| Photo by Jane Scherr |
Tariq Ali Interview: Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley
| Photo by Jane Scherr |
Page 2 of 6
Let's go back to your education. You went to Oxford. You were a president of the Oxford Union. Tell us, in a nutshell, how that education at that time shaped your consciousness, because we're talking about the sixties, really.
Before I went to Oxford, I went to a university in Pakistan. We were very lucky that our college, the government college in Lahore, had a principal who was incredibly enlightened. He would say to us, "Within the four walls of this college, you can think what you like, do what you like, read what you like, and I will defend you against all authority." This, at a time when a military dictatorship had come into being and stopped politics. So we were very lucky. We couldn't go out into the streets, though we sometimes did as a collective, but within the college the atmosphere was very enlightened, and there were study circles discussing Marxism, discussing Islam, discussing anything you care to think of. So that, already, was a good training.
But then, because I was very active and politically engaged at the time in Pakistan, the governor of the big province banned my speaking, even in the college. The principal was very upset he couldn't stop it, and then, finally, my parents were worried that I'd be locked up forever if I stayed there, and they pushed me out. I didn't want to leave the country. I'm glad I did, in retrospect. I didn't want to. But they basically pushed me out.
So I arrived at Oxford. And here, books -- which weren't available in Pakistan or had been removed from the libraries -- were suddenly available again. The atmosphere was very open, and I got engaged with the Left groups on the Oxford University campus very, very early on, and became very active. The Vietnam War was then beginning, and I was pretty obsessed by that war. It was my continent which was under attack. I knew we had to do something about it, and I got very engaged in helping to set up the anti- Vietnam War movement in Oxford, first, and then nationally.
When I did my finals at Oxford, I had a bet with a friend that I would bring Vietnam into every single answer. He said, "You can't do it," and I said, "I will do it." He said, "They won't give you a degree," and I said, "I don't care." So I sat down and did that in philosophy, politics, and economics. One which drove my economics examiner nearly crazy was the question, "Discuss the cheapest forms of subsidized transport in the world," and I recall writing in that that the cheapest form of subsidized transport was the helicopter journeys made from Saigon into the jungles. I said the big tragedy was that often the passengers didn't return!
You've written a book about the sixties, but what I would like to get is a sense of what you feel is the main lesson of that period for you. We have generations now that think people who were in college in the sixties are old-timers. What in that period affected you and our generation profoundly, and in what way?
I was affected, also, by my origins and which continent I was coming from.
Bertrand Russell and Jean-Paul Sartre decided to set up an international war crimes tribunal to charge the United States with war crimes, and I was one of the people selected to go to Vietnam and find the evidence, which I did in 1967, when I was about 23 years old. I was in North Vietnam while the United States was bombing that country. So you got a real feel of it. You saw casualties every day. We were almost bombed ourselves on two occasions. And that was very formative -- very, very formative.
I came back to Europe and reported to the War Crimes Tribunal, and a big movement emerged in solidarity with the Vietnamese, in France, in Britain, and in different parts of the world. The key lesson one learns from that period is nothing will change if you just keep sitting where you're sitting. You have to get up and move and do something, even if there are very few of you for a start. But the passivity which later overtook the eighties and nineties generation was very sad to see.
Now, of course, it's a different situation again. We have a young generation for whom being engaged is socially acceptable again. For a long time, it was socially unacceptable for young kids to be engaged. Now, it's suddenly acceptable again.
For me, the big demonstration [recently] against the war in Iraq, where a million and a half people assembled in London, was a wonderful occasion to see so many young people from the schools coming out. Kids invented their own slogans, and I couldn't even get the references of these slogans! It was some pop song which goes, "Who let the dogs out?" and the kids were chanting, "Who let the bombs out? Bush, Bush, and Blair." I said, "What are the origins of this?" and they said, "It comes from this song." "What song?!"
So the cycle has come around again. I often wonder what many of my contemporaries who are now serving on half the cabinets in governments of Europe, who gave up on all that and thought, "Now the world has changed. It's the end of history. We've moved on. There's no alternative." [I wonder] how they felt when they saw these amazing demonstrations in the United States and in Australia, Europe? I'm sure some of them must have felt a pang of conscience as they're preparing to go to war. The sixties generation is now in power in most parts of the world; [I wonder] what they felt when they saw millions on the streets?
For me, the lesson of the sixties always was be active, be engaged, and try and understand the world. So it's something I've not forgotten.
Next page: Writing, Culture, and Political Consciousness
© Copyright 2003, Regents of the University of California