EDWARD SAID

Long Island City, NY

Your editorial about Edward Said, and JoAnn Wypijewski's wonderful remembrance of the great engagé thinker ["Edward Said," "Mementos," Oct. 20], brought to mind my own encounters over the years with his inspiring, independent radicalism of thought and practice. The first was an interview with him in 1981 for an alternative weekly. He had recently published Covering Islam, his critique of the monolithic and distorted image of Islamic societies perpetuated by Western mass media and how this coverage dovetails with US policy. During our conversation, he denounced the Ayatollah Khomeini as a "fanatic" and condemned the seizure of the US Embassy in Tehran while also deploring the skewed media coverage that denied Americans the means to comprehend the context and history of Iranian outrage against the United States. At a time when much of the (Marxist) left embraced the latter stance, Said's position demonstrated a characteristic independence of thought and what Wypijewski calls his "allergy to power."

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