A sold-out crowd greeted internationally renowned thinker Noam Chomsky at Convocation Hall last Sunday evening. The MIT professor and recipient of an honorary degree from U of T in 2000 was in town for a benefit for Canadian Dimension magazine, a long-running journal covering leftist issues.
In a talk titled “The Imperial Presidency,” Chomsky, a professor of linguistics who has been a leading voice for peace and social justice for decades, spoke candidly for 45 minutes about the recent U.S. election and the current political climate in the States and the Middle East.
Speaking off-the-cuff and rarely glancing at his notes, Chomsky took some time to warm to his topic, setting it up by discussing the current situation in Iraq. He suggested that recent events in Falluja, such as the storming of a hospital, constituted “grave breaches” of the Geneva Conventions.
In fact, Chomsky said, the Bush administration was specifically advised not to follow the Geneva Conventions, because they would all be charged with war crimes given the types of abuses that have occurred during the war in Iraq.
This self-proclaimed immunity to universality has allowed the administration to literally get away with murder, Chomsky said, suggesting that genocide is not too strong a term to use for much of what has occurred. Though he initially thought “they would win it easily and get out of there,” Chomsky now believes that the U.S. will have to remain in the region indefinitely, partly due to strategic reasons.
Turning his focus to the re-election of Bush, Chomsky rebuffed the notion that the election was “stolen” or “rigged,” saying that American elections are “public relations campaigns” that focus on candidates’ personas rather than real policy issues. He noted that despite the outcome of the election, most studies suggest that U.S. voters are largely to the left of their government on most issues, even when it comes to the so-called ‘war on terror.’
Chomsky cited sources that indicate that a considerable majority of Americans favour working with the United Nations, and not believe in pre-emptive attacks on other states. This disconnect between what voters really want and what they get is indicative of a serious democratic deficit in the U.S. and around the world, Chomsky said.
During the question-and-answer period that followed the speech, an audience member asked Chomsky to offer suggestions to revitalize the Left. The professor shook his head impatiently and insisted that every small thing each person could do day-to-day mattered more than any larger action. He dismissed elections as mere circuses that take place every few years, and suggested that those who believe in peace and social justice reach out to like-minded groups (like Canadian Dimension) and approach change at a grassroots level.
The ever in-demand Chomsky had spoken on American/Israeli relations earlier in the day at York University, and departed Con Hall directly after his speech for yet another event. Though his latest book, Hegemony or Survival, sits on several North American best-seller lists, the outspoken critic has found himself barred from speaking at many U.S. campuses in recent years.
