Julian Assange, “The World Tomorrow (Episode 10: Noam Chomsky and Tariq Ali)” (Russia Today, 26 June 2012)
Here is a really disappointing choice of interviewees: Noam Chomsky and Tariq Ali are already well-known, Chomsky is arguably past his best as both linguist and political activist and there are many people Assange could have spoken to who are better choices as people likely to influence the world’s future with fresh and innovative ideas and strategies for change. US radio journalist Robert Stark, some of whose Stark Truth interviews I have been following, finds from the land called Out-of-the-Blue interesting interviewees whose ideas, unorthodox and controversial though they might be, at least are stimulating intellectual pabulum. In this penultimate episode, Assange ploughs over familiar territory with Chomsky and Ali: democracy, protests and how First World countries were caught on the hop by the Arab Spring even though early signs, such as demonstrations over escalating food prices and severe food shortages, were apparent.
Ali is an articulate and knowledgeable speaker while Chomsky is his usual monotone scratched-record self. They basically describe what’s been happening in the world from a “leftist” point of view but are unable to go beyond the current situation and say what they believe should be done or what they would like to see occur. The emptiness of the interview is illustrated in the response Ali gives to Assange as to what a new generation of activists can take from the previous generation: Ali simply says, don’t give up, have hope, remain skeptical, criticise The Man and sooner or later “things” will change; Chomsky for his part notes that “a lot of things have changed over the years … often to the better”, that changes are afoot and people “can do something about them” before he compares humans to lemmings charging over a cliff over issues like fossil fuel use and climate change. (Obviously Chomsky has never watched Disneyland documentaries.) Quite a banal message to send to youth from these supposed giants of the Left!
Topics covered include the role of the political centre (that is, the middle ground between so-called “right-wing” and “left-wing” parties) in advancing the agenda of “right-wing” or corporatist interests, South America as a beacon of freedom and independence, the state of democracy under siege from corporatism and state capitalism as practised in the US.
It really should have been apparent to all participants in the interview that the dichotomy between “right-wing” and “left-wing” beliefs and ideologies is an arbitrary one that obscures the real division between those who would concentrate power in a small elite that controls the rest of the world through layers of bureaucrats and/or technology on one hand and on the other those who would decentralise power and spread it to all, confident in the belief that all humans can be trusted to govern themselves and do not need a nanny state to push them along; certainly Chomsky and Ali know enough of the world and what goes on in it to gently yet firmly tell Assange that things aren’t so black-and-white or right-versus-left and that the issue is about power and how it’s wielded, to what purpose and who benefits.
One consolation here is that I have never seen Assange so animated and forthright about his views on democracy, capitalism and industrialisation as he is here; something of the old Wikileaks maverick is coming to the fore at last!