Said gives a report on GAZA, still under military occupation, but then and now a huge prison. He also refers to the first and second Intifada, the beginning of the building of the separation wall; and the divestment and boycott campaign in the US. All events are important historic dates that are eerily contemporary.
Said ends with a very personal description of the healing collaboration between him and the Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim. The youth orchestra that they founded together in 1999 to bring Palestinians and Israelis together still performs in 2012.
In 1948 Said and his family were forced to leave Palestine for Cairo when the newly founded state of Israel took their ancestral home. Later Said came to the US, studied at Princeton and Harvard and went on to teach at Yale and Columbia. He was not only a renowned academic but also an eloquent spokesperson for Palestinian rights and sovereignty.
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