AMSS Lecture Report
November 13th, 2008
Tariq Ali talk: "Religion and Empire: War and Peace"
Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo
By: Asma Bala
Ph.D. Candidate, Religious Studies
University of Waterloo
The Association of Muslim Social Scientists (AMSS) hosted renowned public intellectual, political activist, historian, novelist, playwright and commentator, Tariq Ali at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario. Sponsored in partnership with the Cultural Analysis and Social Theory Program, the event brought together a wide audience of scholars, students and local community members on November 13th, 2008. His talk, titled "Religion and Empire: War and Peace" provided a critical and engaged analysis of current events in the world.
He began his talk with a retelling of events in the United States on November 4th, the day of the America election. With the highest voter turnout in over 40 years, Ali questioned the motivation for average Americans, especially youth, to come out and vote in large numbers. The Obama win signaled popular discontent with the outgoing Republican Administration who implemented policies that landed the American people in two unwinnable wars. Ali cited pre-war Iraq as an example of one of the highest rates of education and healthcare in the Middle East and questioned the future of the post-war situation under the control of imperialist reconstruction efforts. In light of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, he describes Osama Bin-Laden as necessity for the "American imagination" as a figure who can be demonized and blamed.
With regards to Afghanistan, which he depicted as the "good" war for the Bush administrations’ "war on terror," Ali argues that the state has now been left in the possession of greater corrupters. Arguing against the myth that the Afghan invasion was for women’s rights, he challenges "if women were the cause [of the Afghan mission], this would be the first imperialist war for the emancipation of women." Ali prescribed a simple means to end the turmoil in the region: an exit strategy is needed—stability would only come at the hands of regional powers.
On the Palestinian territories, Ali spoke on the hazardous conditions facing the Palestinian peoples. He argued that it was necessary to give the Palestinians "some semblance of dignity," inferring that peace and stability would only come to the region when this happened.
Moving his discussion towards Pakistan, Ali questioned how the Pakistani political situation could be fixed when the assassinated leader of a political party named the successor to her party’s leadership without the respect of a democratic process. Critically explaining this phenomenon, Ali also referred to the civil unrest that broke out in 2007 with the unconstitutional firing of the Pakistani Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry by President Musharraf. The outrage and public protest which followed demonstrated a sense that the Pakistani people were growing dissatisfied with their current political situation which, to Ali’s great pleasure, would be a valuable asset when Pakistan reformed its institutional wrongs.
Ali concluded by hearkening back to the electoral win by Barak Obama, stating, "Obama’s test will not [merely] come with what he does in the United States. The whole world needs a new deal!"