Posted on Nov. 4: Chomsky lecture to probe intelligent life on earth
[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/Noam_Chomsky_opt.jpg” caption=”Noam Chomsky”]Noam Chomsky is coming to Hamilton in November. Those words tend to have one of two effects on people; either they are scrambling to find tickets, or they are saying “Noam who?” How is it that someone can be simultaneously so popular and so unknown?
Chomsky has lectured all over the world, and has written more than 30 books on U.S. foreign policy, democracy, globalization and the thought control role of mass media. He first became known as a
political dissident in the movement against the Vietnam War in the 60s. He has not traditionally received much coverage from mass media, which is a major reason why he is unknown to many. But
more than ever since the events of Sept. 11, 2001, many people in North America are looking for answers to questions that Chomsky had been talking about for years. Chomsky's book 9-11 is a
collection of interviews, which took place after Sept. 11. In the book, the professor from MIT states that “I have had considerably more access even to mainstream media in the U.S. than ever before,
and others report the same experience.”
Chomsky will speak at McMaster on Nov. 12, as a Hooker Distinguished Visiting Professor on the topic: “Is there Intelligent Life on Earth? The Role of the Intellectual Culture and Institutions”. This lecture is sponsored by the Centre for Peace Studies, the Department of Labour Studies and the Russell Centre, McMaster University. The lecture will be at 8:30 p.m. in the Burridge Gymnasium, Ivor Wynne
Centre, McMaster University. Tickets will be distributed by the Compass Information Centre in the McMaster University Student Centre on Wednesday, Nov. 6, in three blocks. Block 1 (350
tickets) available from 9:30 a.m.; Block 2 (350 tickets) available from 12:30 p.m.; and Block 3 (400 tickets) available from 6:30 p.m. There is a limit of two tickets per person, and no holds or reservations. Please do not telephone the Compass Information Centre. For information contact chomskyhamilton@yahoo.ca or 905-525-9140 ext 26119.
For those who were not able to get tickets to see Chomsky in Hamilton Place on Nov. 14, the lecture will be played on Cable 14 on Friday, Nov. 22 at 8 p.m., and replayed on Nov. 24 at 1 p.m. and on Nov. 26 at 12 p.m. For anyone interested in making a VHS copy, you are encouraged to do so on Nov. 22, when the lecture will be played in full-screen format. The title of the Nov. 14 lecture is “The Emerging Framework of World Order”, and is the Bertrand Russell Peace Lecture sponsored by the Centre for Peace Studies, McMaster University.
Chomsky spoke to large crowds on the McMaster University campus twice before, in 1975 and in 1988. Almost two years ago, a couple of McMaster professors started talking about bringing him to Hamilton again in 2002. In the meantime, with the events of Sept. 11 and his book on the subject, interest in Chomsky skyrocketed.
The McMaster folks made the bold decision to go off-campus and pay a considerable fee to book Hamilton Place, which is over six times as large as the largest lecture hall at McMaster. This marks the first time ever that a university event like this has been held off-campus. Every effort was made to ensure that the free tickets would receive wide distribution in the community, and the organizing committee was preparing to do widespread promotion and publicity of the event. But this promotion and publicity soon proved to be unnecessary. The Chomsky tickets for Hamilton Place on Nov. 14 were gone in a matter of hours after being released.
When I asked people about why Chomsky appealed to them, they would say things like: “Chomsky cuts through the crap”, and Chomsky “tells it like it is”.
Chomsky first rose to prominence for his work on linguistics. He is as rigorous a scholar in his discussion of U.S. foreign policy as he has been in his work as a linguist at MIT. In fact, he is immensely popular partly because of his refusal to accept any claim that cannot be supported by solid evidence.
Chomsky's knowledge of world history and politics is impressive. He is well aware that many people, especially in the Third World, are familiar with U.S. foreign policy because they have been victims of it.
As he says: “The literature on all this is voluminous. There is no reason, beyond choice, to remain unaware of the facts which are, of course, familiar to the victims, though few of them are in a position
to recognize the scale or nature of the international terrorist assault to which they are subjected.”
When other people speak or write about the same things that Chomsky does, they are often vilified for being anti-American. Chomsky is American and thinks that the anti-American accusation against
dissidents is a smokescreen for elite power.
Chomsky is well-known for his critique of the media. He argues: “It is entirely typical for the major media, and the intellectual classes generally, to line up in support of power at a time of crisis and try
to mobilize the population for the same cause.” He refers to the Gulf War and Serbia as examples, and is of course also critical of the media coverage in the aftermath of the events of Sept. 11, 2001.
When he is asked “what aspect or aspects of the story have been underreported by the mainstream press”, his reply is twofold. Firstly, “what courses of action are open to us and what are their likely consequences”, and secondly, “why?”
Chomsky supports courses of action which would reduce the probability of further atrocities, and denounces the U.S. pattern of retaliation and escalating the cycle of violence.
A journalist asked, “Many people say that all through history when a nation is attacked, it attacks in kind. How do you react?”, and Chomsky replied: “When countries are attacked they try to defend
themselves, if they can. According to the doctrine proposed, Nicaragua, South Vietnam, Cuba, and numerous others should have been setting off bombs in Washington and other U.S. cities, Palestinians should be applauded for bombings in Tel Aviv, and on and on. It is because such doctrines had brought Europe to virtual self-annihilation after hundreds of years of savagery that the nations of the world forged a different compact after World War II, establishing at least formally the principle that the resort to force is barred except in the case of self-defense against armed attack until the Security Council acts to protect international peace and security. Specifically, retaliation is barred.” It is the role of the United Nations to prevent the kind of war-mongering that the Bush
administration is currently engaging in with respect to Iraq.
Chomsky's answer to the question “why?” is more controversial. He answers it largely by debunking popular theories as to why it happened. When journalists ask questions such as: “Can we talk of the
clash of two civilizations?” or “Assuming that the terrorists chose the World Trade Center as a symbolic target, how does globalization and cultural hegemony help create hatred towards America?”,
Chomsky rejects any such theory that does not take into account the impacts of specific U.S. actions in other countries. “This is an extremely convenient belief for Western intellectuals. It absolves them of the responsibility for the actions that actually do lie behind the choice of the World Trade Center”.
In much of the rest of the world, however, the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 were widely seen to be the result of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Says Chomsky, “The immediately announced U.S.
reaction was to deal with these problems by intensifying them.”
Certainly the current U.S. bombing of Iraq will further intensify the cycle of violence, “leading to still further atrocities such as the one that is inciting the call for revenge”.
Chomsky's voice is all the more powerful because he is speaking as an American, and is calling on his fellow Americans to understand the impact of the actions that have been taken in their name.
Chomsky acknowledges that “there are, naturally, very strong temptations to ignore one's own role”, but, he concludes, “it is important not to be intimidated by hysterical ranting and lies and to keep as closely as one can to the course of truth and honesty and concern for the human consequences of what one does, or fails to do.”
Jane Mulkewich is a human rights educator in McMaster's Sexual Harassment and Anti-Discrimination Office
