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See also: [Susan Watkins]
[Tariq's article about 9/11 & Bush's actions]
On this page: {Short bio} {Links}
NOTE: The bio also contains an interview with him by
Radio Journalist David Barsamian (Alternative
Radio in Boulder, Colorado)
Tariq Ali (writer, director, HISTORIAN)
Editor of: The New Left Review
(Founding editor of "Black Dwarf")
Co-author of: 1968 Marching in the Streets
Short Biography
Mirrored from:
www.progressive.org (The Progressive Magazine)
Tariq Ali was born in 1943 in Lahore, in what was
then British-controlled India. He was educated in
Pakistan and then at Oxford. His opposition to the
military dictatorship in Pakistan during the 1960s
led to permanent exile in Britain. He was active
in the anti-war movement in Europe during the
late 1960s.
Ali is a longstanding editor of New Left Review
and has written more than a dozen books on history
and politics. His forthcoming book is "The Clash
of Fundamentalism: Crusades, Jihad, and Modernity"
(Verso, 2002).
He also has been working on two sets of novels.
Three novels of the "Islamic Quintet" have been
published by Verso: Shadows of the Pomegranate
Tree, The Book of Saladin, and The Stone Woman.
They portray Islamic civilization in a way that
he says "run counter to the standard views."
His "Fall of Communism" trilogy has seen the
publication of Redemption and Fear of Mirrors.
Ali's creative output extends to scripts for
stage and screen.
A short play of his on Iraq was recently performed
at Cooper Union in New York. A veritable "all
'rounder," as they say in South Asia, he is
currently working on an opera on Ayatollah Khomeini.
In late October, he was detained at the Munich
airport. "The inspector's eyes fell on a slim
volume in German that had been given to me by
a local publisher," he said. "It was still
wrapped in cellophane. In a state of some
excitement, the inspector rushed it over to an
armed policeman. The offending book was an
essay by Karl Marx, On Suicide." Ali said he
was rudely instructed to repack his bag, minus
the book, and was then taken to police
headquarters at the airport. The arresting
officer, Ali added, "gave me a triumphant smile
and said, 'After September 11, you can't travel
with books like this.' At this point, my
patience evaporated."
Ali demanded to call the mayor of Munich, who
had earlier interviewed him on the current
crisis at a public event in the city. The
threat of the call was sufficient, and Ali was
allowed to continue on his journey.
Interview with Tariq Ali
(by David Barsamian is the director of
Alternative Radio in Boulder, Colorado)
Ali lives in London, and I spoke with him in
late November by phone.
Q: A Pakistani general once told you, "Pakistan
was the condom that the Americans needed to
enter Afghan-istan. We've served our purpose
and they think we can be just flushed down
the toilet." That was in the 1980s, when the
United States and Pakistan funded and armed
the mujahedeen to defeat the godless Soviet
Union. Is the United States again using
Pakistan as a condom?
Tariq Ali: I think the Americans fished out
the same condom but found it had
too many holes in it. So they supplied a new
one, and they've gone in again. But this time
they couldn't go in with the Pakistani army,
since the Pakistani army created the Taliban
and propelled it to victory. It could hardly
be expected to kill its own offspring. The U.S.
forced the Pakistani army to withdraw its
support, which it did, reluctantly. But it had
to. Once Pakistani support was withdrawn from
the Taliban, they collapsed like a house of
cards, though one hardline faction will probably
carry on in the mountains for a bit.
Q: Most Americans may not know the history
of Pakistani-U.S. support for the Taliban.
In a talk you gave in late September, you said,
"People are taught to forget history." What
did you have in mind there?
Ali: In the West, since the collapse of communism
and the fall of the Soviet Union, the one
discipline both the official and unofficial cultures
have united in casting aside has been history. It's
somehow as if history has become too subversive.
The past has too much knowledge embedded in it, and
therefore it's best to forget it and start anew. But
as everyone is discovering, you can't do this to
history; it refuses to go away. If you try to suppress
it, it reemerges in horrific fashion. That's essentially
what's been going on.
It's a total failure of the Western imagination that
the only enemy they can see is Adolph Hitler. This is
something that actually started during the Suez War
of 1956, what I call the first oil war. Gamal Abdal
Nasser, the nationalist leader of Egypt, was described
by British Prime Minister Anthony Eden as an Egyptian
Hitler. Then it carried on like that. Saddam Hussein
became Hitler when he was no longer a friend of the
West. Then Milosevic became Hitler. Now Al Qaeda and
the Taliban are portrayed as fascists. The implication
strongly is that Osama bin Laden is a Hitler, even
though he has no state power at all. It's just
grotesque if you seriously think about it. In reality,
the only player in this game who was soft on the Nazis
was King Zahir Shah, who then sat on the Afghan throne.
He hoped they would defeat the British in India, and
he, having collaborated, might share part of the spoils!
But the reason they can get away with it is that history
has been totally downplayed. We have populations now in
the West with a very short memory span. One reason for
this short memory span is that television over the last
fifteen years has seen a big decline in the coverage of
the rest of the world. History, when they do it, is
ancient history, and they sensationalize even that.
Contemporary history is virtually ignored on television.
If you see what passes as the news on the networks in
the United States, there's virtually no coverage of
the rest of the world, not even of neighboring
countries like Mexico or neighboring continents like
Latin America. It's essentially a very provincial
culture, and that breeds ignorance. This ignorance
is very useful in times of war because you can whip
up a rapid rage in ill-informed populations and go
to war against almost any country. That is a very
frightening process.
Q: Contrast the last wars of the twentieth century
with the first war of the twenty-first century.
Ali: One difference is that the previous wars were
genuinely fought by coalition. The United
States was the dominant power in these coalitions,
but it had to get other people on its side. In both
the Gulf War and in Kosovo, the U.S. had to get
the agreement of other people in these alliances
before it moved forward. The war in Afghanistan,
the first war of the twenty-first century, shows
the United States doing what it wants to do, not
caring about who it antagonizes, not caring about
the effects on neighboring regions. I don't think
it's too bothered with what happens afterwards,
otherwise it would be more worried about the
Northern Alliance. The U.S. is telling the
Northern Alliance to kill Taliban prisoners. It's
totally a breach of all the known conventions
of war. Western television networks aren't
showing this, but Arab networks are showing how
prisoners are being killed and what's being done
to them. Instead, we're shown scenes that are
deliberately created for the Western media: a
few women without the veil, a woman reading the
news on Kabul television, and 150 people cheering.
All these wars are similar in the way ideology is
being used. It's the ideology of so-called
humanitarian intervention. We don't want to do this,
but we're doing this for the sake of the people who
live there. This is, of course, a terrible sleight
of hand because all sorts of people live there, and,
by and large, they do it to help one faction and
not the other. In the case of Afghanistan, they
didn't even make that pretense. It was essentially
a crude war of revenge designed largely to appease
the U.S. public. In Canada in mid-November, I was
debating Charles Krauthammer, and I said it was a
war of revenge and he said, "Yeah, it was, so what?"
The more hardline people, who are also more realistic,
just accept this.
And the United States has perfected the manipulation.
The media plays a very big, big role.
Q: In what way?
Ali: During the Gulf War, journalists used to challenge
government news managers and insisted they wouldn't
just accept the official version of events. It seems
that with the war in the Balkans and now this,
journalists have accepted the official version.
Journalists go to press briefings at the Ministry of
Defense in London or the Pentagon in Washington, and
no critical questions are posed at all. It's just a
news-gathering operation, and the fact that the news
is being given by governments who are waging war
doesn't seem to worry many journalists too much.
The task does really devolve to alternative networks
of information and education. The Internet has been
an invaluable acquisition. I wonder how we would do
without it. Information can be sent from one country
to the other within the space of minutes, crossing
channels, crossing oceans, crossing continents. But
still, we can't compete with the might and power
and wealth of those who dominate, control, and own
the means of the production of information today.
These are the five or six large companies that
control and own the media, publishing houses, and
the cinema.
Q: Tony Blair has occupied center stage in the war
on terrorism. In many ways he is even more
visible than Bush. What accounts for Blair's
enthusiasm for the war?
Ali: Blair does it to get attention. He does it
to posture and prance around on the world
stage, pretending that he is the leader of a big
imperial power when, in fact, he's the leader of
a medium-sized country in Northern Europe.
I think Clinton certainly liked using him. But
the Bush Administration doesn't take him that
seriously.
Q: Noam Chomsky points out that Britain did not
bomb Boston and New York, where major IRA
supporters and financial networks are located.
Ali: I think Noam's right. But to just even raise
the point goes to show that Britain isn't
an imperial power and the United States is. The
United States is now The Empire. There isn't an
empire; there's The Empire, and that empire is
the United States. It's very interesting that
this war is not being fought by the NATO high
command. NATO has been totally marginalized.
The "coalition against terrorism" means the United
States. It does not wish anyone else to interfere
with its strategy. When the Germans offered 2,000
soldiers, Rumsfeld said we never asked for them.
Quite amazing to say this in public.
Q: In a recent article, you cited a poem by
the tenth-century secular Arab poet al-Maarri:
And where the Prince commanded, now the shriek,
Of wind is flying through the court of state;
"Here," it proclaims, "there dwelt a potentate,
Who would not hear the sobbing of the weak."
Talk about "the sobbing of the weak."
Ali: The sobbing of the weak today is the sobbing
of the victims of neoliberal policies. They
consist of billions of people all over the world.
These are the people who leave their countries.
These are the people who cling onto the belly of
a plane leaving Africa for Europe, not caring if
they are killed in the process, and many of them
are. This desperation is the result of globalization.
The question is, will the weak be able to organize
themselves to bring about changes or not? Will the
weak develop an internal strength and a political
strength to ever challenge the rulers that be?
These are the questions posed by the world in which
we live. People are increasingly beginning to feel
that democracy itself is being destroyed by this
latest phase of globalization and that politics
doesn't matter because it changes nothing. This is
a very dangerous situation on the global level,
because when this happens, then you also see acts
of terrorism. Terrorism emanates from weakness,
not strength. It is the sign of despair.
Dear old al-Maarri was a great skeptic poet. He
wrote a parody of the Koran, and his friends would
tease him and say, "al-Maarri, but no one says
your Koran." And he said, "Yes, but give me time.
Give me time. If people recite it for twenty
years it will become as popular as the other
one." It was a good moment in Islam when people
were actually challenging authority at every level.
Very different from the world we live in now,
incidentally.
Q: And in this world, the United States is projecting
a long war on terrorism. They're talking about it
lasting for ten or fifteen years, and involving up
to sixty countries. The Bush Administration reminds
us almost on a daily basis that the war on terrorism
is still in its earliest stages. What are the
implications of that?
Ali: The main implication is a remapping of the world
in line with American policy and American
interests. Natural resources are limited, and the
United States wants to make sure that its own
population is kept supplied. The principle effect
of this will be for the United States to control
large parts of the oil which the world possesses.
There are some people who say this war was fought
because of oil. I honestly don't believe it. But
that doesn't mean once they have sorted out the
first phase of it, the war won't be used to assert
or reassert U.S. economic hegemony in the region.
They want to do it in the Middle East, as well.
A big problem in the Middle East is that the Iraqi
state and Syrian state are potential threats to
Israel just by the very fact they exist. Iraq also
sits on a great deal of oil, and as that cutthroat
Kissinger once said, "Why should we let the Arabs
have the oil?" Since Israel is the central ally
of the United States in the region, the U.S.
would like to weaken the potential opposition.
Attacking Iraq, and possibly even Syria, is one
way to do that. This is a policy fraught with
danger for those who carry it out because it
totally excludes the reaction of ordinary people.
Could there be mass explosions? And if there
are, then you will see countries like Saudi
Arabia going under. No one would weep if the
royal family were overthrown, but they would
probably if it were replaced by a U.S.
protectorate or a U.S. colonial-type
administration, or the U.S. disguised as the
U.N. Other corrupt sheikdoms, like the
United Arab Emirates, would crumble, as well.
Then what will the U.S. do? Have the Israelis
acting as guardians of oil in the whole region?
That will mean a permanent guerrilla warfare.
Or will they have American and European troops
guarding these regions? That, too, would mean
limited guerrilla warfare. The only way they'll
be able to rule is by killing large numbers
of people who live there.
Q: What about Iraq?
Ali: If they attack Iraq in the next phase, it
could create big problems for them. I'm sure
that in Europe the anti-war movement would just
mushroom. The Arab world could really explode.
That is what their close allies in Saudi Arabia
and Egypt are telling them: Do not attack Iraq.
The coalition will break up, and even Turkey is
saying that it will not be party to an attack
on Iraq. Probably the plan is to create an
independent state in a corner of Iraq, and then
use that as a base to destroy Saddam Hussein.
If they go down that route, the world then becomes
a very unpredictable and very dangerous place. The
one thing that it will not do is curb terrorism.
It will increase terrorism, because the more
governments you destroy, the more the people will
seek revenge.
After flirting with neoisolationism, the U.S. is
now deciding it wants to run the world. The U.S.
should come out openly and say to the world,
"We are the only imperial power, and we're going
to rule you, and if you don't like it you can
lump it." American imperialism has always been
the imperialism that has been frightened of
speaking its name. Now it's beginning to do so.
In a way, it's better. We know where we kneel.
David Barsamian is the director of Alternative
Radio in Boulder, Colorado. He interviewed
Edward W. Said in the November issue. His
latest book from South End Press is "The
Decline and Fall of Public Broadcasting".
Links
Tariq's home page, w/stuff about his books
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