TARIQ ALI ON WHY US LIBERALS BACK GLOBAL WAR, US-CHINA RIVALRY IN AFRICA, AND THE WESTERN DESTRUCTION OF LIBYA (MFG 054)
Author-activist-artist
on Christopher Hitchens selling out, why the US didn’t wage war against Iran,
and why corporate journalists are simply drones for war
Tariq
Ali is an internationally
renowned radical activist, author, and atheist. Born in Lahore, Pakistan, Ali
lived in exile since the 1960s in opposition to Pakistan’s then-military
dictatorship. A novelist, Ali has published four books of his “Islamic
Quintet" which portray Islamic
civilisation counter to Western orthodoxy, and the first two volumes in his
"Fall of Communism" trilogy. He’s also written for the stage and the screen.
A
longtime editor at the New Left Review, Tariq Ali has written and edited
numerous books on history and politics including the classic The New
Revolutionaries, The Clash of Fundamentalisms which investigates US
power and its role in the creation of global terrorism, Pirates of the
Caribbean: Axis of Hope, and his recent book, The Obama Syndrome: Surrender at Home, War Abroad, available from
Verso.
In
our conversation, he discusses, among many topics:
- Why US liberals back Barack Obama’s agenda for global war
- The US-China rivalry across the African continent
- What would likely have resulted from what then seemed nearly inevitable: an American war against Iran
- The complexities of the Western destruction of Libya and the re-demonisation of Qadhdhaafi
Many thanks to the
International Centre at the University of Alberta for arranging the interview.
Ali spoke with me in the lobby of the Hotel MacDonald on January 29, 2012. Note
that Ali spoke with me a full year before the death of Venezuelan president Hugo
Chavez.
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To
hear the patrons-only extended edition of my conversation with Tariq Ali, click this Patreon link
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By
funding MF GALAXY, you get access to all extended editions of the show, plus
video excerpts from selected interviews as they become available. This extended
edition includes Tariq Ali discussing:
- The shocking violence of Evo Morale’s government in Bolivia against indigenous protestors
- The depth of the Bolivarian Revolution of Venezuela and elsewhere, and
- Tariq Ali’s own political convictions over the decades.
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