Tariq Ali is a British Pakistani writer, journalist, and filmmaker. He is a
member of the editorial committee of the New Left Review and Sin Permiso, and
contributes to The Guardian, CounterPunch, and the London Review of
Books. He is the author of several books,
including Pakistan: Military Rule or People's Power, Can Pakistan Survive?
The Death of a State, Pirates Of The Caribbean: Axis Of Hope, Conversations
with Edward Said, Bush in Babylon, and Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades,
Jihads and Modernity, A Banker for All Seasons, The Duel, The Obama Syndrome
and The Extreme Centre: A Warning. Early life
Ali was born and raised in Lahore. The city was part of British India at the
time of his birth in 1943 but became part of the newly independent nation of
Pakistan four years later. He is the son of journalist Mazhar Ali Khan and
activist mother Tahira Mazhar Ali Khan, who was the daughter of Sir Sikandar
Hyat Khan, who led the Unionist Muslim League and was later Prime Minister of
the Punjab from 1937 to 1942. Ali's parents "both came from a very
old, crusty, feudal family". His father had broken with the family's conventions
in politics when he was a student, adopting communism and atheism. Ali's
mother also belonged to the same family and became a communist and an atheist
upon meeting his father. However, Ali was taught the fundamentals of Islam to
be able to argue against it. He stated in Islam, Empire, and the Left:
Conversation with Tariq Ali: "I grew up an atheist. I make no secret of it. It
was acceptable. In fact, when I think back, none of my friends were believers.
None of them were religious; maybe a few were believers. But very few were
religious in temperament." = Emerging activism =
Ali first became politically active in his teens, taking part in opposition to
the military dictatorship of Pakistan. An uncle who worked in the Pakistani
military intelligence warned his parents that Ali could not be protected. His
parents therefore decided to get him out of Pakistan and sent him to England to
study at Exeter College, Oxford, where he studied Philosophy, Politics, and
Economics. He was elected President of the Oxford Union in 1965. In 1967 Ali
was one of 64 prominent figures, including the Beatles, who signed a
petition calling for the legalisation of marijuana. Ali's tenure at the Union
included a meeting with Malcolm X in December 1964 during which Malcolm X
expressed deep consternation about his own risk of assassination.
Career His public profile began to grow during
the Vietnam War, when he engaged in debates against the war with such
figures as Henry Kissinger and Michael Stewart. He testified at the Russell
Tribunal over US involvement in Vietnam. As time passed, Ali became increasingly
critical of American and Israeli foreign policies. He was also a vigorous
opponent of American relations with Pakistan that tended to back military
dictatorships over democracy. He was one of the marchers on the American embassy
in London in 1968 in a demonstration against the Vietnam war.
Active in the New Left of the 1960s, he has long been associated with the New
Left Review. Ali inserted himself into politics through his involvement with
The Black Dwarf newspaper, he joined the International Marxist Group in 1968. He
was recruited to the leadership of the IMG and became a member of the
International Executive Committee of the Fourth International. He also befriended
influential figures such as Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, John Lennon and Yoko
Ono. In 1967 Ali was in Camiri, Bolivia, not
far from where Che Guevara was captured, to observe the trial of Régis Debray. He
was accused of being a Cuban revolutionary by authorities. Ali then
said: "If you torture me the whole night and I can speak Spanish in the morning
I'll be grateful to you for the rest of my life."
During this period he was an IMG candidate in Sheffield Attercliffe at
the February 1974 UK general election and was co-author of Trotsky for
Beginners, a cartoon book. In 1981, the IMG dissolved when its members entered
the Labour Party: the IMG was promptly proscribed. Ali then abandoned activism
in the revolutionary left and supported Tony Benn in his bid to become deputy
leader of the Labour Party that year. In 1990, he published the satire
Redemption, on the inability of the Trotskyists to handle the downfall of
the Eastern bloc. The book contains parodies of many well-known figures in
the Trotskyist movement. In 1999 Ali strongly criticised US and UK
interventions in the Balkans in the piece Springtime for NATO.
His book Bush in Babylon criticises the 2003 invasion of Iraq by American
president George W. Bush. This book has a unique style, using poetry and
critical essays in portraying the war in Iraq as a failure. Ali believes that the
new Iraqi government will fail. His previous book, Clash of
Fundamentalisms, puts the events of the September 11 attacks in historical
perspective, covering the history of Islam from its foundations.
Ali has remained a critic of modern neoliberal economics and was present at
the 2005 World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, where he was one of 19
to sign the Porto Alegre Manifesto. He supports the model of Bolivarian
Revolution in Venezuela. He has been described as "the alleged
inspiration" for the Rolling Stones' song "Street Fighting Man", recorded in
1968. John Lennon's "Power to the People" was inspired by an interview
Lennon gave to Ali. In an article published in CounterPunch,
he responded to the Pope Benedict XVI Islam controversy and said: "The
Bavarian is a razor-sharp reactionary cleric. I think he knew what he was
saying and why. In a neo-liberal world suffering from environmental
degradation, poverty, hunger, repression, a 'planet of slums', the
Pope chooses to insult the founder of a rival faith. The reaction in the Muslim
world was predictable, but depressingly insufficient."
Ali has also written in favour of Scottish independence,
Screenplay Tariq Ali's The Leopard and The Fox,
first written as a BBC screenplay in 1985, is about the last days of Zulfiqar
Ali Bhutto. Never previously produced because of a censorship controversy, it
was finally premiered in New York in October 2007, the day before former
Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto returned to her home country after eight
years in exile. In 2009, Ali, alongside Mark Weisbrot
wrote the screenplay to the Oliver Stone documentary South of the Border. This
gave a favourable account of Hugo Chávez and other left-wing Latin American
leaders. Interviewed in the documentary, Ali explained the role that Bolivian
water privatisation and the 2000 Cochabamba protests played in eventually
bringing Evo Morales to power. Personal life
He currently lives in Highgate, London with his partner Susan Watkins, editor
of the New Left Review. He has three children: Natasha from a previous
relationship and Chengiz and Aisha with Watkins.
Works References
External links Tariq Ali Official webpage
Appearances on C-SPAN