In
Memory Of Tanya Reinhart
By Noam Chomsky
22 March, 2007
Counterpunch
It is painful, and hard, to write
about the loss of an old and cherished friend. Tanya Reinhart was just
that.
Tanya was a brilliant and
creative scientist. I can express my own evaluation of her work most
concisely by recalling that years ago, when I was thinking about the
future of my own department after my retirement, I tried to arrange
to offer Tanya the invitation to be my eventual replacement, plans that
did not work out, much to my regret, mostly for bureaucratic reasons.
I will not try to review
her remarkable contributions to virtually every major area of linguistic
studies. Included among them are original and highly influential investigations
of syntactic structure and operations, referential dependence, principles
of lexical semantics and their implications for syntactic organization,
unified approaches to cross-linguistic semantic interpretation of complex
structures that appear superficially to vary widely, the theory of stress
and intonation, efficient parsing systems, the interaction of internal
computations with thought and sensorimotor systems, optimal design as
a core principle of language, and much else. Her academic work extended
well beyond, to literary theory, mass media and propaganda, and other
core elements of intellectual culture.
But Tanya's outstanding professional
work was only one part of her life, and of our long and intimate friendship.
She was one of the most courageous and honorable defenders of human
rights whom I have ever been privileged to meet. As all honest people
should, she focused her attention and energy on the actions of her own
state and society, for which she shared responsibility including
the responsibility, which she never shirked, to expose crimes of state
and to defend the victims of repression, violence, and conquest.
Her numerous articles and
books drew away the veil that concealed criminal and outrageous actions,
and shone a searing light on the reality that was obscured, all of immense
value to those who sought to understand and to react in a decent way.
Her activism was not limited to words, important as these were. She
was on the front line of direct resistance to intolerable actions, an
organizer and a participant, a stance that one cannot respect too highly.
She will be remembered not only as a resolute and honorable defender
of the rights of Palestinians, but also as one of those who have struggled
to defend the moral integrity of her own Israeli society, and its hope
for decent survival.
Tanya's passing is a terrible
loss, not only to her family and those fortunate enough to come to know
her personally, and to those she defended and protected with such dedication
and courage, but to everyone concerned with freedom, justice, and an
honorable peace.
Click
here to comment
on this article