segunda-feira, agosto 25, 2003
EDWARD SAID E O PÚBLICO
O Público de Domingo oferece aos seus leitores um ensaio de Edward Said introduzindo-o da seguinte forma:"Num artigo evocativo dos 25 anos da obra que marcou a sua carreira e gerou debates em todo o mundo sobre a História contemporânea, o académico e ensaísta palestiniano Edward Said escreve no PÚBLICO sobre os 25 anos de "Orientalismo".Ora, isto é o que se chama publicidade enganosa. Este ensaio celebra apenas o enviesamento anti-americano deste autor neo-marxista e a sua simpatia pela causa palestiniana. (Said chegou ao ponto de criticar Arafat por ser demasiado brando com Israel (aqui) !).
Explica Howard Kurtz da National Review (aqui):"The ruling intellectual paradigm in academic area studies (especially Middle Eastern studies) is called "post-colonial theory." Post-colonial theory was founded by Columbia University professor of comparative literature, Edward Said. Said gained fame by equating professors who support American foreign policy with the 19th-century European intellectuals who propped up racist colonial empires. The core premise of post-colonial theory is that it is immoral for a scholar to put his knowledge of foreign languages and cultures at the service of American power.
Having received my doctorate in social anthropology at Harvard University, and having taught at both Harvard and the University of Chicago, I've had ample opportunity to see the dominance of Edward Said's post-colonial theory within the area-studies community.
In his regular columns for the Egyptian weekly Al-Ahram, Said has made his views about America crystal clear. Said has condemned the United States, which he calls, "a stupid bully," as a nation with a "history of reducing whole peoples, countries, and even continents to ruin by nothing short of holocaust." Said has actively urged his Egyptian readers to replace their naive belief in America as the defender of liberty and democracy with his supposedly more accurate picture of America as an habitual perpetrator of genocide.
Said has also called for the International Criminal Court to prosecute Bill Clinton, Madeline Albright, and General Wesley Clark as war criminals. According to Said, the genocidal actions of these American leaders make Slobodan Milosevic himself look like "a rank amateur in viciousness." Said has even treated the very idea of American democracy a farce. He has belittled the reverence in which Americans hold the Constitution, which Said dismisses with the comment that it was written by "wealthy, white, slaveholding, Anglophilic men.""
P.S. Para uma crítica do "Orientalismo" ver este artigo.Alguns dos sub-títulos são: "Factional Fighting and Ad Hominem Attacks"; "Personal Bias"; "Leftist and Jargon-Ridden"; "Apologetic about Islamism"; "Anti-Americanism"; "Blame the United States"; "Friendly to enemies of United States"; "Antagonistic to Allies of the United States".
posted by Joao 3:31 da manhã
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