Tariq Ali

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Image:Tariq Ali.jpg Tariq Ali (born October 21, 1943) is an author, filmmaker, and historian. He is also a long-time member of the editorial committee of New Left Review, and regularly contributes to The Guardian, Counterpunch and the London Review of Books.

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Life and career

Ali was born and grew up in Lahore, now part of Pakistan, into a communist family. While studying at the Punjab University, he organized demonstrations against Pakistan's military dictatorship. His parents sent him to England to study at Oxford, because they feared for his safety due to his connections to radical movements. There he quickly became a leader, being elected President of the Oxford Union.

As one of the "brown sahibs" left by the British Empire, Tariq Ali distinguished himself as a spokesman for anti-imperialism. His extensive knowledge of history and his dedication to the ideals of the Enlightenment made him a popular figure in the radical circles of the 1960s and early 1970s.

His reputation began to grow during the Vietnam War, when he engaged in debates against the war with such figures as Henry Kissinger and Michael Stewart. As time passed, Ali became increasingly critical of American and Israeli foreign policies, and emerged as a figurehead for critics of American foreign policy across the globe. He was also incensed by American relations with Pakistan that tended to back military dictatorships over democracy.

Active in the New Left of the 1960s he has long been associated with the New Left Review. Ali was drawn into involvement with active revolutionary socialist politics through his involvement with The Black Dwarf newspaper and joined a Trotskyist party, the International Marxist Group (IMG) in 1968. He was swiftly recruited to the leadership of the IMG and also became a member of the International Executive Committee of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International. During this period he was co-author of Trotsky for Beginners a cartoon book. In 1981 the IMG dissolved when its members entered the Labour Party and 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 a bitter and apostate satire Redemption, on the inability of the Trotskyists to handle the downfall of the Eastern bloc which contains parodies of many well-known figures in the Trotskyist movement.

His book Bush in Babylon attacks the invasion of Iraq by American president George W. Bush. The book contains a unique style, using poetry, and critical essays in portraying the War in Iraq as a complete failure. An atheist who grew up around Muslims, Ali believes that the new Iraqi government will not be effective.

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 until today.

Ali has been a critic of modern neoliberal economics and was present at the 2005 World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil where he was one of nineteen to sign the Porto Alegre Manifesto.

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Partial bibliography

Rough Music (Verso Books, 2005)
A Sultan in Palermo (Verso Books, 2005) ISBN 1844670252
Speaking of Empire and Resistance: Conversations with Tariq Ali by Tariq Ali, David Barsamian (The New Press, 2005) ISBN 156584954X
Street-Fighting Years: An Autobiography of the Sixties (Verso Books, New Ed. 2005) ISBN 1844670295
Bush in Babylon (Verso Books, 2003) ISBN 1859845835
Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity (Verso Books, 2002) ISBN 1859846793
The Stone Woman (Verso Books, 2000) ISBN 1859847641
The Book of Saladin (Verso Books, 1998) ISBN 1859848346
Fear of Mirrors (Arcadia Books, 1998) ISBN 1900850109
Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree (Verso Books, 1992) ISBN 0701139447
Can Pakistan Survive?: The Death of a State (Verso Books, 1991) ISBN 0860912604
Redemption (Chatto and Windus, 1990) ISBN 0701133945
Revolution from Above: Soviet Union Now (Hutchinson, 1988) ISBN 0091740223
Street Fighting Years: An Autobiography of the Sixties (HarperCollins, 1987) ISBN 000217779X
Nehrus and the Gandhis: An Indian Dynasty (Chatto and Windus, 1985) ISBN 0701139528
Who's Afraid of Margaret Thatcher?: In Praise of Socialism by Ken Livingstone, Tariq Ali (Verso Books, 1984) ISBN 0860918025
Trotsky for Beginners by Tariq Ali, Phil Evans (Writers' & Readers' Publishing Co-op, 1980) ISBN 090649527X
Chile, Lessons of the Coup: Which Way to Workers Power? (Red Books, 1978) ISBN 085612107X
Pakistan: Military Rule or People's Power (Jonathan Cape, 1970) ISBN 0224618644