What we can learn from the history of exile | Hakem Al-Rustom | TEDxUofM
Hakem Al-Rustom explores how displacement and uprootedness are universal human experiences that can teach us about our shared humanity. Drawing on visits to Córdoba and Istanbul, he argues that recognizing our complicity in violence while maintaining compassion—rather than clinging to single identities—allows us to transcend boundaries and achieve genuine moral consistency.
Summary
Al-Rustom opens by presenting displacement as the most pressing global issue, noting that 120 million people are currently displaced due to human rights abuses, environmental crises, and political instability. He reframes the concept of being "rooted" not as geographical attachment but as rootedness in values and how we relate to the world.
The speaker shares a formative experience from 2005 when visiting the Jewish quarter of Córdoba, Spain, which was architecturally preserved but completely empty of Jews. He was struck by the layered history of the Grand Mosque of Córdoba—built with Christian architectural styles from Damascus, itself a converted cathedral originally dedicated to Jupiter. Simultaneously visiting Istanbul and the converted Aya Sophia mosque (converted in 1453), he recognized a parallel historical pattern: both conversions occurred roughly 39 years apart (Aya Sophia in 1453, Córdoba mosque converted to church in 1492), the same year of Muslim and Jewish expulsion from Iberia and Columbus's arrival in the Americas. He later witnessed Turkish cities emptied by the 1915 Armenian genocide.
Al-Rustom invokes Walter Benjamin's thesis on the philosophy of history—that "there is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism." He argues that Córdoba and Istanbul embody this truth: their beauty, creativity, and innovation coexist with invasion, displacement, and erasure. Standing before a statue of Maimonides (Musa Maymun) in the empty Jewish quarter, he experienced an epiphany: as an Arab Christian, should he celebrate the mosque's conversion to a church, or mourn the erasure of Arabic motifs? This triggered recognition of his own hyphenated identity struggles.
Al-Rustom details his personal biography as evidence of perpetual displacement: born in Egypt to a Syrian father and Armenian mother, he was a Christian minority in Muslim-majority Egypt, appeared foreign in Syria due to his Egyptian accent, and arrived in Canada only to be racialized as Muslim despite his Christian identity. Professionally as an anthropologist studying Armenian history, he faces gatekeeping: questioned about his right to study Armenians despite being quarter-Armenian.
He introduces Edward Said's concept of intellectual exile—a conscious choice to refuse complicity in group violence rather than suffering imposed displacement. This requires both critical thinking and compassion (etymologically "to suffer with"). Al-Rustom argues that identities should be departure points, not destinations, as they confine moral capacity. He advocates for transcending identities through recognition of shared human fragility and vulnerability across displaced populations. True rootedness comes not from places and identities, but from values, criticism, and compassion—all requiring humility to see ourselves and others as part of the same humanity.
Key Insights
- Walter Benjamin argued that 'there is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism'—meaning civilization and barbarism are inseparable components of the same historical document, not separate narratives.
- Al-Rustom experienced rootedness in Córdoba and Istanbul not through ancestry or identity belonging, but through recognizing in the stories of other displaced peoples the reflection of his own story and personal experience.
- Edward Said warned against 'blind affiliations' and advocated the principle that 'never solidarity before criticism'—meaning solidarity with a group should not preclude critical examination of that group's actions and histories.
- Al-Rustom argues that conformity—whether imposed externally or self-imposed—is inherently violent, and the world demands that people fit into binaries and single narratives rather than embracing hyphenated or plural identities.
- True rootedness is achieved not in places or identities, but in values, criticism, and compassion—and this requires recognizing that those being deported or dying on migration routes carry the same fragility, hopes, and fears as privileged populations, just shaped by different power structures.
Topics
Transcript
[0:00] If you ask me what is the most pressing question we are facing today, my answer would be being uprooted. If you look at the United Nations statistics, you're going to see that more than 120 million people are being displaced for many reasons. human rights abuses, displacement, environmental crisis and the rest of [0:31] it. 120 million people that is the population of Japan, the 12th most populated country in the world and the trend is looking that these numbers are going to be always increasing because of the different political and environmental uh crisis. When we think about roots, we normally think about the metaphor of a tree uh being rooted in a particular soil. [1:01] But…
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