiated, warred and waited to establish their own permanent state since the First World War and the defeat of the Ottoman Empire. But they have been constantly disappointed, not least when Asia Minor was given to the new state of Turkey in 1923. In Iraq, a series of conflicts with different political regimes led to the announcement of autonomy after the First Gulf War in 1991, followed by the establishment of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in 1992. Their continued desire for independence from Baghdad led to a referendum in the Kurdish Region of Northern Iraq in September 2017. The result was overwhelmingly in favour of separation but the Iraqi government rejected the vote as unconstitutional.

More recently, the Kurd-dominated state, the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria, faces upheaval in the face of President Donald Trump's call for the withdrawal of American troops from their mission to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS). There is a widespread concern for the tens of thousands of Kurds who have fought alongside the Americans and who would be extremely vulnerable without continued US support.

As a result, Trump has threated to "devastate Turkey economically" if any harm should come to Syria's Kurds, post-withdrawal. This threat comes in the light of Turkey's aggression towards Turkish Kurds, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan branding the Kurdish militias involved in the fight against ISIL as part of so-called "terrorist" group, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

But the question remains as to whether the Kurds spread across the whole of the northern Middle East, in regions where they make up the ethnic majority in Iraq, Iran and Turkey, can realistically ever attain their own permanent, independent state or states. How could Kurdish Peshmerga forces join the Iraqi army in the fight against ISIL in western and northern Iraq but have their independence referendum declared unconstitutional and the subject of an economic and social backlash from the Baghdad government?

In this film, we speak to key players and witnesses in the KRG independence referendum in 2017, to find out why they disagreed about the timing and continue to be so fragmented across their semi-autonomous region. The film tracks the history of the Kurds from their disappointment at the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, to the Iraqi Kurdish revolution of 1958 and the first Iraq-Kurdish war of 1961, Iranian revolution, the Anfal Genocide against the Kurds by Saddam Hussein's regime, the rise of ISIL and the fraught KRG-Baghdad relationship of today.

Filmmaker: Bilal Yousef

Eeking out a living as a taxi driver in the Middle East is not for the faint-hearted, especially for Palestinian cabbies in Jerusalem.

"It's exhausting, kind of humiliating," says Salah Najib, a former civil engineer-turned cabbie. "You try to please your passengers as much as possible so they continue riding with you."

At one point, he successfully built up a fleet of cars but his business was destroyed in 2000 due to the deteriorating security situation resulting from the Palestinian second Intifada.

Like drivers everywhere, Jerusalem's Palestinian cabbies can face unruly passengers - but they face hardships simply because they're Palestinian.

Jerusalem is one of the most heavily disputed places in the world, not least because it is sacred to Islam, Judaism and Christianity.

Divided into occupied East and West Jerusalem since the first Arab-Israeli war and the founding of Israel in 1948, the East has been under Israeli occupation since the further conflict in the June 5, 1967 six-day war.

Throughout its 70-year existence, Israel has almost always been able to rely on the support of the United States, despite UN and international condemnation of its policy of expanding illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. Under President Donald Trump, the US recognised Israeli control over Jerusalem in December 2017.

The city's Arab taxi drivers are used to discrimination and sometimes harassment. Innate Palestinian resilience is what motivates Bassem Idris to work as a cabbie in Jerusalem.

"I feel like a stranger in my own homeland," he says. "I sometimes meet foreigners who think Arabs don't exist here. Such matters make us want to stay here even more. This is my homeland and I want to stay here."

Used to wrangling with those of opposing political views, he enjoys educating tourists on the plight of Palestinians.

Similarly, 61-year-old cabbie Rasheed Rishq also takes pride in his work, seeing himself as "the country's ambassador". He's been doing that for 40 years. "A taxi driver is the keeper of the town's secrets. If you want to announce any news, just pass it to a cab driver. An hour later, everyone will know the news. He knows the country's economic and social affairs. He spends all day listening to the radio."

Rasheed has diabetes and cholesterol problems, partly because of work stress - but considers himself lucky to live close to Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Dome of the Rock and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre: "I personally will not leave this house till I die. My children will be responsible for it after my death."

Israel's parliament, the Knesset, passed a law in March 2018 granting the interior minister full power to revoke the Jerusalem residencies of Palestinians over allegations of "breaching allegiance" or "loyalty" to the Israeli state, as reported by Al Jazeera.

Human rights groups have raised serious concerns over the new law, finding the legislation a clear breach of international law and challenging the basic rights of Palestinians in East Jerusalem, since Israeli can revoke Jerusalem residency ID cards at any time.

In 2017, Israel has revoked the residency of 35 Palestinians in East Jerusalem, including 17 women and four minors, according to the Israeli rights group, Hamoked. Since 1967, almost 15,000 Palestinians have had their Jerusalem IDs revoked, mostly for failing to prove to Israeli authorities that Jerusalem or Israel was the centre of their life.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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."

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