Written by Gabriel Gonçalves Martinez, member of the Juche Idea Studies Center - Brasil
(our thanks to comrades of the Brazilian Juche Studies Centre for translating this excellent article)
Tariq Ali is a Pakistani intelectual known for his antiimperialist opinions. He became worldly known after writing about the Vietnam War showing itself as a great critical of the external policy of the US imperialism.
In the article entitled “In the country of the great and beloved Peterson”, Tariq Ali becomes an example of how the ideological offensive of the bourgeoise affects even those who call themselves “critical of the system”. The aim of Tariq Ali’s article was to talk about his impressions after visiting the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea twice. However, we would like to say to the readers that, on the other side of you can imagine, Tariq Ali’s aim in writing this article was not to show any antiimperialist solidary to the north Korean people – as he did with Vietnam, Cuba and, nowadays, Venezuela – but to give food to the campaign of slandering against the DPRK promoted by the US imperialism and its subordinates for more than 60 years. It is quite depressive to see a person, that although never calling itself a revolutionary or a communist, calls itself “antiimperialist”, supporting such positions to show its true bosses, that is, the US imperialism, that the so-called “radical changes” that he proposes are not so radical at the point of really threatening the ruling order. And it is nothing better to hide the revisionism and opportunism than a radical-chic rethoric that the opportunist intelectuals and the “academical Marxists” that dominate the international and Brasilian universities like so much.
Mr. Tariq Ali begins his article talking about the episode in which he was invited to visit the DPRK. According to him, his first visit to DPRK happened due to the invitation of a Pakistani communist militant, member of the the Korean Friendship Society of Pakistan. Trying to look ironic – one of the main characteristics of the article he wrote –, he shows to us really relevant informations about the Pakistani communist: “Short, chubby, talkative and full of beer”. The reason of the invitation was a war threat denounced by the government of the DPRK, denounces which Tariq Ali called “without basis”. Well, suposing that the acusations made by the DPRK government were really without basis, it is undeniable that the country suffers a constant threat by imperialism in the military, political and economic fields. These three reasons would be enough for any antiimperialist militant to show solidarity to the north Korean people. Besides the “without basis” accusations of the DPRK government and its trip to East Pakistan, another reason why Tariq Ali hesitated to visit north Korea at first was that he, a retard Pakistani, considered Kim Il Sung a “ridiculous leader” and that his regime was a parody of the “stalinist Russia”. It is funny to say that, mr. Tariq Ali, but the words “ridiculous leader” and “stalinist” are the words that the imperialism use to slander president Hugo Chavez, a personality that you use to support. President Ho Chi Minh and the north Vietnamese guerrillas were also “ridiculous” and “stalinists” to the imperialism, not to mention Chairman Mao Zedong and its Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution as well. For the imperialism, everything that is connected to progress and revolution will always be “ridiculous” and “stalinist”. Due to the high degree of degeneration of such publications, we wouldn’t doubt that they used your moustache to classify you as a “stalinist”. Do you really think your opinions do not strengthen the enemy you say you fight against?
In his article, mr. Tariq Ali talks a little about the Korean history, mainly about the period that preceeds the liberation of the country from the Japanese forces of occupation. He reminds the brutal explotation and oppresion suffered by the Korean people during the times of the Japanese occupation, where the women were treated like prostitutes and the workers received starvation wages. True facts, that were faced by the “ridiculous” and “stalinist” Kim Il Sung, which, in his 1, joined the independent and revolutionary movement, losing a great number of friends, including his father, Kim Hyong Jik, which died after being severely wounded during the times spent in prison. As Tariq Ali’s article aim is not to tell the history of the Korean Revolution, we don’t know if the Pakistani intelectual purposelly omitted relevant facts like the founding of the Korean National Association by Kim Il Sung’s father, and the Down-With-Imperialism Union (communist organization formed by young people unsatisfied with the path taken by the revolutionary movement of the country) founding by the latter, when he was only 14.
Only a totally ignorant person would say that “Kim Il Sung was almost unknown” when he returned to Korea in 1945, occasion in which he made a speech to thousands of Koreans at the foot of Moran Hill, a place in which a gigantic Arch of Triumph was erected to celebrate that memorable day. Tariq Ali’s opportunism is so hateful that he doesn’t even hide his intention of showing the Koreans and Kim Il Sung as irrelevant figures for the liberation of the country. Those who do not know the history of the Korean Revolution, after reading Tariq Ali’s article, will probably think that the Korean liberation, in fact, was done exclusively by Soviet troops and not by the Korean communist and Korean People’s Revolutionary Army. Tariq Ali, in fact, has the same positions of the pro-imperialist circles that study the history of the DPRK and manufacture their own versions about the history of the country, where there is no space for Kim Il Sung and not even for the Korean people, and that all the sufferings during the liberation struggle was a secondary character hided by the manoeuvres of foreign forces. The objectic of such slanders is to falsify the history and oppose their crazy thoughts – which in most the times justify the presence occupation forces in the southern part of the península – to the correct historical interpretation by the own north Korean people.
Tariq Ali, like most of the journalists and intelectuals, well-paid by the US imperialism, begins to speculate about Kim Il Sung’s life. “Who, in fact, was Kim Il Sung?”, asks the famous Pakistani intelectual, recently converted to an apologist of the US imperialism. Although the article really shows that, we do not believe he is a total ignorant about the history of the Korean revolution to the point of not knowing the past life of Kim Il Sung. Yes, Tariq Ali. Kim Il Sung visited China and Russia, because these are two countries which border the northern parto f the Korean Peninsula and thousands of Koreans used to live in the region of Manchuria (China). So it was natural for the Korean communists to struggle there.
To end up his total capitulation to the imperialism, he supports the same position of the latter about the beggining of the Korean War. Although it is totally true that, in the southern part of the península, the people was rising up against the oppresion made by the government of the dictator Syngman Rhee, puppet of the US occupation troops, the affirmation that the North began the war is totally false. Even the bourgeois personalities recognize that the official version backed by the the United States and the south Korean puppet government – that the north made the first shot beyond the 38th Parallel – is totally questionable. Mr. Tariq Ali, because of his knowledges about international conflicts, certainlly knows that the DPRK always supported the pacific reunification of the country, the opposite of south Korea, which since the times of Syngman Rhee supported the reunification through the military way.
Tariq Ali also tells us about a dialogue which he had with Ruth Wedgewood, counsellor of the bastard Donald Rumsfeld, and told that the United States had a “fear” about the pacific reunification of Korea, because the militaries of south Korea would be in possess of the north Korean nuclear arsenal. It is important to say that the United States do fear the reunification, but the reunification that occurs in the terms of the Joint Declaration supported by the DPRK and which was backed by the south Korean government of president Kim Dae Jong, until the nowadays puppet pro-imperialist, Lee Myung Bak, came into power in south Korea. The proposal of “reunification” that the imperialism supports in that northern part should be attached to the south, so that is why the counsellor had a “fear” that the south Korean military government became in possess of nuclear weapons. At the same time the “fear” the south Korean possessed nuclear weapons, the introduce nuclear weapons in the country. Strange logics, no doubt about it. If we go further, we could maybe think that south Korea is an independent country, sovereign and that suffers from no type of political control by the United States.
We could spend many more pages pointing the elements of Tariq Ali’s article that would allow us to call him a bastard and a renegade. Once more, the neo-Trotskyites and the social-democrats show by which side they are. Judging by the recent declarations of mr. Tariq Ali that “Cuba is not a democracy”, we would have endless reasons to think that it will not long that the mr. Tariq Ali’s “ridiculous” and “stalinists” become Fidel Castro, Raul Castro or Hugo Chavez. It is most deppresive that guys like Tariq Ali are nowadays considered “great exponents” of the “New Left”. In the same list, we could include the “philosopher” Slavoj Zizek, which recently hás declared its support to the electoral front of the Greek Syriza and showed his anticommunism slandering the Communist Party of Greece, which according to the first one “is alive because forgot to die”. These example of reactionarism show that the so-called “intelectuals” acclaimed by the world Revisionism are really significant. With a “left” like this one, the imperialism is, unfortunatelly, safe.
Additional Commentary by ASSPUK , JISGE and UK KFA
All this goes to show is that Tariq Ali's view of the DPRK is identical with that of the media of the imperialist countries and his world outlook is basically identical to that of the bourgeoisie and imperialism. Rather than being an 'anti-imperialist intellectual' Tariq Ali is a faded burnt out aging Trotksyite who lives in an expensive part of London. In the 1970s Tariq Ali was promoted by the bourgeois media as the leader of the British revolution, this never happened and Mr Ali ended up getting 424 votes (0.9%) in Sheffield in the 1974 general election.
Ali's article on the DPRK contains inaccuracies such as referring to the secretary of the Pakistan DPRK Society as being "full of beer" when in fact Pakistan being a muslim state outlawed alcohol . The truth about Tariw Ali's trips to the DPRK is that he went to try and secure funding for his "International Marxist Group"
How ironic and hypocritical is for Mr Ali to talk about a " a cult of personality " because he promoted his own "cult of personality" .
People like Tariq Ali have been responsible for for promoting anti-communism and corrosive cynicism in the guise of "Trotskyism ", the "New Left" , "new age" etc . Such an ideology has been the dominant "ideology " of the British left and his has corrupted several generations.
Tariq Ali clearly shows that he is on the side of imperialism when he basically calls for the destruction of the Juche-based socialist system centred on the people in the DPRK , this is what the US imperialists and south Korean puppets want.
So the Troksyite clown Tariq Ali has joined the anti-DPRK circus !
(our thanks to comrades of the Brazilian Juche Studies Centre for translating this excellent article)
Tariq Ali is a Pakistani intelectual known for his antiimperialist opinions. He became worldly known after writing about the Vietnam War showing itself as a great critical of the external policy of the US imperialism.
In the article entitled “In the country of the great and beloved Peterson”, Tariq Ali becomes an example of how the ideological offensive of the bourgeoise affects even those who call themselves “critical of the system”. The aim of Tariq Ali’s article was to talk about his impressions after visiting the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea twice. However, we would like to say to the readers that, on the other side of you can imagine, Tariq Ali’s aim in writing this article was not to show any antiimperialist solidary to the north Korean people – as he did with Vietnam, Cuba and, nowadays, Venezuela – but to give food to the campaign of slandering against the DPRK promoted by the US imperialism and its subordinates for more than 60 years. It is quite depressive to see a person, that although never calling itself a revolutionary or a communist, calls itself “antiimperialist”, supporting such positions to show its true bosses, that is, the US imperialism, that the so-called “radical changes” that he proposes are not so radical at the point of really threatening the ruling order. And it is nothing better to hide the revisionism and opportunism than a radical-chic rethoric that the opportunist intelectuals and the “academical Marxists” that dominate the international and Brasilian universities like so much.
Mr. Tariq Ali begins his article talking about the episode in which he was invited to visit the DPRK. According to him, his first visit to DPRK happened due to the invitation of a Pakistani communist militant, member of the the Korean Friendship Society of Pakistan. Trying to look ironic – one of the main characteristics of the article he wrote –, he shows to us really relevant informations about the Pakistani communist: “Short, chubby, talkative and full of beer”. The reason of the invitation was a war threat denounced by the government of the DPRK, denounces which Tariq Ali called “without basis”. Well, suposing that the acusations made by the DPRK government were really without basis, it is undeniable that the country suffers a constant threat by imperialism in the military, political and economic fields. These three reasons would be enough for any antiimperialist militant to show solidarity to the north Korean people. Besides the “without basis” accusations of the DPRK government and its trip to East Pakistan, another reason why Tariq Ali hesitated to visit north Korea at first was that he, a retard Pakistani, considered Kim Il Sung a “ridiculous leader” and that his regime was a parody of the “stalinist Russia”. It is funny to say that, mr. Tariq Ali, but the words “ridiculous leader” and “stalinist” are the words that the imperialism use to slander president Hugo Chavez, a personality that you use to support. President Ho Chi Minh and the north Vietnamese guerrillas were also “ridiculous” and “stalinists” to the imperialism, not to mention Chairman Mao Zedong and its Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution as well. For the imperialism, everything that is connected to progress and revolution will always be “ridiculous” and “stalinist”. Due to the high degree of degeneration of such publications, we wouldn’t doubt that they used your moustache to classify you as a “stalinist”. Do you really think your opinions do not strengthen the enemy you say you fight against?
In his article, mr. Tariq Ali talks a little about the Korean history, mainly about the period that preceeds the liberation of the country from the Japanese forces of occupation. He reminds the brutal explotation and oppresion suffered by the Korean people during the times of the Japanese occupation, where the women were treated like prostitutes and the workers received starvation wages. True facts, that were faced by the “ridiculous” and “stalinist” Kim Il Sung, which, in his 1, joined the independent and revolutionary movement, losing a great number of friends, including his father, Kim Hyong Jik, which died after being severely wounded during the times spent in prison. As Tariq Ali’s article aim is not to tell the history of the Korean Revolution, we don’t know if the Pakistani intelectual purposelly omitted relevant facts like the founding of the Korean National Association by Kim Il Sung’s father, and the Down-With-Imperialism Union (communist organization formed by young people unsatisfied with the path taken by the revolutionary movement of the country) founding by the latter, when he was only 14.
Only a totally ignorant person would say that “Kim Il Sung was almost unknown” when he returned to Korea in 1945, occasion in which he made a speech to thousands of Koreans at the foot of Moran Hill, a place in which a gigantic Arch of Triumph was erected to celebrate that memorable day. Tariq Ali’s opportunism is so hateful that he doesn’t even hide his intention of showing the Koreans and Kim Il Sung as irrelevant figures for the liberation of the country. Those who do not know the history of the Korean Revolution, after reading Tariq Ali’s article, will probably think that the Korean liberation, in fact, was done exclusively by Soviet troops and not by the Korean communist and Korean People’s Revolutionary Army. Tariq Ali, in fact, has the same positions of the pro-imperialist circles that study the history of the DPRK and manufacture their own versions about the history of the country, where there is no space for Kim Il Sung and not even for the Korean people, and that all the sufferings during the liberation struggle was a secondary character hided by the manoeuvres of foreign forces. The objectic of such slanders is to falsify the history and oppose their crazy thoughts – which in most the times justify the presence occupation forces in the southern part of the península – to the correct historical interpretation by the own north Korean people.
Tariq Ali, like most of the journalists and intelectuals, well-paid by the US imperialism, begins to speculate about Kim Il Sung’s life. “Who, in fact, was Kim Il Sung?”, asks the famous Pakistani intelectual, recently converted to an apologist of the US imperialism. Although the article really shows that, we do not believe he is a total ignorant about the history of the Korean revolution to the point of not knowing the past life of Kim Il Sung. Yes, Tariq Ali. Kim Il Sung visited China and Russia, because these are two countries which border the northern parto f the Korean Peninsula and thousands of Koreans used to live in the region of Manchuria (China). So it was natural for the Korean communists to struggle there.
To end up his total capitulation to the imperialism, he supports the same position of the latter about the beggining of the Korean War. Although it is totally true that, in the southern part of the península, the people was rising up against the oppresion made by the government of the dictator Syngman Rhee, puppet of the US occupation troops, the affirmation that the North began the war is totally false. Even the bourgeois personalities recognize that the official version backed by the the United States and the south Korean puppet government – that the north made the first shot beyond the 38th Parallel – is totally questionable. Mr. Tariq Ali, because of his knowledges about international conflicts, certainlly knows that the DPRK always supported the pacific reunification of the country, the opposite of south Korea, which since the times of Syngman Rhee supported the reunification through the military way.
Tariq Ali also tells us about a dialogue which he had with Ruth Wedgewood, counsellor of the bastard Donald Rumsfeld, and told that the United States had a “fear” about the pacific reunification of Korea, because the militaries of south Korea would be in possess of the north Korean nuclear arsenal. It is important to say that the United States do fear the reunification, but the reunification that occurs in the terms of the Joint Declaration supported by the DPRK and which was backed by the south Korean government of president Kim Dae Jong, until the nowadays puppet pro-imperialist, Lee Myung Bak, came into power in south Korea. The proposal of “reunification” that the imperialism supports in that northern part should be attached to the south, so that is why the counsellor had a “fear” that the south Korean military government became in possess of nuclear weapons. At the same time the “fear” the south Korean possessed nuclear weapons, the introduce nuclear weapons in the country. Strange logics, no doubt about it. If we go further, we could maybe think that south Korea is an independent country, sovereign and that suffers from no type of political control by the United States.
We could spend many more pages pointing the elements of Tariq Ali’s article that would allow us to call him a bastard and a renegade. Once more, the neo-Trotskyites and the social-democrats show by which side they are. Judging by the recent declarations of mr. Tariq Ali that “Cuba is not a democracy”, we would have endless reasons to think that it will not long that the mr. Tariq Ali’s “ridiculous” and “stalinists” become Fidel Castro, Raul Castro or Hugo Chavez. It is most deppresive that guys like Tariq Ali are nowadays considered “great exponents” of the “New Left”. In the same list, we could include the “philosopher” Slavoj Zizek, which recently hás declared its support to the electoral front of the Greek Syriza and showed his anticommunism slandering the Communist Party of Greece, which according to the first one “is alive because forgot to die”. These example of reactionarism show that the so-called “intelectuals” acclaimed by the world Revisionism are really significant. With a “left” like this one, the imperialism is, unfortunatelly, safe.
Additional Commentary by ASSPUK , JISGE and UK KFA
All this goes to show is that Tariq Ali's view of the DPRK is identical with that of the media of the imperialist countries and his world outlook is basically identical to that of the bourgeoisie and imperialism. Rather than being an 'anti-imperialist intellectual' Tariq Ali is a faded burnt out aging Trotksyite who lives in an expensive part of London. In the 1970s Tariq Ali was promoted by the bourgeois media as the leader of the British revolution, this never happened and Mr Ali ended up getting 424 votes (0.9%) in Sheffield in the 1974 general election.
Ali's article on the DPRK contains inaccuracies such as referring to the secretary of the Pakistan DPRK Society as being "full of beer" when in fact Pakistan being a muslim state outlawed alcohol . The truth about Tariw Ali's trips to the DPRK is that he went to try and secure funding for his "International Marxist Group"
How ironic and hypocritical is for Mr Ali to talk about a " a cult of personality " because he promoted his own "cult of personality" .
People like Tariq Ali have been responsible for for promoting anti-communism and corrosive cynicism in the guise of "Trotskyism ", the "New Left" , "new age" etc . Such an ideology has been the dominant "ideology " of the British left and his has corrupted several generations.
Tariq Ali clearly shows that he is on the side of imperialism when he basically calls for the destruction of the Juche-based socialist system centred on the people in the DPRK , this is what the US imperialists and south Korean puppets want.
So the Troksyite clown Tariq Ali has joined the anti-DPRK circus !
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