Tariq Ali

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tariq Ali

Tariq Ali (born October 21, 1943 in Lahore ) is a British author , filmmaker and historian . He is also a long-time editor of the New Left Review and is a regular contributor to The Guardian , CounterPunch (USA) and the London Review of Books .

On February 4, 2020, Ali got involved in a public event in London for Julian Assange ( investigative journalist and Australian political activist ).

life and work

Ali was born in Lahore , which was still under British colonial rule at the time and has belonged to Pakistan since 1947 . During his student days at Punjab University he organized public demonstrations against Pakistan's military dictatorship as a student council .

To avoid a prison sentence of several years, he was forced to emigrate to England. In Oxford , he studied at Exeter College of Oxford University politics and philosophy and became the first Pakistani Chairman of the Oxford Debating (Oxford Union).

Ali played a leading role in the British student movement around 1968 and in the movement against the Vietnam War , as well as in the editorial office of the political- countercultural magazine Black Dwarf . In 1968 he joined the Trotskyist International Marxist Group (IMG), of which he was a long-time leader and of which he was the best-known member of the public. Around 1970 he was in closer contact with John Lennon , who discussed the drafts of the lyrics for several songs with Ali.

During the Vietnam War, public debates with personalities such as Henry Kissinger and Michael Stewart earned him political recognition. In 1966 he became a member of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation , for which he traveled to war zones and crisis regions. He soon developed into a leading thought leader and spokesman for the English student revolt of 1968 . Since then he has also been co-editor of the New Left Review , one of the most important independent newspapers on the international left.

In 1980 Ali left the IMG after internal disputes; his attempt to join the Labor Party (or its left wing) was answered by his non-acceptance. Since then, Ali, who continues to see himself as a radical socialist and anti-imperialist , has worked primarily as an author and filmmaker.

Tariq Ali on September 30, 2006

Ali also emerged as a filmmaker and writer who repeatedly addresses the conflicts between Western societies and his Islamic homeland. As a “border crosser between the Western and Arab world”, as Daniel Cohn-Bendit characterized him, “he knows the conflicts on both sides and their historical roots like no other.” Based on his first novel Redemption (1991; t: redemption ), a satirical one Representing the radical left in Europe , he began a five-part cycle of novels about Islam under the influence of the first Gulf War . Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree (1992; In the shadow of the pomegranate tree , 1993) describes the decline of Muslim civilization on the Iberian Peninsula . The book was translated into several languages ​​and was Ali's literary breakthrough. The fourth work in this series was A Sultan in Palermo (2005; Eng. The Sultan of Palermo , 2005), a 12th century historical novel set at the court of the Norman King Roger II in Islamic Sicily . The story of the Christian ruler, at whose end of life an era of tolerance towards Muslims and Jews draws to a close, is linked to the biographical description of the great scholar, cartographer, geographer and doctor Abu Abdullah Muhammad al-Idrisi .

As a filmmaker, he has been a producer and screenwriter since 1987. Ali was involved in the production of Wittgenstein from 1993. In 2009 he wrote the script for the documentary South of the Border together with the American publicist Mark Weisbrot , which was directed by Oliver Stone .

Ali lives in London.

Attacks of September 11, 2001

The attacks of September 11, 2001 moved Ali to publish the non-fiction book The Clash of Fundamentalisms (2002; German Fundamentalism in the Struggle for World Order , 2002). With the controversial statement that Ali made in this publication, he sparked a wide debate . He advocates the thesis "that today two fundamentalisms face each other, the religious and the imperialist ."

Political commitment

Ali published in numerous international media articles about the current political situation in the Middle and Near East , including Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , Süddeutsche Zeitung , taz , Financial Times and The Guardian.

Iraq war

In 2003, Ali published a critical and clear statement on the Iraq war in the same year. In Bush in Babylon (2003; Bush in Babylon. The Re-Colonization of Iraq , 2003) Ali criticizes the occupiers ' efforts to subjugate Iraq as a source of raw materials and a new market.

Julian Assange

On February 4, 2020, Ali got involved in a public event at the Royal National Hotel in London for investigative journalist and Australian political activist Julian Assange. Ali puts the Assange case in a larger context by talking about the wars of the United States and pointing out the double standards that are practiced here with regard to international law . Ali closes his speech by underlining the importance of collective action now in the case of Julian Assange (see video description).

Works

  • Pakistan: Military Rule or People's Power ; Jonathan Cape, 1970 ( ISBN 0-224-61864-4 )
  • Chile, Lessons of the Coup: Which Way to Workers Power? ; Red Books, 1978 ( ISBN 0-85612-107-X )
  • Trotsky for Beginners (with Phil Evans), 1980; German: Trotsky for beginners ; Rowohlt, Reinbek, 1980 ( ISBN 3-499-17537-1 )
  • Who's Afraid of Margaret Thatcher ?: In Praise of Socialism ; with Ken Livingstone, Verso Books, 1984 ( ISBN 0-86091-802-5 )
  • Nehrus and the Gandhis: An Indian Dynasty , 1985; German: The Nehrus and the Gandhis: An Indian dynasty ; Ullstein, Frankfurt / Main, 1987 ( ISBN 3-550-07196-5 , ISBN 3-548-34421-6 and others)
  • Street Fighting Years: An Autobiography of the Sixties ; HarperCollins, 1987 ( ISBN 0-00-217779-X ); German: Street Fighting Years: autobiography of a '68 ; New ISP publishing house, Cologne, 1998
  • Revolution from Above: Soviet Union Now ; Hutchinson, 1988 ( ISBN 0-09-174022-3 )
  • Moscow Gold ; Nick Hern Books, London, 1990
  • Can Pakistan Survive ?: The Death of a State ; Verso Books, 1991 ( ISBN 0-86091-260-4 )
  • Fear of mirrors ; Arcadia Books, 1998 ( ISBN 1-900850-10-9 )
  • Ugly rumors. To Instant Playscript. ; Nick Hern Books, London, 1998
  • Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity ; 2002; German: Fundamentalism in the struggle for world order: The trouble spots of our time and their historical roots ; Hugendubel, Kreuzlingen, 2003 ( ISBN 3-453-86910-9 )
  • Bush in Babylon ; Verso Books, 2003; German Bush in Babylon. The re-colonization of Iraq ; Diederichs, Munich, 2003 ( ISBN 3-7205-2480-9 , ISBN 3-453-62002-X )
  • Speaking of Empire and Resistance: Conversations with Tariq Ali ; by Tariq Ali, David Barsamian, The New Press, 2005 ( ISBN 1-56584-954-X )
  • The Dictatorship of Capital ; Verso, London, 2005 ( ISBN 1-84467-044-9 )
  • Conversations with Edward Said ; Seagull Books , Calcutta, 2005 ( ISBN 1-905422-04-0 )
  • Rough Music: Blair, Bombs, Baghdad, London, Terror; Verso London, 2006
  • The Leopard and the Fox: A Pakistani Tragedy; Mountain; Oxford, 2006 ( ISBN 1-905422-29-6 )
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: The Axis of Hope; Hugendubel; Kreuzlingen, 2007 ( ISBN 3-7205-3001-9 )
  • The Obama Syndrome: Empty Promises, Crises and Wars ; 2010 [German 2012] ( ISBN 3-453-60239-0 )
  • The Extreme Center. A Warning ; Verso London, 2015.
  • The Dilemmas of Lenin: Terrorism, War, Empire, Love, Revolution ; Verso London, 2017.

Novels

"Islam Quintet":

Others

Tariq Ali participated in the Berlin International Literature Festival in 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2007.

Web links

Commons : Tariq Ali  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b YouTube video "The Case of Julian Assange & US War Crimes | With the British intellectual Tariq Ali". acTVism Munich , March 20, 2020, accessed on March 25, 2020 .
  2. ^ Tariq Ali - international literature festival berlin. Retrieved February 21, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Ali, Tariq
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British author, filmmaker, and historian
DATE OF BIRTH October 21, 1943
PLACE OF BIRTH Lahore