The late Edward Said‘s sparkling intelligence shines through in this Interview by Michaël Zeeman for the Dutch television programme ‘Leven en Werken’, VPRO in 2000. Quoting Said “At bottom, the intellectual, in my sense of the word, is neither a pacifier nor a consensus-builder, but someone whose whole being is staked on a critical sense, a sense of being unwilling to accept easy formulas of ready-made clichés, or the smooth, ever-so-accommodating confirmations of what the powerful or conventional have to say and what they do. Not just passively unwillingly, but actively willing to say so in public.” Edward Said remains an inspiration.

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