27 August 2007

The few, the proud, the Decider(TM)

I stumbled on this in the introduction to Edward Said's book Culture and Imperialism. Let it be a reminder to those who didn't really pay attention when Bush name checked the character Pyle from Graham Green's The Quiet American:

"Few readers today, after Vietnam, Iran, the Philippines, Algeria, Cuba, Nicaragua, Iraq, would disagree that it is precisely the fervent innocence of Greene's Pyle or Naipaul's Father Huismans, men for whom the native can be educated into 'our' civilization, that turns out to produce the murder, subversion, and endless instability of 'primitive' societies."

I hope that clears things up for you!

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