"...Said's convenient poststructuralist position that the Orient did not exist, but was a Western construction, ignored reality. Different regions of the world do share certain cultural traits, and it is absurd to deny that Islam plays a major role in the societies and culture of the Middle East -- and that it is a role significantly different from Christianity's in the West. To say this is not to 'essentialize' those societies or reduce them to religious caricatures, but merely to acknowledge the obvious." Gary Kamiya at Salon with current critiques of Edward Said's "Orientalism".