Thinkers and political figures
Edward Said
- Country
- Palestine and the United States
- Era
- 1935–2003
- Tradition
- Postcolonial criticism
Literary critic whose account of how Western scholarship constructed "the Orient" as an object of study founded postcolonial theory, and who was also among the most prominent advocates of Palestinian statehood.
01
Documented positions
Documented positions come from the sources listed. Similarity is this project’s inference from those positions, and is a much weaker claim.
- Argued that Western scholarship on the Middle East constructed an image of the East that served imperial administration
- Held that culture and empire are entangled, and that canonical European literature carries assumptions about colonised peoples
- Advocated Palestinian self-determination and served on the Palestinian National Council
- Broke with Arafat over the Oslo Accords, arguing they conceded too much and would not produce a viable state
- Later argued for a single binational state with equal rights rather than partition
- Defended secular criticism and opposed religious and nationalist essentialism on all sides
02
Where it sits on each dimension
Personal liberty
80
Collective orderIndividual freedom
Evidence: Well documented
Tradition and change
88
ContinuityReform
Evidence: Well documented
Nation and the world
35
InternationalistNationalist
Evidence: Documented
Religion and the state
12
Secular stateReligion in public life
Evidence: Well documented
Power and its limits
82
Concentrated authorityChecks and pluralism
Evidence: Well documented
Dimensions left unscored, for want of evidence: Wealth and inequality, The state in the economy, Environment and growth, Crime and punishment
Sources
- Edward Said, Orientalism · 1978
- Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism · 1993
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