Journal of American Studies of Turkey

13 (2001) : 1

 

 

 

In Memoriam

 

Edward W. Said 1935-2003

 

 

 

you dispensed your wealth

from a wooden soapbox

yet must now forgive even this:

           my jaundiced paradigm

           old-fashioned, tainted with

                        the grime

                              of power. ignorance

                       is power.

 

what patience and moral courage

modest, exquisite, magisterial

as if a purple robe which fell

in velvet folds, each pleat

           another mystery exposing one more

travesty of tyranny, shortcut

alibis and hollow pageantry

           of so-called culture:

           the easy dishonesties

           with which life intrudes

 

“a beginning is different from an origin”

 dissident before you were old

 a text yourself: ardent and desperate

            shaped by circumstances unimaginable

but human and real/of this world

           hopeful to the end

                      dissent /dissent

though death is the truth

of nature and life

           and death always intrudes

 

 

 

ayşe lahur kırtunç / october 21, 2003