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History, when they do it, is ancient history, and they sensationalize even that. Contemporary history is virtually ignored on television.

Tariq Ali

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Tariq Ali
Age: 81
Born: 1943
Born: October 21
Film Director
Historian
Journalist
Novelist
Peace Activist
Politician
Screenwriter
Writer
History
Even
Virtually
Ignored
Contemporary
Ancient
Television

More quotes by Tariq Ali

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The implication strongly is that Osama bin Laden is a Hitler, even though he has no state power at all. It's just grotesque if you seriously think about it.
Tariq Ali
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People are increasingly beginning to feel that democracy itself is being destroyed by this latest phase of globalization and that politics doesn't matter because it changes nothing.
Tariq Ali
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The United States is now The Empire. There isn't an empire there's The Empire, and that empire is the United States.
Tariq Ali
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To fight tyranny and oppression by using tyrannical and oppressive means, to combat a single-minded and ruthless fanaticism by becoming equally fanatical and ruthless, will not further the cause of justice or bring about a meaningful democracy. It can only prolong the cycle of violence.
Tariq Ali
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Tragedies are always discussed as if they took place in a void, but actually each tragedy is conditioned by its setting, local and global. The events of 11 September 2001 are not exception.
Tariq Ali
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Terror breeds terror. I am completely opposed to both state terror and those who respond in a similar way. There is no justification for any group that associates itself with the Left to kill innocents and encourage suicide bombings.
Tariq Ali
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The war in Afghanistan, the first war of the twenty-first century, shows the United States doing what it wants to do, not caring about who it antagonizes, not caring about the effects on neighboring regions.
Tariq Ali
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One cannot discuss Europe without understanding US imperial hegemony, both globally and certainly in Europe as it stands.
Tariq Ali
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The EU is an alliance that the Americans control, in which the EU of course has a great deal of autonomy, but in which it still is very dependent on the United States, especially militarily, but not only in that respect. So to blame the Germans for everything is an easy way out for some of those suffering in Europe today.
Tariq Ali
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One could think of ways to defeat the censor. I could put up the answers on my Facebook page or website or Counterpunch. In today's world it's not easy to suppress information. Technology has helped us a great deal.
Tariq Ali
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Terrorism emanates from weakness, not strength. It is the sign of despair.
Tariq Ali
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The whole history of the 20th century is a history of resistance groups which are either nationalist or, in large parts of the Muslim word, religious groups.
Tariq Ali
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There are huge political problems in Germany, but German economic power is something which was bound to happen. The way out of this situation is through the further democratization of the European Union and a changing of its structures.
Tariq Ali
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The current Eurozone is obviously dysfunctional. And serious people within Germany and elsewhere know this to be the case and know things cannot function this way forever.
Tariq Ali
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If every single Jew born anywhere in the world has the right to become an Israeli citizen, then all the Palestinians who were chucked out of Palestine by the Zionist Government should have the same right, very simple.
Tariq Ali
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At the time of German Reunification, it was no secret that Germany would soon become the strongest political entity in the European Union. And that has happened.
Tariq Ali
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There was a good moment in Islam when people were actually challenging authority at every level. Very different from the world we live in.
Tariq Ali
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We have populations now in the West with a very short memory span. One reason for this short memory span is that television over the last fifteen years has seen a big decline in the coverage of the rest of the world.
Tariq Ali
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What we are seeing in Turkey is a non-uniformed authoritarian regime led by a politician, Tayyip Erdogan, who has allowed power to go to his head and is behaving more and more like a despot. Sooner or later this will provoke political uprisings throughout the country as happened after Gezi.
Tariq Ali
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The function of a bourgeois democracy is to secure the consent of the masses to their own exploitation and oppression.
Tariq Ali