Continuing the Conversation

Abstract

Edward Said’s presence made complacency impossible. From the first time I heard him lecture on Islamic theories of history and rhetoric to our last conversation about a trend in British historiography that admires imperialists’ suffering more than is good for us, through those meetings, emails, phone calls, interviews, and occasional exchanges of offprints, Edward made it impossible to be satisfied. We should not misunderstand: he took and gave great pleasure. His learning, wit, even his angry rhetoric and relentless analysis exist within the world of intellectual pleasure, of commitment to forming oneself and one’s society as occasions to live well. Moreover, he made people around him—me, at least—come to love criticism as his great teacher Blackmur had taught us: criticism is an act of love, and likewriting it is the response towhat has comebefore, towhat is coming into being even now. Never did Said, for all his worry about the Middle East and his study of European empire and Orientalism, stop thinking about the U.S.More than once, as all know, he lashed out at the PLO and the PA for their failure to study and understand the U.S. Furthermore, he understood that given the imbalance of power the directions of U.S. culture and policywould support or damage not only the political fate of states but also the life possibilities of entire civilizations. For an exile, criticism involves love for all the world, but it requires the clearest description, analysis, and judgment of power’s realities, especially its unjust imbalances. The critic loves freedom enough and depends so much upon its possibility as a condition for its own existence that hemust speak truthfully, even harshly, to protect it. Edwardknew