To the victors, the spoils.

Following the publication of Tariq Ali’s latest memoirs, he spoke to Michael Lavalette about the contrasting periods covered in his autobiographies and the prospects for the left today.

“There is no socialist blueprint. If you think there is a socialist blueprint, then you will only be a utopian. The formation of economic policies has to be done with the collaboration of those on whose behalf you are going to change structures.”

The Saudi offer of a ceasefire in Yemen on 22 March was an acknowledgement by Riyadh and its backers in Washington that they had lost the war.

Tariq Ali on the situation in Kashmir.

I’ve been to see Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy several times, mainly when Rafael Correa was President and the Embassy felt like a liberated space. A few weeks ago I met him again. By now Correa’s successor, Lenín Moreno, had capitulated on every level to the American Empire.

Tariq Ali is a British-Pakistani writer, journalist, historian, filmmaker, political activist, and public intellectual.

“I want you to know that once again you have ignited hope in the whole European continent.  What you have done is extremely important because what it demonstrates is that young Turks are just as capable of resisting oppression from authoritarian democratic government as Greeks, as Spaniards, as Portuguese, as Italians, as everyone.  This courage […]

  Tariq Ali: I don’t think sanctions work.  They are essentially a symbolic measure.  Usually when sanctions are applied against a country, they affect the poor people in that country more than the ruling elites, as we saw for years before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003.  They had imposed a bloody sanctions regime, […]

Yes, “collaborators,” that’s the word, not “revolutionaries.”  Calling a spade a spade can at least get rectification started, though, pace the street-fighting intellectual, too late in the game. — Ed. The US-Nato intervention in Libya, with United Nations security council cover, is part of an orchestrated response to show support for the movement against one […]

“Freedom lies behind a door closed shut,” the great Egyptian poet Ahmed Shawqi wrote in the last century.  “It can only be knocked down with a bleeding fist.”  More than that is bleeding in the Arab world at the moment. The uprisings we are witnessing in Egypt have been a rude awakening for all those […]

Letter to the New York Times, June 27, 2010 Larry Rohter attacks our film, “South of the Border,” for “mistakes, misstatements and missing details.”  But a close examination of the details reveals that the mistakes, misstatements, and missing details are his own, and that the film is factually accurate.  We will document this for each […]

  Listen to Amy Goodman’s interview with Oliver Stone and Tariq Ali: Oliver Stone: So, Chávez was sort of a natural [as a subject for his work] because he is such a demonized, polarizing figure, but when I met him, it was not at all what I thought, you know, what we made him out […]

  Tariq Ali says in an interview with Der Standard: To continue its war in Afghanistan, the US accepts the risk of destabilizing Pakistan.  But only a regional diplomatic approach can help. STANDARD: How would you evaluate the danger often invoked today that Pakistan is collapsing and its nuclear weapons may fall into the hands […]

Cos’è successo al movimento contro la guerra che esplose nel 2003 mobilitando milioni di persone in tutto il mondo occidentale, al punto da esser definito una volta dal New York Times come «la seconda superpotenza»?Il fatto è che esso non è mai stato un movimento vero e proprio ma solo lo spasmo di un giorno, […]