A tribute to Edward Said

This contribution, a short tribute to Edward Said, Palestinian-American literary theorist and critic, who died three years ago, is from Damola Awoyokun, literary activist, journalist and one of the most brilliant essayists of the upcoming generation of Nigerian writers:

Prof Edward Said (saheed) was a narrative in hybridism. He combined the bests of Arabic and western civilizations. He like one of his mentors, Iqbal Ahmad, was another recruit in the parade of intellectuals in revolt against the dictatorships of idealisms, of violence and all activities of hate not of truth that make the fact of cultural pluralism impossible. To Said, the use of one’s mind is the real martyrdom. Every battle against imperial control must start at the level of text since the quest for it so much relied on the text. No doubt then that his seminal work, Orientalism(1978) was how the west instrumentalized knowledge for the purpose of colonial domination of the Arab nations. He followed this up with Culture and Imperialism (1993), dealing with the same subject but broadening the victim to the whole of the third world. In his lifetime, Said wrote over 25 books which include two on classical music. On September 25, 2003, he died in New York after he lost a 13 year jihad against blood cancer.

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Damola Awoyokun is the Managing Editor of Fawi Publications.