BY NICK EVERETT
SYDNEY — Speaking to an overflow audience of 250 people at the Newtown Neighbourhood Centre on June 2, writer, film-maker and left activist Tariq Ali analysed the key issues in world politics after September 11.
The meeting, organised by the Democratic Socialist Party, was part of Ali's Australian tour to launch his new book The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity.
Ali became politically active as a student in Lahore in the early 1960s. After fleeing Pakistan for Britain, he joined the movement against the Vietnam War.
He has written more than a dozen books on world history and politics, is a long-time editor of New Left Review and a frequent contributor to ZNet and Counterpunch.
Ali argued that the "war on terrorism" will promote terrorism. "Only a political solution can address the real issues that result in terrorist attacks", he argued.
"The real issues are Palestine and Iraq", Ali said. "A really independent Palestine is a Palestine free to trade with whoever it likes, with continuous borders, not the Israeli protectorate offered by [former Israeli prime minister] Barak at Camp David."
Ali spoke passionately about the plight of the Iraqi people, the victims of more than a decade of bombing by the US and Britain — the most consistent bombing of a country since Vietnam — and US-led sanctions. According to the United Nations, the sanctions have killed nearly 5 million people, including 300,000 children.
Ali noted that some on the left had capitulated, arguing that "we can piggy back on the US". This, Ali argued, will lead only to the establishment of US protectorates, such as Bosnia and Kosova. "The US is the only real imperial power in the world today and it intervenes only for its own interests."
In this unipolar world, Ali explained, all Western governments are scrambling to implement one policy: neo-liberal globalisation.
Yet in many countries, opposition is growing. Ali cited the people's defeat of the attempted coup against Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez. Following the coup leaders' suspension of the constitution and dismissal of the court and members of parliament, the Washington Post declared that "democracy was enhanced" in Venezuela. "Democracy was indeed enhanced 40 hours later", said Ali, when the poor mobilised on the streets to reverse the coup.
Throughout his talk, Ali cited examples of how imperialist rulers have used Islam to crush left movements. He emphasised that it is "imperialist fundamentalism", not Islamic fundamentalism, that poses the gravest danger to freedom.
"[On September 11], the US was not hit by the poor of five continents but by their own people ... Al Qaeda trained by the US in the Saudi desert. The problem lies not with Islam, but with the system that created terrorism, a system that is hungry for oil in the Middle East", Ali said. "This empire has to be fought and resisted. It will be fought and resisted because it is over-stretched."
Ali stressed the pivotal role of the US population in challenging imperialism. He described how "on April 20, 100,000 people came out against their own empire, this despite 3000 deportations of Arab- and Asian-Americans. Thousands came out because they are no longer scared.
"All the big anti-globalisation demonstrations show that dissent is in the air. When this movement links up with the anti-war movement, we have to say that change is visible."
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, June 19, 2002.
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