Vance Miguel Johnson’s Reviews > Out of Place: A Memoir > Status Update

The fact that Edward’s long life and career in New York, teaching at Columbia, came about because he signed a contract for his Dad’s business, as a favor, that ended up violating an exchange-control law without Edward knowing——making him unable to return to Cairo for 15 years afterward to evade imprisonment——leaves me stunned and pensive… what the world nearly lost… no Orientalism!!!

“I have never felt the need to close the gap but have kept [my intersecting identity] apart as opposites, and have always felt the priority of intellectual, rather than national or tribal, consciousness, no matter how solitary that made one.“ pg 281

Note to self, reread and annotate pages 262-an unknown page number to collect Lebanese Precivil war and model colony syndrome effects.

What I find especially interesting is that Edward’s extended family in Dhour, the Badrs, saw Ciara Christian Arabs support for Nasser as a sort of betrayal of Lebanese Christians who were being fed a different set of propaganda.

Edward’s family did not do their usual summer vacation in Dhour because the hills around the town were surrounded by American troops sent by former U.S. Secretary of State under the Eisenhower administration, John Foster Dulles to bolster the pro-West, indiscreetly white supremacist, militant Chamoun supporters. Classic Cold War tactical framings of Chamoun’s opposition as being backed by Moscow were used. OFC!

Said says that his mother began to support Nasser’s popular nationalism. In 1958, supporters of incumbent presidential candidate, Camille Chamoun (staunchly pro-west, white supremacist) and Lebanese Muslims, influenced by (and influencing others with) Cairo’s “Voice of the Arabs” radio, had a civil war precursor. Edwarm’s christian family began to associate Nasser as being anti-Lebanese (white) christians.

All this Eva romance, I wonder what Mariam thought of this segment when she read it?

I need to read up on the Muslim Brothers involvement in the riots that Edward riots about and also what happened to King Farouk

She is witty, kind, and claimed her sexuality, making jokes like “united we stand, divided we fall,” about breasts in her bra and corset shop ads. Then of course, Edward ends the segment with a dagger to the heart, “it wasn’t until some years later that I started to see [Aunt Salimeh] as […] hopelessly out of place among the solemn Syrian denizens of Bay Ridge.” And her life ended with aged amnesia. 3

“Hawdy”— Lebanese for “those”