Tariq Ali spoke at St. Thomas University last week on “The Frailties of Western Civilization” and its modern challenges.
It would be hard to find an empty seat in the Kinsella Auditorium for the lecture, which was organized by the Atlantic Human Rights Centre in collaboration with STU on Tuesday, Feb. 4.
Despite a wide variety of ages in the audience, Ali made sure to directly address the younger generation in attendance.
“Do not be frightened away by politicians or any other telling you not to think what you want to think,” said Ali.
“Don’t ever accept that, because your future and the future of your children depends on your generation and the generations to follow. You have to fight back, defend all your rights the way they should be defended.”
Ali is a Pakistani-British political activist, writer, journalist, historian and filmmaker who has written over 50 books on world history and politics, including Bush in Babylon, The Clash of Fundamentalisms and The Obama Syndrome.
Most recently he released his own memoir titled You Can’t Please All, which was available to be be purchased and signed by Ali following the lecture.
He has been a leading voice in anti-war movements and has championed oppressed and marginalized peoples.
As a part of his discussion, Ali said that the Western world, which generally includes Western Europe, North America and Australia, is acting “in a way which would lead to [its] own destruction.”
According to Ali, this is due to democratic states with elected governments trying to stop young people from saying “what they want to say about a particular crisis.”
“This has never happened before,” he said.
He also went into detail about the Western world’s role in the longstanding conflict between Israel and Palestine.
“There are people in the West who have watched this genocide taking place day after day after day, who have watched Israeli soldiers [who are] gleefully killing, targeting children … and yet the world walks by,” said Ali.
According to Ali, the impact private companies have on the way the U.S. functions is part of the issue with the Western world.
“This is something incidentally that can be noticed today in most parts of the Western world, how private companies protect billionaires are just one example, but how private companies are being given more and more leeway in determining government policies,” he said.
Shannonbrooke Murphy, a STU human rights professor who helped organize the lecture said “the only thing I regret is that we didn’t have more time,” with Ali.
“We were really lucky to have him,” she said. “We consider it a rare opportunity for our students to hear from a speaker of his calibre.”
Human rights students of Murphy attended the lecture and she said they were pleased with Ali’s message to younger people during his presentation.
“One of the things that stuck with them was that he addressed himself directly to younger people in their 20s,” said Murphy. “He was softspoken, conversational and approachable … he actually made a great effort to encourage students to get active, to use their academic freedom to organize.”
Liam Powell is a second-year student who is majoring in history and attended the lecture as a part of his sociology class.
He said that the lecture was a “good opportunity” for people to “listen and understand.”
“It’s kind of refreshing to hear this older voice say, ‘read more, learn more,’” said Powell. “It shows that even though St. Thomas is a small university, it still has the ability to have these notable people come into our community.”
Ali concluded his lecture by reinforcing the point of individuality.
“We fall into the trap of idealizing people who do good things … collective collegial ways of thinking creates a solidarity, which is absolutely necessary if our world is going to move forward, rather than commit to the politicians and their military-industrial complexes.”
