February 2011
“…what has not been sufficiently stressed in histories of modern anti-Semitism has been the legitimation of such atavistic designations by Orientalism, and more important for my purposes here, the way this academic and intellectual legitimation has persisted right throught the modern age in discussions of Islam, the Arabs, or the Near Orient. For whereas it is no longer possible to write learned (or even popular) disquisitions on either ‘the Negro mind’ or ‘the Jewish personality,’ it is perfectly possible to engage in such research as ‘the Islamic mind,’ or ‘the Arab character’.”
—Edward W Said, Orientalism, New York, Vintage Books, 1978, p. 262
