Edward Said

Edited extract from an article by Edward Said, first printed in the 'London Review of Books' on 14 December 2000...

Hıristiyan Sağcı görüşle, çılgıncasına İsrail yanlısı, büyük lobi gücüne sahip neo-con hareketi bir ortaklık oluşturuyor. Bu ortaklık Amerikan iç politikasında korkunç bir güç. Ne yazık ki Ortadoğu tartışmaları işte bu ortamda yapılıyor.

During the last days of July, Representative Tom Delay (Republican) of Texas, the House majority leader described routinely as one of the three or four most powerful men in Washington, delivered himself of his opinions regarding the roadmap and the future of peace in the Middle East.

The great modern empires have never been held together only by military power.

A Roadmap to What and Where?

No one would deny that most Arab countries today are ruled by unpopular regimes and that vast numbers of poor, disadvantaged young Arabs are exposed to the ruthless forms of fundamentalist religion.

Savaş karşıtı sesler geçen kasımdan bu yana medyada adeta buharlaştı. Eleştiri üreten herkes Amerika'nın düşmanı ilan edildi.

Americans have been cheated and lied to on matters of the gravest constitutional importance

Fukuyama'nın tarihin sonunu ilan eden o muazzam safsatası veya Huntigton'ın medeniyetlerin çatışması teorisi, kültür tarihinin keskin sınırlardan veya giriş, gelişme ve sonuç aşamalarından menkul olduğunu varsaydıkları için yanlıştır.

A Tiny, Unelected Group, Supported by Powerful, Unrepresentative Minorities

It has finally become intolerable to listen to or look at news in this country.

In the Arab and Muslim worlds, the situation appears more peculiar. For almost a year American politicians, regional experts, administration officials, journalists have repeated the charges that have become standard fare so far as Islam and the Arabs are concerned.

If you sit in Washington and have some connection to the country's power elites, the rest of the world is spread out before you like a map, inviting intervention anywhere and at any time.

The flurry of reports, leaks, and misinformation about the looming US war against Saddam Hussein's dictatorship in Iraq continues unabated.

Many parts of Lebanon were bombed heavily by Israeli warplanes on 4 June, 1982. Two days later the Israeli army entered Lebanon through the country's southern border. Menachem Begin was prime minister, Ariel Sharon his minister of defense.

Every human calamity is different, so there is no point in trying to look for equivalence between one and the other.

Terrorism, and its obsessive pursuit, have become an entirely circular, self-fulfilling murder and slow death of enemies who have no choice or say in the matter.

He has had 10 years of freedom to run a petty kingdom, and has succeeded in bringing scorn on himself

Six distinct calls for Palestinian reform and elections are being uttered now: five of them are, for Palestinian purposes, both useless and irrelevant.

Despite Israel's effort to restrict coverage of its extraordinarily destructive invasion of the West Bank's Palestinian towns and refugee camps, information and images have nevertheless seeped through.

"Filistin'le herhangi bir bağlantısı olan biri bugün şaşkın bir öfke ve şok halinde.

Edward Said warns against the return to a shameful episode in the US's intellectual history...

Urbane and sophisticated, Edward W. Said is in many ways the quintessential New Yorker. His love for the city is palpable. "New York," he says, "plays an important role in the kind of criticism and interpretation which I have done." He mirrors the city's restless energy and diversity.

With the bombs and missiles falling on Afghanistan in the high-altitude US destruction that is Operation Enduring Freedom, the Palestine question may seem tangential to the altogether more urgent events in Central Asia.

As pressures mount upon the Palestinians and Israel continues its drive to put down the second Intifada, what kind of leadership does the PNA provide? Excoriating its irresponsibility and corruption, Edward Said issues a call for Arafat's departure.

Samuel Huntington's article "The Clash of Civilizations?" appeared in the Spring 1993 issue of Foreign Affairs, where it immediately attracted a surprising amount of attention and reaction.

11 Eylül felaketini ve tepkilerini yaşayan 7 milyon Müslüman Amerikalı (ki, bunların sadece 2 milyonu Arap kökenli) için oldukça üzücü bir dönemden geçiyoruz. Felaketin Arap ve Müslüman kurbanları olmasının yanı sıra, bu gruba yönelmiş bir nefret havası da hâkim. George W.

'İslam' ve 'Batı' körü körüne peşinden gidilecek bayraklar olmak için çok yetersiz etiketler. Bazıları bunların peşinden koşacak, ama bu zorunlu değil, bize kalmış...