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         (pub'd Tariq's "Clash of Fundamentalisms")

Mirrored from:
www.CounterPunch.org

July 8, 2002

An Interview with Tariq Ali

How the Bush Used 9/11 to Remap the World


(Please don't shoot me, I'm just the editor)


[This interview with Tariq Ali was conducted 
 by Fábio Fernandes of Mão Única, 
 the Brazilian Magazine.]

Question: After the September 11th attack and its 
          consequences in US and in the Middle East, 
do you believe the world is facing a state of war 
right now? Why (or why not)?

Tariq Ali: I think a war is going on in Afghanistan. 
           Every week there are reports of casualties. 
Almost 2000 Afghan civilians have already been killed, 
usually by 'accident'. Who mourns for them? Who builds 
memorials in their honour? Who cares about their families?

Simultaneously there is Sharon's war against the 
Palestinian nation, backed by the Bush administration. 
The American media is more biased than the Israeli press. 
It treats Israel as the victim. It ignores the fact that 
Israel provoked the suicie attacks by a systematic policy 
of assassinating Palestinian leaders. 'Operation Defensive 
Shield' is designed to crush the Palestinian resistance 
and destroy all hopes of a sovereign and independent 
Palestinian republic.. Leaving aside the moral abomination 
that this is and the double standards of the West, let's 
ask ourselves whether such actions will lead to a decrease 
or increase in acts of terrorism? Anyone capable of 
thinking independently knows the answer to this one.

Question: Along with Noam Chomsky, you are one of the 
          English-language writers that criticizes 
most fiercely the U.S. government policies, particularly 
on the subject of security. In your opinion, how does 
the opposition (by which we mean the Left, not 
especially in the US but in the First World) view the 
Bush Administration?

Tariq Ali: I think that the Left, using the word in 
           its broadest sense, is divided. Many 
intellectuals were panicked into supporting the 
'war on terrorism'. Though a strong minority exists 
in the United States that opposes the new 
imperialism. In Europe there is a majority in 
Germany, Britain and Italy that is opposed to any 
new war on Iraq and many are now beginning to see 
that the US utilised 9/11 to re-map the world. So 
there is an opposition in the First World. In 
Britain at the moment 170 Members of Parliament 
(mainly Labour) have signed a public declaration 
against a war on Iraq.

Of course many of those who shifted allegiances to 
back Bush's war in Afghanistan -- the belligeratii 
-- are also in favour of a war against Iraq. Their 
favourite guru is the former Trotskyist Kanaan Makiya 
-- the Anglo-Iraqi writer touted by sycophants as 
the 'Alexander Solzhenitsyn of Iraq' -- wants his 
chums in the US State Department to take over Iraq 
and rule it.

Question: A few months ago, you went to the Bienal 
          do Livro de Sao Paulo, to talk about the 
Brazilian edition of your latest book, The Clash 
of Fundamentalisms. Are you acquainted with how 
people in Latin American countries is reacting to 
this not-so-new World Order - especially Brazil, 
which current government is considered one of the 
most faithful followers of the neoliberalism?

Tariq Ali: My impression is that most of Latin 
           America is deeply hostile to the 
New Order. South America has always been treated 
by the US as a 'co-prosperity sphere', ie, 
shamelessly exploited and under a permanent 
semi-occupation. So opposition to Washington in 
this region hardly comes as a surprise. Look 
at Argentina. A tragic outcome of neo-liberal 
economics. This country was the laboratary 
of market fundamentalism. The IMF mullahs 
followed its every turn. The US Treasury 
authorised its policies. 

The result? A total disaster.

This is what the PT in Brazil should be explaining 
to the people. Cardoso's policies could lead to a 
similar disaster in Brazil. I know perfectly well 
that Lula's options are restricted, but if he does 
nothing, the result will be a tragedy. The 
combination of an economic collapse and mass 
depoliticisation is the worst possible scenario. 
So the PT has to implement some radical reforms, 
especially in relation to health, education and 
the landless peasants.

Question: In some of the interviews you gave right 
          after September 11th, you said that you 
didn't fear the U.S. government, but you feared 
the fundamentalists. Everyone knows, however, that 
this current "enemy of the free world" have already 
worked for the CIA and the Pentagon, and had its 
religious traits enhanced to attack and destroy. 
May the fundamentalism be used in both sides of 
this war, and until which point?

Tariq Ali: I think you must have misread some 
           interview. I have always argued and 
this is the thesis of my book that the US Empire 
and its economic-military policies are the mother 
of all fundamentalisms. They have spawned the groups 
which they now fight.

Question: What can we expect of the conflicts between 
          Jews and Palestinians in the near future? 
Are you pessimistic on this subject? That's why you 
put in your book that excellent interview with Isaac 
Deutscher, by the way?

Tariq Ali: I am not optimistic. How can one be when 
           the war-criminal Sharon talks to US 
Senators about a hundred year war against the Arabs 
and an urgent need to transplant a million more 
Jews in Israel. This sonofabitch won't be around 
for much longer (even Zionists cannot overcome the 
laws of biology) but he wants to bequeath a legacy 
to the coming generations: war, war and more war. 
But the Palestinians will not give up their struggle 
for nationhood. Since 1948, all attempts to crush 
them, to obliterate their memory have failed.

The Oslo Accords created bantustans. The Palestinians 
rejected them. They will not accept a Palestinian 
which is an Israeli protectorate. So till the United 
States forces Israel to accept a two-state solution 
nothing much will change.

Question: In their book Empire, Antonio Negri and 
          Michael Hardt didn't consider exactly the 
US as THE Empire itself, but merely a representation 
of it. Were they right?

Tariq Ali: EMPIRE is a very stimulating account of 
           globalisation, but it is hopelessly wrong 
on two central issues. The state has not withered 
away. Strong states still exist---USA, China, Germany, 
etc----- but the difference with the past is that 
there is now only one Empire and this is not the 
nebulos entity imagined by Cultural Studies, but 
a real, living organism and it has a name; the 
United States of America..

Question: Assuming they weren't right on this point: 
          can we live without the American Empire? 
Will we live without it someday?

Tariq Ali: Whether we will live without it is unlikely, 
           but I hope our children and their children 
will. All Empires suffer from an invincibility complex, 
but when the end comes we see that it was unpredictable 
and it surprises everyone. In the case of the US it 
will probably be a combbination of internal and external 
factors, economic and military. 

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