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Every empire, however, tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate.

Edward Said

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Edward Said
Age: 68 †
Born: 1935
Born: November 1
Died: 2003
Died: November 25
Journalist
Literary Critic
Musicologist
Philosopher
Political Scientist
Professor
Writer
Jerusalem
Middle East
Edward Wadie Said
Educate
Mission
Missions
Tells
Liberate
However
Plunder
Control
Empire
Every
Unlike
World
Empires

More quotes by Edward Said

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To say that we're going to end countries or eradicate terrorism, and that it's a long war over many years, with many different instruments, suggests a much more complex and drawn-out conflict for which, I think, most Americans aren't prepared.
Edward Said
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There is also this great sense of triumphalism, that just as we defeated the Soviet Union, we can do this. And out of this sense of desperation and pathological religion, there develops an all-encompassing drive to harm and hurt, without regard for the innocent and the uninvolved, which was the case in New York.
Edward Said
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Look at situations as contingent, not as inevitable, look at them as the result of a series of historical choices made by men and women, as facts of society made by human beings, and not as natural or god-given, therefore unchangeable, permanent, irreversible.
Edward Said
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Ironically, many of these people, including Osama bin Laden and the mujahedeen, were, in fact, nourished by the United States in the early eighties in its efforts to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan.
Edward Said
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It was thought that to rally Islam against godless communism would be doing the Soviet Union a very bad turn indeed, and that, in fact, transpired. In 1985, a group of mujahedeen came to Washington and was greeted by President [Ronald] Reagan, who called them freedom fighters.
Edward Said
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The United States that has been involved first in the Gulf War and then in the tremendously damaging sanctions against Iraqi civilians. The United States that is the supporter of Israel against the Palestinians.
Edward Said
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What we must eliminate are systems of representation that carry with them the authority which has become repressive because it doesn't permit or make room for interventions on the part of those represented.
Edward Said
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Since the 1960s, we have seen the failure of the melting pot ideology. This ideology suggested that different historical, cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds could be subordinated to a larger ideology or social amalgam which is America. This concept obviously did not work, because paradoxically America encourages a politics of contestation.
Edward Said
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Part of the main plan of imperialism... is that we will give you your history, we will write it for you, we will re-order the past...What's more truly frightening is the defacement, the mutilation, and ultimately the eradication of history in order to create... an order that is favorable to the United States.
Edward Said
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The people who perpetrated the terror of the World Trade Center and Pentagon bombings are something different because these people were obviously not desperate and poor refugee dwellers. They were middle class, educated enough to speak English, to be able to go to flight school, to come to America, to live in Florida.
Edward Said
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This [9/11 event] was bloody-minded destruction for no other reason than to do it. Note that there was no claim for these attacks. There were no demands. There were no statements. It was a silent piece of terror. This was part of nothing.
Edward Said
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We are at a point in our work when we can no longer ignore empires and the imperial context in our studies. (p. 5)
Edward Said
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[One task of intellectuals is] to break down the stereotypes and reductive categories that are . . . limiting to human thought and communication.
Edward Said
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Most Arabs and Muslims feel that the United States hasn't really been paying much attention to their desires. They think it has been pursuing its policies for its own sake and not according to many of the principles that it claims are its own - democracy, self-determination, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, international law.
Edward Said
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I am for peace. And I am for a negotiated peace. But this accord is not a just peace.
Edward Said
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Density, complexity, and historical-semantic value that is so strong as to make politics possible... Gramsci's insight is to have recognised that subordination, fracturing, diffusion, reproducing, as much as producing, creating, forcing, guiding, are necessary aspects of elaboration.
Edward Said
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In the Islamic world, the U.S. is seen in two quite different ways. One view recognizes what an extraordinary country the U.S. is.
Edward Said
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Much as I have no wish to hurt anyone's feelings, my first obligation has not been to be nice but to be true to my perhaps peculiar memories, experiences and feelings.
Edward Said
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These actions were taken with the support and financing of the United States. How can you say this is part of U.S. adherence to international law and U.N. resolutions? The result is a kind of schizophrenic picture of the United States.
Edward Said
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It's very hard, for example, to justify the thirty-four-year occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. It's very hard to justify 140 Israeli settlements and roughly 400,000 settlers.
Edward Said