Occasional Paper 5<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Palestinian- American public intellectual<\/strong> of our time late Edward Wadie Said (1935-2003) in his magnum opus<\/em>, Orientalism<\/em> (Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. 1978) challenged the colonial legacy not just in terms of its ruthless military machine unleased but more devastatingly the invasive epistemology that led to the creation of the \u2018non European other\u2019 essentially as impotent and weak.\u00a0 This text led to an uproar among the intellectuals from North American to Europe. Said\u2019s text, Orientalism <\/em>did two things with scholarship. First it fired up the complacent intellectuals of the Western world even though by then they had read both post structuralists like Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida and their analysis which Said himself deploys in his critique. Secondly, his thesis injected a new energy for the non European academics and activists to think in alternative epistemological directions. This resulted in new wave of studies both in the Middle East Studies as well as South Asia Studies both in the Eastern and the Western academia, especially through the mediation works of Gayatri Spivak, Homi Bhabha, Gyan Prakash, Ranjit Guha and Hamid Dabashi to name a few. \u00a0New pursuits in the academia emerged: literary criticism, cultural studies, post colonial and subaltern studies became popular research fields with gush of publications and energized debate as if an epistemological decolonization<\/em> (I am sure, Said would have liked this coinage of his political nuances which he shared with us, italics mine<\/em>) begun with the new and young scholarship. However, Said in return was heavily criticized by another group of scholars from around the world. Among them were, Robert G. Irwin,\u00a0 Albert Hourani and Bernard Lewis but Bruce Thorton, an American classicist \u00a0dismissed Orientalism<\/em> as an “incoherent amalgam of dubious postmodern theory, sentimental Third Worldism, glaring historical errors, and Western guilt.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Said\u2019s supporters having observed the\ncriticism across the academia and after the two reprints by Penguin Books\n(1985, 1991), invited Said to write an AFTERWORD for the third reprint (also\nPenguin Books, 1995), was de facto a response to his critics which was welcomed\nby some of them with edification. But very challengingly Said could no longer\ngo back to the \u2018old edition\u2019 without a concerted revision which he genuinely attempted\nin the AFTERWORD.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Corona (Covid 19) virus is permanently carving and\nshaping from food patterns, to its production, import and export mechanism, air\ntravel far and wide with an industry that had grown so much, air travel,\nholidays, leisure and entertainment. From governance, international relations,\ndiplomacy to market and its neoliberal fundamentals of economic order. Human\nrights, democratic systems, rule of law and judiciary, prisons and\nrehabilitation. Relationships between men and women families and relatives,\nreligion, religious activities and their institutions and theologies,  preaching and teaching. Cultural values, nationalisms,\nseparatist wars, so called purity of races and nations, social etiquettes,\ntraditions, loyalties, symbols and language itself is each taking its own redefinitions\nseriously. Basically like Edward Said, however critically he portrayed and\nanalyzed the colonial legacy, emphasized the need to decolonize,  yet could not go for his third print without a\nconspicuous revision with his AFTERWORD. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

No country in the post Covid 19 era could \u2018reprint the\nold edition\u2019. The old edition is basically declared null and void because it\ncould not contain the magnitude of the pandemic. The old edition de facto was\nalready catastrophic in every way from governance to treatment of nature. Most\ncountries already have accepted that they were not prepared for the worst even\nthough Wuhan was going through its toll. The alarm bells were red and\nunstoppably ringing in Lombardia, yet the neighbouring Western and the Northern\nEuropean states probably felt that this might be a repeat of with SARS or MERS\nepidemic and that their countries might be saved. The warning bells in Italy, Spain\nand France were perhaps felt as false alarms. Some of them may have thought\nthat they could protect their masses but underestimates their open borders,\nespecially the Northern Italian border with Switzerland and France and with Austria,  France with Spain, France and Germany, Germany\nwith the Netherlands, Spain with Portugal,  Norway with Sweden are few examples. One can\nsee how such a discretely spreading virus has taken these cluster of world\u2019s\nmost enchanting locations. The UK and the US had sufficient time to be prepared\nbut the opposite happened at such a colossal human cost. At the time of writing\nthe world has suffered and a loss one hundred thousand of its citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A serious assessment and revisions of the \u2018old\neditions of governance\u2019 is a fundamental requirement, they should be made\naccountable. Governments no longer should be allowed to go back to \u2018business as\nusual\u2019 or to go back to their \u2018old edition of the book of political rhetoric\u2019.\nThe masses must bring substantial pressure on their governments to come before\nthe people to assess their commitment to the civic responsibility and the\nmandate they were given. People must seek and regain their real sovereignty and\nperhaps re-mandate their political leadership, other civic authorities  and redesign models of governance and\ndisaster management. Preparedness, discipline and rule of law have become most\nprimary tools towards stability, security and prosperity.  Economics, trade and market must be made as\nmeans to human development. The global financial institutions more particularly\nthe multi national corporations that did operate on their own over and above\nthe elected governments must be brought under serious scrutiny and the so-\ncalled independent scientific research can no longer afford or be allowed to\nfunction on their own whim and fancy. Food security and the biomedical search\nshould be brought under special bodies with transparent and accountable\nprocedures within governance of a country. Scientists, microbiologists,\nbiochemists and other experts in the field of science and new innovations\nremain human and human error could be at any point of their study, research and\nexperimentation. Hence, stringent laws must be in place to safeguard the health\nof the larger population. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The untold loss of the elderly who have contributed\nmuch to their communities could have been saved. The governments have failed by\ntheir mandate to safeguard their elderly and the vulnerable. If the governments\ncannot protect their most vulnerable then the vociferous campaigns to safeguard\nhuman rights in the rest of the world is an empty call for justice and\nhypocritical all around. The right to live was denied for thousands with no\nhonorable closure for their loved ones. I am reminded of a prophetic voice of\nour time. He wrote about seven dangers to human virtue, also known as seven\nsocial sins or seven blunders. They are still worth our attention, especially\nin this shared health crisis. They were published in his weekly newspaper, Young\nIndia<\/em>, 25 Oct. 1925, 22 years before India gained independence in 1947. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cW<\/strong>ealth without work<\/p>\n\n\n\n

         P<\/strong>leasure\nwithout Conscience <\/p>\n\n\n\n

                K<\/strong>nowledge\nwithout Character<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                \n      C<\/strong>ommerce without Morality<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                       \n      S<\/strong>cience without Humanity<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                                    R<\/strong>eligion\nwithout Sacrifice<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                                           P<\/strong>olitics without Principle.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those agree to govern cannot be allowed to \u2018reprint\nthe old edition\u2019.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Edward Said\u2019s text, where his AFTERWORD facilitated to\nrespond to his critics might have been sufficient. But the in the edition we\nhave been discussing above paragraphs, it should be made mandatory and\nnecessary also move the research field, look for the knowledge gaps, carefully revisit\nthe literature review, retest the rationale, the footnotes, bibliography,\nreferences, endnotes and even appendices, the supervisors and readers all must revise\neach of their status profoundly in the grand picture of society. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A revised reprint is required not necessarily a new\nbook, and it is desired and necessitated by the sheer loss we have incurred \u2013\nit must be revised and re printed not with the old cover page but with a new\nhard cover reprint edition in their loving memory. With acute hope and inspired\nby the fortitude to rise like a phoenix the determination and the peoples\u2019 will\nmake it anew for them and for the future. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shanthikumar Hettiarachchi, 17 April 2020<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Occasional Paper 5 A Palestinian- American public intellectual of our time late Edward Wadie Said (1935-2003) in his magnum opus, Orientalism (Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. 1978) challenged the colonial legacy not just in terms […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hettiviththi.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hettiviththi.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hettiviththi.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hettiviththi.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hettiviththi.lk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=721"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hettiviththi.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":722,"href":"https:\/\/hettiviththi.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721\/revisions\/722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hettiviththi.lk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hettiviththi.lk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hettiviththi.lk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}