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An Interview with Edward Said

 At least three of his arguments are still relevant today: The portrayal of the Arabs and the Middle Easterners. We have seen that since 2001.  The Palestinian leadership capitulation in the Oslo Accords. We know today that the plight of the Palestinians is worse and the cancer of occupation has spread even further. The almost disappearance of the dissident intellectual. What we have are intellectuals of the status quo.
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The ‘Sobbing Superpower’

“ From the outside, it must seem strange to watch the richest and most powerful nation in the history of the world choose its path by means of moral scolding and sanctimonious posturing, both positions washed in on millions of litres of high-octane American tears. This must be particularly annoying when you are also aware that whatever this country chooses to do will have enormous consequences for your nation and your life, and that your tears will count for nothing in our majestic deliberations. I feel your pain. Really, I do. I weep.” Make them cry
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US

  Biden may pave the way for a more competent autocrat [sic] Trump has never been an autocrat. I don’t see the author using the word metaphorically.
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Egypt: Sayyid Qutb

Sayyid Qutb was a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s and 1960s until his execution by Nasser. He was born "to a smallholding family on the outskirts of Asyut in Upper Egypt. Repulsed at a young age by local clerics who failed to 'simplify religion for the public', Qutb snubbed Azhar [University] and embarked on the path of secular education. Qutb graduated to become a primary schoolteacher on 1933, and assumed a few bureaucratic posts at the Ministry of Education between 1940 and 1952. Unlike the vigorous-looking and socially engaging [Hassan] Banna, [the founder of the the Muslim Brotherhood], Qutb was plangued by poor health, always appearing pale and heavy-eyed, and leading the life of a chronically depressed introvert in the then-desolate district of Helwan, outside the capital [Cairo]. He found solace not in religion, but in literature and sensual poetry, and was quickly drawn to a circle of European-inspired intellectualls, patronized by the tow...
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What we found is a phenomenon that explains, with remarkable clarity, the rise of Donald Trump — but that is also much larger than him, shedding new light on some of the biggest political stories of the past decade. Trump, it turns out, is just the symptom. The rise of American authoritarianism is transforming the Republican Party and the dynamics of national politics, with profound consequences likely to extend well beyond this election. The rise of American authoritarianism
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"You can spew your visceral hatred for Trump, Farage, Le Pen, Gert Wilders or other far-right “populists” – whom I prefer to call racists –  all you want, but an abandonment of the Syrian people using the age-old adage of “it’s all America’s doing” and absolving the crimes of such people puts you in cahoots with these very same bigots." That father
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