Edward W Said's death is a great loss to the Arab and Third World. He was not only a champion of his fellow Palestinians who remained true to his cause for an independent Palestinian republic based on secularism and democracy. He was also a champion of the liberation of the once great Arab race from its sinful civilisational decline and mental poverty.

Said advocated the remaking of the Arab race based on the best of tradition and modernity, not unlike the late Rashid Rida, the great Islamic reformer, whom he no doubt admired. While he was a Christian, he respected Islam as the most civilising force that ever emerged in the world, and considered it the essence of Arab culture, and its salvation. His was a progressive Islam like that espoused by Rashid Rida and earlier, Muhammad Abduh and Jamaluddin Asadabadi (Al-Afghani).

His death could not have come at a worse time than this month, when Israel, established by immigrants based on the theft of Arab land (Palestine), is on the warpath against the Palestinian Arabs, with the full backing of imperialist America and Britain.

Said was no backer of terrorism by Muslims and Arabs against non-Muslims and non-Arabs. But he was far more against terrorism by the Israeli and Western power elites which were the main cause of the growth of Arab and Muslim terrorism.

We must keep Said's memory alive by remaining true to the Palestinian cause, and the liberation of the Arab nation from the twin tyrannies of Western-Zionist dominance and internal civilisational decline. To combat Arab and Muslim civilisational decline, Muslim and non-Muslim must both work together to come up with a guidelines set for a progressive modernist and enlightened Islamic and Arabic culture.

If need be, we have to call for the UN to trustee every single Arab and Muslim nation save Malaysia (the only successful Muslim nation), so that the world community can help the cancer-ridden Arab race and Muslim ummah rebuild itself from scratch.

We have to work with Arab, Jewish, and Western activists to "jihad" in the true sense against Western-Zionist tyranny, by living more simply (like Said's friend Ralph Nader, another great Arab leader) and boycotting all things Western which we do not necessarily need.