Frank Barat puts questions to Noam Chomsky from artists, activists and journalists, on Egypt, corporate power, Palestine and more.
For his second interview in less than a year with Professor Noam Chomsky (the first one took place in Cambridge in September 2010 and is available here), Frank Barat asked well known artists and journalists to each send one question that they’d like to ask Noam.
John Berger
Political practice often surprises political vocabulary. For example, the recent Revolution in the Middle East is said to demand Democracy. Can we find more adequate words? Isn’t the use of the old and frequently betrayed words a way of absorbing the shock, instead of welcoming it and transmitting it further?
Just to begin I think the word revolution is a bit of an exaggeration. Maybe it will turn into a revolution but for the moment it’s a call for a moderate reform. There are elements in it, like the workers movement that have tried to move beyond that but that remains to be seen. However, the point is correct but there is no way out of that. It’s not the just the word democracy, it’s every word that is involved in discussion of political affairs. It has two meanings. It has its literal meaning and it has the meaning that’s assigned to it for political welfare, for ideology, for doctrine. So either we stop talking or we try to use the words in a sensible way. And it’s not just about democracy.
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*The full video of this interview is available on YouTube