"Speaking both as an American and as an Arab I must ask my reader not to underestimate the kind of simplified view of the world that a handful of Pentagon civilian elites have formulated for US policy in the entire Arab and Islamic worlds, a view in which terror, pre-emptive war, and unilateral regime change -- backed up by the most bloated military budget in history -- are the main ideas debated endlessly and impoverishingly by a media that assigns itself the role of producing so-called "experts" who validate the government's general line. Reflection, debate, rational argument, moral principle based on a secular notion that human beings must create their own history have been replaced by abstract ideas that celebrate American or Western exceptionalism, denigrate the relevance of context, and regard other cultures with contempt." Preface to Orientalism, 7 August, 2003 Edward Said died on 25 September, 2003.

Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 1 - 7 January 2004 (Issue No. 671)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/671/fr3.htm