professor fred halliday has died

Fred in action at the 'Is Islam a Threat to the West' conference at Chatham House in London in June 2005

The very sad news came today that Professor Fred Halliday had died in hospital in Barcelona.
The founder of OpenDemocracy Anthony Barnett has posted this tribute on the Open Democracy website:

Fred Halliday 1946 – 2010

Anthony Barnett, 26 April 2010

Fred Halliday, great scholar and openDemocracy columnist, has died. We are posting appreciations here
About the author: Anthony Barnett is the founder of openDemocracy.net and the editor of its UK section, Our Kingdom.

Fred Halliday died this morning in Barcelona where he had been battling with cancer. His twenty plus books (there are more to come), his compelling lectures, his wide ranging, powerful essays and journalism, provided a constant source of inspiration for many of us around the world. He was a like a one-man international: dedicated and passionate in the cause of justice; hard-headed in insisting upon the obstacles that had to be overcome; scathing about the stupidities of those who proclaimed they were the force of progress; constantly aware of the deeper levels of cultural and religious irrationality and its shaping power – and capable of making astoundingly well-informed judgments about almost anywhere on the planet. His urge to judgment, clarity and laying out a view that was also a challenge, made him an exemplary political intellectual. He investigated on the ground, read widely, learnt fluent Arabic, Farsi, German, French, Russian and Spanish and set out his views in lucid prose. An important contributor to openDemocracy, he saw his columns as a source of renewal. He intended to deepen his writing, to make it more personal and profound, and to take on the prevailing shallowness and loss of a sense of history in current affairs...
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