The Radical Intellectual
Wolfgang B. Sperlich
Resurgence, January, 2007
Born in 1928 in Philadelphia, to Russian immigrant parents, Noam Chomsky was brought up in a tough Irish and German neighbourhood. At an early age he was sent to a Deweyite experimental school where children were encouraged to learn for learning’s sake. He responded amazingly well and at the age of only ten he wrote an essay on the Spanish Civil War, which was published in his school’s newspaper.
Just a couple of years later Chomsky expanded his political horizons through regular visits to his mother’s relatives in New York, where an uncle operated a small newspaper street kiosk which was a magnet for all kinds of émigré intellectuals, including Jewish anarcho-syndicalists who published a radical newspaper called Freie Arbeiter Stimme, to which the legendary anarchist writer and activist Rudolf Rocker contributed articles. Reading and discussing such material – supplemented by similar fare from libraries – young Chomsky quickly developed into an expert on political thought and philosophy. He had the shock of his life when he moved to the local high school, which was run along the traditional lines of narrow-minded education by way of indoctrination, but he emerged relatively unscathed when he graduated at the age of sixteen.
When the Second World War came to an end and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki changed the world for ever, Chomsky, as a profoundly engaged teenager, enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania, taking a general course in philosophy, logic and languages. He continued to live at home, earning his keep by teaching Hebrew classes at the Jewish college where his father, a noted Hebrew scholar, had risen to be principal.
University was a disappointment for the young man as it was more or less a continuation of the high-school model. Given his extended family’s total immersion in Jewish culture, both orthodox and radical, Chomsky began to seriously consider taking the path of many a young Jewish man and go to Palestine and contribute – in his and his political circle’s case – to building a nation where Jews and Arabs might co-exist peacefully according, if possible, to anarcho-syndicalist ideas. At university Chomsky had come across a professor of linguistics, Zellig Harris, who was very influential in the radical Jewish organisation Avukah, which advocated such anti-Zionist development for Palestine. As fate would have it, Chomsky also studied linguistics. What is language? How do we acquire it? How does it work? Linguistics diverted Chomsky from going to Palestine, as did something else: he began dating his childhood friend Carol and they were married in 1949.
The young couple continued to think about going to Palestine, but Chomsky became so immersed in the subject of linguistics that it became his major subject for his bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Chomsky the extraordinary linguist was being born. A small number of academics recognised his talents and he was given a fellowship at Harvard, where he began to develop his own brand of linguistics. The fellowship included a travel grant and in 1953 he and his wife visited Europe and Israel. This left a deep impression on both of them, especially seeing the huge gap between a very affluent USA and a Europe that was still war-torn. They loved their time on a kibbutz in Israel, but Chomsky’s political sensitivities were severely tested by his encounters with dogmatic adherence to various political ideologies, whether Stalinism or Zionism, as well as the emerging racism directed at the local Arabs.
Back home in Boston Chomsky was offered a job at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), then and now one of the world’s most prestigious universities. Given a free hand amongst a faculty of applied scientists, Chomsky set forth to establish a department of Linguistics and Philosophy which in time became one of the most progressive and innovative linguistic research centres in the world.
Chomsky and his co-workers (both colleagues and students) revolutionised linguistics by moving from ‘describing’ languages to ‘explaining’ language per se. A series of highly technical books by Chomsky became the hallmark of ‘Chomskyan’ linguistics, culminating today in a vast body of work that explains universal grammar, how language is acquired, and how a biological language capacity underpins human facility with languages. The academic establishment the world over, tried its best to suppress such heretical theories, but, like Galileo’s ‘flat Earth’ opponents, they had to concede eventually that Chomsky was possibly right in his findings.
In the meantime Chomsky’s youthful political education had not stopped. When he started out at MIT, the Vietnam War was developing into its most ugly phases. Chomsky made a decision to become a political activist by engaging in dissent, and by organising opposition to the war. In 1967, together with a group of like-minded people, he founded RESIST, an organisation that called upon “all humankind of good will to join us in this confrontation with immoral authority”. RESIST and others organised various anti-war demonstrations, and in the same year Chomsky was arrested and thrown into jail, where he ended up with Norman Mailer as a cellmate. Undaunted by his time in jail, Chomsky continued to organise rallies and give talks. His notes for such speeches were published in 1969 as American Power and the New Mandarins, which remains a classic of political dissent. Chomsky also ended up on President Nixon’s infamous hit list of political enemies, but again it did not deter him from his path of speaking the truth. He visited Hanoi in 1970, but unlike Jane Fonda he never regretted his support for the North Vietnamese.
To this very day, now in his late seventies, Chomsky does not shirk from going to places that official US foreign policy declares out of bounds, such as Cuba or a recent meeting with a Hezbollah leader in Lebanon. Chomsky’s fierce criticism of US foreign policy is legend by now. His latest book, Failed States, makes the point that successive US governments have been involved in, and are now engaged in, state terrorism.
People who care about the world and its inhabitants have long recognised Chomsky as a visionary and a man of the people. As an eminent scientist with a social conscience he embodies the tireless academic worker – with a vast output of high-quality work – who reluctantly sacrificed his private life for a public one in order to make the world a better place. In that sense he is also a committed conservationist, and this is expressed in his deep concern for the natural environment, especially in his more recent work. That he is vilified as public enemy number one by political and economic reactionaries comes as no surprise, but it is a heavy price to pay. His good-humoured acceptance of such a fate should inspire us all.
Copyright Noam Chomsky 2004 //-->
NOAM CHOMSKY
VLADIMIROVTSI - EBIPKOY - RAZGRAD
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FRENCH - ALGERIA WAR
May 26, 1958Charles DeGaulle
Oct. 13, 1958Ferhat Abbas
Jan. 5, 1959Man of the Year
Aug. 17, 1959The Sahara
Jan. 26, 1962Gen. Raoul Salan
Mar. 16, 1962Bensyoussef Benkhedda
THE SOCIAL PROBLEMS SURFACED BYfiery riots across France are partially rooted in that country's colonial past in North Africa. The French-Algerian War lasted almost eight years, took an estimated million lives, pitted Frenchmen against Frenchmen, and brought Charles DeGaulle back to power in France. TIME covered that struggle in graphic, often gory detail:
After 1946, when the people of Algeria were granted full French citizenship, they began pouring into France at the rate of 30,000 a year. Arriving in Paris on the slow trains from the Midi, they drift with their bundles into the old, revolutionary districts of Belleville and Ménilmontant, where whole blocks now have the sound and smell of Algerian medinas. Only one in five of the Algerians in Paris has regular employment; the others live in the tradition of the Paris demimonde, vociferously free, but desperately poor. From Bastille Day Riot Jul. 27, 1953 The French say they will not negotiate the Algerian question—that revolt on the soil of Algeria is treason. 'The only negotiation,' said Interior Minister Francois Mitterrand, 'is war.' The Algerian nationalists have an answer: 'La valise ou le cercueil'—meaning, if you don't take a traveling bag, you will get a coffin. From Suitcase or Coffin? Nov. 15, 1954 Algeria is composed of French departments, in many ways assimilated into those of continental France. For a long time there was a school of French opinion which favored assimilation pure and simple. One scarcely thinks this to be possible today. The Islamic religion is too big a barrier between Algerians and Frenchmen, the standard of living is too unequal on either side of the Mediterranean, the cost of investments which would be needed to raise Algeria to the level of the home country is too much beyond the means of France. From The "French Presence" in North Africa By Raymond Aron Jul. 4, 1955 Pouring down from the hills, thousands of Berber horsemen from the Ouled Aissim tribe smashed their way into the prosperous little town of Oued Zem, 80 miles southeast of Casablanca. With screaming women at their side, some of them riding bicycles, they swept through the European quarter, setting fire to every house, killing every white man in sight, in the most savage massacre of Europeans in modern Moroccan history....While the French army had its hands full beating back the Moroccans, other fanatical Arabs saw their chance in Algeria, North Africa's richest province and legally a part of France. ...All told, La Date Fatidique claimed the lives of some 650 Arabs and 200 Frenchmen. French North Africa was in flames, and at week's end there was still no knowing how far the flames would spread, or how they would be put out. From Revolt of the Arabs Aug. 29, 1955 The killers call themselves fellagha (outlaws). They are nationalists-turned-terrorists, who are fast transforming France's most prized colony (technically a part of metropolitan France) into its greatest colonial hazard.... At 1 a.m. on Nov. 1, 1954, the fellagha revolt began. At that moment, across Algeria, some 30 fellagha bands fell on the nearest French settlements and slit the colons' throats. The French sent armored columns to smash the fellagha, and the revolt seemed to fizzle out. From Revolt of the Fellagha Dec. 26, 1955 The French stake in North Africa is prodigious. With its empire in Asia gone, the loss of its African colonies could seal the doom of French claims to being a major power. France has invested tens of billions of dollars in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. Its businessmen depend heavily on them for markets, raw materials and labor; its army taps their manpower. 'Without North Africa,' French imperialists say, 'France would have no history in the 21st century. We should be 40 million Frenchmen facing twice that number of Germans. Another Portugal.' From Revolt & Revenge Sep. 5, 1955 One of the first Frenchmen to come to Morocco officially was the ambassador of King Louis XIV. He found a mighty feudal empire under Ismail the Bloodthirsty. Ismail, who had at least 549 wives, asked for—and was refused—Louis XIV's daughter as No. 550. When Ismail died, order in Morocco disappeared in the struggle for power among Ismail's 800 sons (most of his daughters were strangled at birth). From Revolt & Revenge Sep. 5, 1955 Three times the size of Texas, Algeria takes in a swatch of the Sahara, two broad seams of the Atlas Mountains, and a 100-mile-wide ribbon of fertile Mediterranean littoral where most of its largely Moslem population lives. Pacified, colonized, civilized through 125 years, Northern Algeria is officially a part of metropolitan France, and sends its Deputies to the Paris Parliament. From France's Troubled North Africa Sep. 5, 1955 The U.S. stands solidly behind France in her search for a liberal and equitable solution of the problems in Algeria . . . The French Republic, in its search for liberal solutions that will insure the continuance of the French presence in North Africa, has the wholehearted support of the U.S. Government. From Clarification on North Africa Apr. 2, 1956 From Hassi Messaoud and neighboring Algerian fields recently opened, there was now the promise of an assured yield of 60 million bbl. of oil a year. From "Miracle of the Sahara" Aug. 5, 1957 Despite the fact that he draws much of his loudest support from the chauvinists who shout 'Algeria is French,' most of the men closest to De Gaulle are convinced that he would give independence to Algeria in one form or another. From "I Am Ready" May 26, 1958 For the 9,000,000 Moslems in Algeria, nine-tenths of the population, the cry that 'Algeria is France' has proved a cruel delusion. The very achievements of French rule have served to increase the misery of the Moslem masses. Many of the highly efficient farms operated by French colons—often on land expropriated from Moslems in the 19th century—are not devoted to producing the food that Algeria so desperately needs; instead, they produce wine —which Moslems do not drink. From The Reluctant Rebel Oct. 13, 1958 Ferhat Abbas, 58, is Premier of the self-proclaimed Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic—an organization which in the name of Algerian nationalism wages merciless war on France. Dirty and cruel, the Algerian rebellion is a war of torture and treachery, of ambush and sabotage. In the four years since it began, it has claimed the lives of an estimated 100,000 Moslem civilians, and for the past two years French army dead have been running about 900 a month. From The Reluctant Rebel Oct. 13, 1958 Without the wealth of the Sahara—and the power it could furnish Algeria—the Constantine Plan would be an intolerable financial burden on France, and an unredeemable promise. Says Jacques Soustelle: 'It is here in this desert region that the destiny of the French Republic will be settled.' From The Visionary Aug. 17, 1959 Barely 20 months after it destroyed one French republic, the unrelenting Algerian revolt last week threatened the life of another. Across the wide boulevards of Algiers crackled the sound all France had so long feared to hear—the sound of Frenchmen shooting at Frenchmen. From The Test for De Gaulle Feb. 1, 1960 Thanks to Reporter White's enterprise, the coverage TIME got of the fateful events in Algiers was uncommonly early and informed. From A Letter From The Publisher Feb. 8, 1960 The hotheads, toughs and ultras held the heart of the city of Algiers. Their barricades of paving blocks sealed off street after street around the university. Students cradling Tommy guns sat on the roofs, dangling their legs. Members of the Front National Français poured in from the nearby slums to stand guard under their black Celtic crosses or to drill in the makeshift uniforms of the territorial army, a sort of Algerian home guard. From To the Barricades Feb. 8, 1960 Twice before in the last three years, uprisings in Algeria, tacitly encouraged by French army officers, have brought France to the edge of chaos and prevented any peace settlement in Algeria. The first revolt brought down the Fourth Republic and boosted Charles de Gaulle to power. The second, when barricades went up in the streets of Algiers 15 months ago, was designed to stop De Gaulle from negotiating for an independent Algeria. But last week's was no civilian uprising aided and abetted by soldiers. It was a mutiny in the army itself. From The Third Revolt Apr. 28, 1961 The mutiny in Algeria was the last gasp of empire, staged by the men who had fought for and gradually surrendered that empire around the world. Their cause and battle cry, Algérie Française, was dead, and the last obstacle had been cleared for peace talks with the Moslem rebel F.L.N. From Era Ending May 5, 1961 The riots afforded disconcerting proof of the F.L.N.'s hold over France's Algerian population. Since 1947, when they were allowed to enter France freely as full citizens, they have flooded into the country in what French sociologists call 'the immigration of hunger.' Now 350,000 strong (200,000 in Paris alone), they are a vital segment of the labor force, do most of France's back-breaking labor from road building to stevedoring. They live in slums but earn union-scale wages—dazzling by Arab standards. As a result, they not only support one-fifth of all Algerian families, but bankroll the F.L.N. itself. From To the Jugular Oct. 27, 1961 The Algerian cities last week were ravaged by death and disfiguration. The immediate cause, ironically enough, was the prospect that the grim, seven-year war in Algeria might end in a cease-fire now being negotiated between the French government and the Moslem F.L.N. rebels. According to Paris reports, an agreement is scheduled to be signed within a month—or possibly sooner. To most of Algeria's 1,000,000 Europeans, the prospect of an agreement meant only one thing: that Charles de Gaulle is handing over Algeria to its 9,000,000 infuriated Moslems, that the Europeans' homes, their livelihoods, perhaps their lives will be in the hands of the Moslems they have lorded it over for so long. To prevent this at all cost is the avowed aim of an ugly, desperate new force on the Algerian scene: the Secret Army Organization (Organisation de l'Armée Secrète), an underground band of Europeans using the F.L.N.'s own terrorist methods. Leader of the S.A.O. is not a European of Algeria but a Frenchman born in France —ex-General Raoul Salan, 62, white-haired veteran of a dozen of France's wars, now under sentence of death for treason to the Republic. From The Not So Secret Army Jan. 26, 1962 The tasks of peace may be harder than the sacrifices of war. ... Algeria's 10 million people are too many for its backward rural economy, and too few and unskilled for a prosperous industrialized nation. Algeria is advanced compared to other Arab countries—about 1,000,000 Moslems have something like Western standards of living. Two million more live on about the level of the masses in South America. The rest are in wretched poverty. Since 1954 the countryside has been decimated: 2,000,000 peasants have been uprooted by the French and crowded into regroupment centers, another 500,000 have fled to bidonvilles (shantytowns) on the outskirts of the big cities. From The Brothers Mar. 16, 1962 According to Algerian figures, as many as 1 million Muslims died during and after the war. French casualties, military and civilian, are estimated at 27,000 killed and some 65,000 injured. When the end came, a terrible exodus began. Forced to choose between 'the suitcase or the coffin,' nearly 1 million white pied noir settlers tearfully abandoned their homeland. For more than a century it had been considered as much a part of France as Brittany or Provence. From Epic Terror By John T. Elson May 22, 1978
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