Press Action ::: A Question of Intent: The Chomsky Interview

Wednesday, December 29, 2004

A Question of Intent: The Chomsky Interview

Dear Editor,

Post-Christmas greetings from Japan. I hope this note finds you well and in good health.

I am writing to address a puzzling silence taken on by, it seems, just about everybody in the U.S. who writes on behalf of the downtrodden and the meek: the Left, that is. The silence is of a peculiar kind; of the naked emperor kind.

The puzzling silence is with regard to Chomsky’s and Zinn’s support (albeit with a nose well-held) for Kerry during the elections that we suffered this past year. The silence is so huge and so disconcerting, that one must be forgiven for having forgotten so fast that the good professors did in fact advocate such a position. So, why all the silence?

To take one extremely painful example, you just published an interview of Junaid Alam’s with the good professor, in which not a single word is exchanged regarding this. Not even a softly couched question. Instead, our good young friend, much like a good polite interviewer would when interviewing a state functionary on the mainstream media, stayed WAY clear of any embarrassing topics, handing the professor one soft question after another, all to do with things that we have seen and heard a good million times already.

ANYbody who has EVER heard Chomsky speak, or read any of his articles or millions of other interviews, has heard ALL he says in this interview, a good many times. So, why not be a little more imaginative? Here is a perfect opportunity for some hard questions by our friend, whose Left Hook website was one of the louder billboards for trashing (rightly) the ABBs throughout the election year, and who did not say a word regarding Chomsky’s stance THEN, and who continues to pretend that everything is A-OK here. Again, why all the silence? What is the point of this interview? To have one more interview (for its own sake) with the good professor? To secure a political “standing” (whatever that is)? To repeat what has already been said a million times and get established as a redundancy? What is the point of THAT? Maybe the good professor, in retrospect and with the help of the vast wisdom that he does have, can shed some light on the reasons for the political advocacy he committed during this last election. Maybe Mr. Alam could have learned something (as well as relayed the learning) instead of loving every minute of listening to himself get chummy with “America’s leftist guru.”

During this past election year, I (as a socialist Middle Easterner) watched in horror as one after another of the so-called “leftist icons” lined up and said: Vote for Kerry (who, incidentally, wants more war-mongering in the Middle East)! Am I the only person totally outraged here? Are we even paying attention to what we say and write any more? Why isn’t a single one of you calling on Chomsky to explain himself as loudly as James Petras recently in Counterpunch called pretty much for the excommunication of Saramago. I agreed with the spirit of Mr Petas’ letter, and became even hopeful that maybe somebody will now also come out and dare call attention to the need for certain soul-searching regarding Chomsky’s support for Kerry, no matter how conditionally it had been expressed. But instead, we get an out-of-this-reality “interview’” in which everybody pretends that the good professor did not just run across the stage stark naked, a short time ago!!

The fact remains that Chomsky’s mouth is watched (at times too sycophantically, I must add) for signs of how to orient oneself, by (in the least) many tens of thousands of people who in turn shape others’ political orientation. So, when Chomsky or Zinn says, “Hold your nose and vote for Kerry,” this is a categorical mistake; some would say a (momentary at least) betrayal, since, as we heard in horror as Kerry said repeatedly, and most significantly in the debates, “Mr. President, you are not doing enough in Iraq nor enough about Iran, or Syria ... You haven’t done enough in Fallujah!” Mr. Kerry must be feeling reassured now that the city has been decimated. One could not have supported a more odious candidate. For Democratic Party functionaries to do so, we can understand perfectly clearly. But for leftists? (Never mind the “guru” designation!)

Another reason the silence regarding Chomsky and Zinn’s political positioning is disturbing: Chomsky, as well as a good section of the U.S. left, are as readily an enemy of the Bolsheviks as they claim to be the enemies of the U.S. imperialism. In fact, they are more consistent when it comes to opposing Bolsheviks. And one of the reasons provided for this enmity invariably is a variation on the theme of “party discipline/party line” which is supposedly adhered to “blindly” by the Bolsheviks, all of whom get collapsed into “Stalinists.” Well, taking our friends in the U.S. left seriously in their dislike for blind conformity to a collective political positioning, we are forced to ask: Where does the “party” of the U.S. luminaries of the left stand on Zinn’s and Chomsky’s political positioning this past election? As a publication that very loudly and in very principled fashion (in my opinion) exposed the pitfalls of ABB stance, you have been curiously silent regarding Chomsky’s and Zinn’s positions. Why?

All this is meant to be taken in comradely fashion, out of love, and out of a spirit of friendly critique, something that in fact is essential to building any healthy relationship. Be it a relationship of friendship, familial bonding, or camaraderie in the field of politics. In all these, honesty of purpose requires that we ask difficult questions.

Yours, as always, respectfully,

Reza Fiyouzat

Reza Fiyouzat is an applied linguist and freelance writer living in Japan. Fiyouzat can be reached at rfaze@gol.com.

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