The Loss Of An Eminent Scholar

Professor Edward Said died September 25, 2003 of complications from leukemia. First-rate scholar and scribe, author of seminal works such as Orientalism, he was best known -- equally admired and scorned -- for his devotion to the Palestinian cause and his tireless denunciation of the Israeli Occupation. Anyone who read Said regularly was struck at the way deep erudition and humanistic passion could be fused in a single soul. Today, all around us, are commentators who are imperceptive and uncontroversial, concerned chiefly with self and career: the least offensive of them merely take up space; the most offensive routinely lie and serve the ends of power. It's difficult to describe how tough a loss this is: as Uri Avnery, an Israeli peace activist, put it, "there is no second Edward Said." Check out the links below: