[progchat_action] The Latin American Axis of Hope
 
Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2007 02:01:22 -0500 (CDT)

CounterPunch - July 5, 2007

An Interview with Tariq Ali

Latin America and Its Axis of Hope

By Rodrigo Acuqa

In late 2006 I reviewed Tariq Ali's new book Pirates of the Caribbean: Axis
of Hope, which aims to explain the new rise of the political left in Latin
America. On June 27 this year, I had the chance to interview Ali in Sydney,
Australia around the issues raised in his book. Ali's links to Latin America
stretch back four decades as in 1967, he travelled to Bolivia as a member of
the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation to observe the trial of Rigis Debray
as Che Guevara aimed to create a new revolution.

A current member of the advisory board of TeleSur, a joint venture by
Venezuela, Argentina , Cuba, Uruguay, Bolivia and now Ecuador, to establish
a television network to counter US hegemony, Ali has held numerous
conversations with the Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, as well as other
high-ranking officials in Cuba, Bolivia and Ecuador. An author of almost
thirty books, Tariq Ali is also an editor of the New Left Review. The
following is a complete transcript of my interview with Ali

RA: We often, although without any real insight, read about the United
States relationship with Latin America. I am interested in your perspective
on Britain's relationship with Latin America

TA: Britain's relationship with Latin America is essentially a trade
relationship. Apart from tiny outposts, the British Empire was not permitted
by the United States to enter South America. At the same time, in some parts
of Latin America historically, Britain's trade relationships were very
strong. For instance, to give you one figure, which stuns people, but
Britain made more money from its investments in Argentina than ninety
percent of its African colonies. Which shows that imperialism and empires
function in different ways. So, its links have been largely through trade
and investments and in order to guarantee those, it has backed the United
States in whatever its done in Latin America.

Britain has never challenged US policy in Latin America, even though it's
obvious that the British government was not in favour of the coup d'itat
Chile and they were extremely unhappy about it. And Salvador Allende's
widow, I remember that year, was invited to a Labour Party conference in
Britain and the minute she walked onto the platform there was a standing
ovation which when on and on and on. That was a different Labour Party and
they were different times.

So it's not that Britain has backed everything the United States has done,
but it has never been strong enough to resist, or to fight them publicly and
openly. And then when Britain decided to maintain its outpost in the
Malvinas, what they call the Falklands, they could only do it by, this was
the irony and by now Margaret Thatcher was in power, they could only do it,
with the support of Pinochet. If Pinochet had not given re-fulling
facilities to the British navy and helped them, there is no way they could
have taken the Falklands back. So, you know, its relationship, and that was
done because the United State instructed the Chileans to do it. So Thatcher
always developed a very close relationship with Augusto Pinochet as a
result. That is Britain. It's a junior player everywhere in the world and
more than elsewhere in South America.

RA: The Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is a very polarising figure around
the world and that's also the case in Latin America where he enjoys a
substantial amount of support. One of the discussions I often have with my
Latin American friends is on Chavez political rhetoric. Do you think he
sometimes goes a little too far and could there be repercussions from the
United States in the long term?

TA: Well, you know, he is a politician who speaks from the heart. He is not
a politician who is manicured. He is not a politician whose speeches are
prepared by public relations advisors. He doesn't have any spin-doctors, and
so you have to take most of what you get, which is good, with the occasional
over the top remark. I don't find that a problem and even in the United
States when he denounced Bush as a devil in the United Nations speech it got
a massive round of applause, which was not shown in most television
networks. It's not a language I favour, calling people devils or anything
like that, but he did it just in a rage and people saw that he was very
sincere. And it didn't do him any harm in the United States at all despite
that fact that the media used it. So that's what you have to understand
about Chavez that he's a politician of a very different sort than the ones
who have been produced and reproduced in the Western world today. And that's
what makes him exciting and that's what gives him an edge, and that's what
gives him his popularity.

RA: Among the many positive initiatives by the Venezuelan government is the
pursuit of Latin American unity, integration. Recently, I read a report that
they are looking to establish Banco del Sur, the Bank of the South.
Apparently, it will have 7 billion US dollars in reserves. How do you see
that regional integration developing, especially based on Brazil's new
ethanal alliance with the United States?

TA: Well, the Brazilians are looking to disrupt this process of integration
by continuing to do unilateral directives with the United States and its
corporations and this is, I think, a big, big tragedy for Latin America.
Someone asked me, recently I was in Cochabamba, Bolivia, and someone said,
we know who your axis of hope is. Who is your axis of evil? And I said I
don't believe in terms such as good and evil because that's not me. But I
have an axis of dispar, and part of this axis of dispar is Brazil, Chile and
Mexico. And I then explained why, and one reason was that in the case of
Brazil, in particular this is the largest country in South America and it's
so close to the United States, if Brazil had gone even half the way that
Venezuela has gone, it would have transformed South America. And that is
what worried the United States: the impact that these events would have in
Brazil. And if there had been curiously enough, if you would have had a
right wing government in Brazil, the impact of Chavez and Chavismo and
Bolivarianism, would have been much, much greater because the left would
been in the opposition and would have identified with it. Having Lula as a
neo-liberal president in Brazil, is a tragedy for the Brazilians and for the
continent. So it's not a good thing.

Meanwhile, despite the obstructionism of the Mexicans and the indifference
of the Brazilians, the processes at work are constantly pushing Latin
Americans closer together. You now have four governments part of this
process, the heart of this process, Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador. Who
knows, you know we might have more surprises in store. That Paraguay, the
most isolated of South American states. You now have a former priest; I
think he may still be a priest, who is opposing the president in the
forth-coming elections. The priest is a radical liberation theologist,
extremely popular with the poor in Paraguay and I think they'll try and more
heaven and earth to stop him pulling it off. But if he pulls it off you will
have yet a fifth country which becomes part of the process. And Peru remains
very polarized.

So it's a situation in South America where moves towards regional cohesion
have never been as serious as this since the time of Bolmvar and so we have
possibilities. There's TeleSur, the television network, there's Banco Sur,
which once it is established, will actually begin to play an impact and
that's the interesting thing, which many, even many, even on the Left, don't
understand about what the Venezuelans are up too. That they are not on a
cake of nationalising everything under the sun. They are using their state
power and the wealth of the country to transform it, to reduce disparities,
while at the sometime saying to the local bourgeoisie, as long as you don't
engage in coup d'itat and try and topple elected governments, you can make
your money provided you do it in the country under our rules and
regulations. And so, that partially neutralises these people.

So the Banco de Sur would become a big polar for traction for the poorer
countries, especially because they would get help from it and on very
different terms than the IMF and the World Bank. So I think, you know, if
one was to be totally hard headed, I would say that the history of Latin
America over the last sixty years, since the Cuban revolution, has been a
history of defeats. Whether we like it or not every armed struggle was
defeated. Salvador Allende's attempt to transform Chile was defeated by the
Americans and the Chilean army and Allende became one of the martyrs of the
continent. Che Guevara; very noble heroic figure, tried to achieve what he
did in Bolivia, failed, was executed by the Bolivians with the help of the
CIA. So these two martyrs, Che Guevara and Salvador Allende, in South
America represent heroic defeats. But now we are having victories and they
are coming in a very different way and we have to embrace these victories
because that's all we have in this world.

And I think many poor citizens of South America see it like that. That is
why Chavez has become such an important figure. I mean who would have
thought that in Fidel Castro's lifetime you would have another figure who
would over take him and in a very nice way, with his full support and
backing. So Latin America carries on the task of reproducing radical leaders
and that's very encouraging.

RA: But in short, you don't think the United States will be able to pull
Brazil away from the alliance.

TA: Well I think that Brazil isn't part of the alliance so there is no
question of pulling it away. But I don't think the United States will be
able to use Brazil to destabilise the alliance.

RA: As a member of OPEC and with a common foe, I think Venezuela is expected
to have some type of relations with Iran. However, is it healthy for a
leader like Chavez, who embraces socialist and enlightenment ideas, to ally
himself so openly with the current Iranian leadership ?

TA: Well I think Chavez has a view of the world that there should be an
alliance of all anti-imperialists globally. And because Iran has been very
heavy fire from the United States and because Ahmadinejad was the candidate,
not the candidate of the West, Rafsanjani was the left candidate in the
presidential elections, his victory was seen be C havez, and many Iranians,
as a defeat for American machinations.

But, I think sometimes one has to distinguish between necessary state
policies and what your own project is, and I don't think the Venezuelans
have learnt the art of distinguishing these two things. Because the
Bolivarian project is far removed from anything that is happening in Iran.
And they don't realise sometimes, that the Iranians have no big social
vision - either globally or regionally. They follow, in a very narrow way,
their own interests. And I say to my Venezuelan friends sometimes, without
the support of the Iranians, the United States couldn't have occupied either
Iraq or Afghanistan. The Iranians green lighted these occupations for
reasons of there own. They didn't like these regimes either, which wasn't a
very farsighted way of looking at it. They have no plans for regional
cohesion, at all. They basically defend their own interests and are very
narrow minded and principled way. But then they do other things as well,
which is interesting, that there is a statue that is being erected to Simsn
Bolmvar in Tehran. And that's interesting. And the reason its interesting
is, it enables many Iranians to think, well so, you don't necessarily have
to be a hardcore religious fanatic to oppose imperialism. Who was Simsn
Bolmvar they ask each other in the streets of Tehran. And they learn. And
the fact that Chavez is very popular in that world, also, you know, on one
level helps to break people from narrow-minded fanaticism. If he can do it,
but his not a Muslim. Do you see? So it has a dual impact that we shouldn't
underestimate.

RA: Tariq, I was quite moved when I read in your biography and your reaction
to Ernesto Che Guevara's death. As we know, Guevara was quite committed to
establishing an egalitarian society. He did a lot of volunteer work; he did
not embrace material wealth. He was very intolerant toward corruption and
there seems to have been a genuine belief in Guevara that people should, and
in fact could, act in a selfless manner. However, in Cuba, from my own
experiences and from what I've read, there seems to be quite a lot of
demoralised youth. I'm wondering how do you read Cuba today.

TA: Well my views on Cuba are, you know, expressed in the chapter on Cuba in
Pirates of the Caribbean. I mean, I think the Cuban revolution was a heroic
affair and Che and Fidel symbolised that. But the isolation of the Cubans,
the American blockade, the fact that they were forced into bed with
Brezhnev's Soviet Union, had very negative impacts on the politics and
culture of that country. And you had the emergence of a bureaucracy in that
country which became quite isolated from the people. Fidel didn't, but many,
you know the institutions did and it's not a good thing. And I think they
went through very bad times, especially after the collapse of the Soviet
Union. It was the worst period in Cuban history. And there was, I remember
when I was in Havana and someone was telling me at one point, Cuban youth
were on the Malecsn shouting, chanting slogans and it looked like getting
quite ugly. And when Castro was informed, he hoped on a jeep and went out
and spoke to them, and chatted to them and explained to them what was going
on and defused the situation. Now when you have political leaders who can do
that and aren't scared of their people, then it makes an enormous
difference.

Now look, Cuba has enormous human capital, which it's produced, and doctors
and teachers, we should never underestimate that cause it's helping the
whole of Latin America. In fact, many countries in Africa as well. They are
even training free Afro-Americans who get a free education in health in
Cuba, and then they'll probably go and become very rich when they go back
course doctors are paid a great deal.

So all this is happening. But I think the Cuban revolution now needs to open
up and I think it probably will after Fidel goes. They need to relax
restrictions; they need to encourage debate and discussion in their press.
In my opinion, it's the only way to save that process is by opening it up.
And, I have always felt, this is not a new thing with me, that a total
command economy is untenable. And that, you know, you have to permit small
businesses to function. At least on the level of handy crafts, restaurants,
food. The Cubans are very worried about this and say that, you know, from a
single scratch there is a danger of gangrene. But the point is that you
can't preserve the country in aspic as a sort of anti-septic state. You
can't do that and you have to give people some openings and if you do that,
then I think given the developments elsewhere Cuba could survive.

My own feeling is that the United States will move heaven and earth, not
militarily - they will try and buy the Cubans. They will try and buy the
trop brass of the Cuban army because that's the key institution. Whether
they will be able to do it, that's another question. But that is what
they'll try and the Cubans are perfectly aware of that

RA: Do you think the Cubans are intelligent enough to reform the system and
not go along the Chinese path?

TA: I hope so. I think they are extremely intelligent people in that
country. Ricardo Alarcon, Albel Prieto, young leaders who know what is
required and if they go down the Chinese path it will be a tragedy actually
because it will make the entire population very cynical and they won't be
able to mobilize it. The advises I always give to the Venezuelans, and the
Cubans when they ask for it, is learn from each others strengths, not your
weaknesses, cause both processes have strengths and weaknesses.

RA: Tariq you have written a lot, lectured extensively on Middle Eastern
affairs, and more recently pointed out the failures of the region to
reproduce some of the success in Latin America. Do you see any examples,
however small, of progressive secular forces mobilising.

TA: No. Unfortunately, what is happened is that the polarisation in the Arab
world has been so sharp that a lot of secular intellectuals and progressives
have either shifted to the right, or have become passive. And those that
have shifted to the right ague in the following way: a victory for the
Islamists radicals will be a victory for everything we hold dear and
therefore we have to support the United States because bad though it is, it
will create more space for us. This is a very dangerous argument.

It implies that the United States has certain universalists values and not
imperial values, which all imperial states have because what they do is
defend their own interests above all else. They don't defend the interest of
the world as a whole. And this is creating big problems and I remember in
countries look I don't want to paint a totally negative picture because in
Lebanon, in Egypt, you have layers of secular intellectuals who are
anti-imperialists. But not in the numbers that they use to be and many of
them have become passive and indifferent and this gives the space,
anti-imperialists space which is very large, totally monopolised by the
Islamists groups and that I think is a tragedy.

And the same can be said about Iran, you known, where you have many decent
people who initially, I, you know I had these arguments when Iraq was
occupied after the first week, a lot of these people were celebrating in
Tehran and saying now move forward to Tehran. Then when they saw the mess,
they said no, no we don't want Iran made into that and it was very educative
for them. But when people give up the struggle themselves, then all they can
do is wait for some big power to come and help them out and that's very
dangerous.

RA: Finally, as you may know, the CIA has recently declassified its so
called "family jewels" files regarding their covert activities in the 1960
and 70s. I'm wondering if you think little has fundamentally changed in that
organisation and do you see people within the United States starting to
achieve some successes in fighting back policies such as the Patriot Act.

TA: Well, you know, the CIA is revealing the past. It's not revealing the
present. We know that it has plans to destabilise Venezuela. That these
plans involve the utilising of Colombian space and the Colombian regime to
do it, which is the only hard core pro-US regime in the region. We know that
Americans publicly have come out and said that Chavez should be taken out.
So revealing the so-called family jewels is part of a PR exercise to win
support and to show that they've changed. They haven't changed at all. They
are in a different world.

There is a growing move in the United States against the war in Iraq and I
think that is only positive and that is now forcing politicians, both
Democrats and Republicans, to demand withdrawal dates and to demand a time
schedule for change. But the only reason for that is opposition from below
and that's very positive.

A second development, which will take sometime to mature when I was in the
United States during the speaking tour on Pirates of the Caribbean, I
noticed for the first time, at all my meetings, more in the west cost than
elsewhere, all my meetings, a fair sprinkling of Hispanic people coming to
listen. And that is an indication that the new generation of Hispanics in
the United States, either the kids or new migrants, are not going to lose
contact with their own countries and remain interested. Which means that the
Bolivarian experiment, if it goes well, could have a very radicalising
impact on large sways of the population in the United States and this is a
bridge which now we have to use to get into the United States. And they, the
American establishment, is aware of this but so is the other side. So it's a
very interesting situation.

RA: Tariq Ali, it has been an absolute pleasure. Thank you very much.

TA: Thanks.

Rodrigo Acuqa is a freelance journalist currently based in Sydney,
Australia. In 2005, he was awarded the Benchmark Prize in Hispanic Studies
by University of New South Wales. He writes on Latin American affairs and
has published in New Matilda, Red Pepper, El Espaqol en Australia, Eureka
Street, New York Latino Journal , On Line Opinion: Australia's e-journal of
social and political debate and ZNet amongst others. You can contact him at
rodrigo.indepj@gmail.com

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