Thursday, March 17, 2005

And Now Adonis. Everybody has written an obituary for Hariri, so why not Adonis. I only cite this article because it is important to remember that the classical Orientalist paradigm has been rejuvenated (I am talking about that at Georgetown in two weeks) and often at the hands of non-Westerners. Adonis says: "L’assassinat de l’être humain politiquement n’est pas un phénomène nouveau dans notre histoire. C’est une «tradition» ancrée dans une très longue histoire de la politique arabe fondée sur la violence." And that is different from where? Where was politics not founded on violence? And what tradition has been based on pacifism. Adonis makes it sound as if the Arabs invented assassinations. Such Orientalist cliches are now accepted as "liberal" Middle East introspection. Spare me.