Shashi Kapoor appears he is singing I am Mary Beatty soon Moroccan from the film. The father in the film in the song tells The Sun to listen to him and warns him essentially against chaos sirup the nostalgia overcomes political protests brought to us that are unprepared are not always going to be successful they can end smothered by all of the logics congealed power equations that have not been shifted their revolutionary movements of the 20th century picked up Marxist capital of Mars red book listen to Castro speeches and the doctor to watch him in as their icon those movements had a theory of the present that was rooted in its contradictions and so proposed to move the dialectic forward toward a socialist alternative that agenda while still alive in sections of the world went by the wayside. These are my comrades they just want to huge victory in Maharashtra a 100000 farmers game to the city of Mumbai choked the city and force the rightwing chief minister to accept all their demands pretty amazing. Pretty amazing. Imperialism support of religious and ethnic parties to destroy Marxist and left movements and revolutionary nationalist movements paid off. If these new struggles have a theory it is often rooted in texts of millenarian ism forms of this faith hero that fate their charismatic warlords here or gang leaders their theories of the present are often cast aside all the neighborhoods of the Iraqi Communist Party turn themselves into stalwarts of most of their lives others the army while areas loyal to the Bombay textile workers Communist Union turned toward the right wing have seen the gang lords and warlords moved into areas that once gave people hope and dreams including dreams of a kind of socialism the bad side of history might destroy the world but each of the wounds it makes produces by the logic of contradictions its own grave diggers wounds in other words populate the land called Freedom made be so thanks a lot. Thank you yeah I mean the 1st important thing is that. The question of how the stories are remembered is as important as how we tell stories now so the relationship between history and news is I think fundamentally it's strikes me as completely surprising how in our profession increasingly our colleagues don't want to read history they read travel books when they go places so what's in your backpack it's a travel book you know and I was quite surprised in the aftermath of the Iraq war to see some journalists in Iraq carrying in their backpack books by good belum and so on I mean there are actually more there is there was child strips book you know which is the Cambridge history of Iraq essentially it's not a bad book why don't you read that they're carrying books from the colonial days to understand Iraq that was bizarre you know for 2003 but not really it's either that or it's lonely planet so the relationship of how you tell the story of novel is rooted in how you understand the past and therefore from what perspective you understand the past and I think it's not fashionable to talk about the anti colonial perspective and I think that's what I meant by covering it from the global south it's the end to Colonial perspective that is so deeply unfashionable you know you sound like a hectoring person when you apparently keep going back to the past but why can't we stay in the present you know why do you have to read about the history of Syria to understand what's happening in Syria all you need to understand is a so this is a butcher. If you get the gas it is a butcher then that's the ticket to entry into the conversation at the Carnegie is in the New York Times you just need that sophisticated of entry you don't need to study the history the complexity you don't have to understand that I said this is a product of history you just have to seize a putsch and then the story writes itself then you have to say well look at civilians dying it's a you know so it's the question of perspective of the sent to Colonial perspective that I think should define our kind of counter journalism or the journalism from the other side I just want to say that it's I mean I'm largely write for mainstream publications in India I don't write full you know I write for what's known as India's leading news magazine and I've written for them for 25 years every fortnight you count how many articles that is from you know Chiapas to Iraq I've covered all these things you know from Fark in Colombia I mean it's a great pride friends have enjoyed it thoroughly but you know my editor would not understand an article if the premise of the article was that history doesn't matter nor would my readers frankly they would be bewildered by any historical understanding of the present and that has to do with the residues of and become no colonial perspective in our society those residues have never been there in France France French people are taught to believe their republic. However you were a republic drop of a had to bomb could do was you born Molly you'll have the French franc be the currency of the African countries that speak French how you are to the public where is the Republican thing friends go back read about Haiti so I'll meet my French colleagues and see guys your colonialists you know as they say in the movie Black Panther don't scare me colonizer. The extraordinary situation we have is that there's a meeting about Syria and the meeting is between Iran Turkey and Russia about 100 years ago similar meetings were held in Paris and London between Britain and France so if you go back over a century you see that external powers are still largely shaping the configuration of internal Arab countries or Arab societies that the British made and the countries are now are going to be remade into something else how do you interpret from your perspective which I fully agree with how do you interpret the fact that Russia Turkey and Iran are now the powers that are trying to redefine Syria and including the Russians writing draft constitution and things like that that's a very fine question if you have a weak states and weak regionalism and your reason lism is not allowed to develop effectively. This is what's going to happen I mean look at the Arab League. Where is the history of the Arab League that is an honest history . You know you go back and you read what some of the more revolutionary people used to say of the Arab League they would say things like don't bother to bomb Israel go bomb that building in downtown Cairo you know was Arab League it's ineffectual son able to bring people but the Arab League was merely the mirror of unfinished problems in this region in other words what was the Arab League you've been to enough meetings to know there were always 2 sections the Saudi led section and for us the Algerian led section they can a revolutionary secular nationalist crowd and then you know they hammer out is the is that that I mean you cannot have a weak region and not have external powers enter you know it's if you look at other countries other areas. They've fight off I mean in that sense there is really something to be learnt from what the Chinese are now doing in eastern Asia. And how the Chinese have been pushing to break us Ian EPOC all these groupings that have Western intervention there's something to be learned from why the boulevard in project. Wanted to destroy. The free trade area of the Americas that was one of the 1st things Java has more allies except Or did in the early 2000 and replace it with. Their own formation and they forced the Organization of American states do except Cuba for the 1st time and to see the Americans don't have a seat at the deal because this is our regional organization it makes most sense in the Such as in South America and Central America to have the United States at the table I'm if you have the nice is Why not Canada you know why not have the whole hemisphere then why can't the US last resolutions about you know Flint Michigan water crisis you know Americans should not neglect their population why is it that oil prices always criticizing Mexico which really deserves to be criticized so the question was not about you know. What they see I'm not talking about the politics I'm talking about the region the integrity you have to have a strong sense of being in the region and so when they got rid of the American seat briefly and the Cubans came on board that was in no way the high point of South American or Latin American integration high point but of course it went down and from that what I'm seeing is that in a way it of course the feeling of being big powers always intervene in the case of the Russians the interesting phenomena is that in this part of the world writing about Russia has been I think quite parochial it's been about Russia in Syria but if you look at Russia globally Russia has after the collapse of the Soviet Union only 2 warm water ports one was in Crimea in Sebastopol and one was in Syria in the province of lead back yet. It's interesting that but what does one what the ports were threatened in the 2nd term of the Obama administration when the US is government had overthrown the Russian backed government in Ukraine they were going to lose so as to bomb and then in Syria if there was a change of guard they would have lost the 2 sport so the Russians weren't interested in maintaining the 2 ports they have nor the warm water ports that is in the Pacific Ocean those ports freeze in the winter the Americans meanwhile have over $100.00 warm water ports including Indigo Garcia in the Indian Ocean from which the bombing runs on Iraq will mean island where there's still a court case going on in London brought by the shadows Islanders the other ones who were displaced from the base by the British in what the British and Europeans call Diego Garcia they call it Jaguars that's another one what with the Russians had to know I'm not getting a bucket for the Russians in this conversations are so ugly because if you see anything to push back against something right you get oh my God But then you either didn't support there or whatever I'm a supporter of nobody but he Your see the point is we have to understand what the game is and there is an opening I mean the question is why are there so many foreign military ports in the Middle East that's the question I mean in cutter I was once driving in the desert with a taxi South Asian taxi driver I said to him drive me to the border of Saudi Arabia let's go for a drive way along the way you may not go but you pass American base about 7 miles before the base a jeep pulled up and stopped us and said You can't go any further there were Americans I thought this is supposed to be some sort of country called cutter. God knows what kind of country it is in South Korea in the models you go to buy a ticket to see a movie in the line there will be American soldiers armed imagine in Beirut if there were more Chinese soldiers with guns in the queue to see Black Panther whatever shock you you know or Russian soldiers standing in the queue just routinely going to see a film Oh and so there is a very strange we in which you have allowed your region to become the leap pads of violence you know from one end of the region to the other this goes back to World War 2 Some of it to British bases and so on you've never reclaimed your territory I mean the Cubans from 1959 have been fighting to remove the U.S. Base in Guantanamo from 59 I have never really heard of a struggle in this region to remove abyss I've never heard of a struggle never in fact in Africa when the Americans created African African Command no African country would publicly allow African Command to come which is why it's based in Stuttgart there are tons of American bases that I have seen in Africa that African countries are too embarrassed to allow it to be made public in our That is the business as I said is the biggest base you can go to Google Earth and see. One of the largest bases in the world it was built only for a $100000000.00 That's because a prisoner labor in Millionaire is nothing so the point I'm trying to make is you open the door they're going to come in and you're not standing up for yourself what's happening is the top of the iceberg underneath that is this deep rot of the lack of confidence to say we want our sovereignty back. Thank You can see that in this the past 10 years of the game axis of hope what some people call that we have now the left. Movement swipe completely. But do you think that the next step Stuart reviving or to begin again this leftist movement in Latin America thank you it's true that the left is suffering a major defeat in Latin America it's completely true it will take time to analyze exactly precisely what has happened I've been going recently to Brazil and Brazil there was a kind of soft coup against the establishment you know I was already out of thing Jim I was I think very viciously removed from power by a man with Ancestry How can I not indicate this ancestry from Lebannon Mr Pen there who is one of the most unpopular people in Brazil not just political leader but I think he's even more unpopular than the gangsters that they're in fact of the election was now you know would win by a landslide but they are trying to through legal means to prevent him from standing which is very interesting mechanism so 2 of the most important aspects I think to research more and I'm not making this conclusive statements one is that none of these countries produced a revolution in the sense that in none of the countries the deepest of which was Venezuela none of these countries was the elite expropriated in none of the countries did they lose their wealth in none of the countries did the media get democratized and at no point did these governments no one with a strong enough to actually produce an alternative media. The 2nd thing to investigate So the 1st is this was not really a revolution in the sense that people you know there was no guillotine in the center of Caracas OK Not that that's a way to go forward guys I don't mean that I'm just saying that there was no real expropriation 2nd thing is that they relied on commodity prices when commodity prices are high it's easy to be spending lavishly building Della's you know when commodity prices are going to that you are in distress you cannot build a revolution grounded on commodity prices and I think that those are the 2 things we need to investigate what are the alternatives you cannot import your dreams you have to create them yourself my question comes down to basically where do you come from in terms of what you stand for and I you know throughout the talk there are times when you seem to make a stand for the global self other times for regionalism other times for communism other times for nationalism other times for anti-colonialism other times for a general notion of freedom which kind of sits in a liberal humanist framework and so I think I'd just like to hear a little bit more about where you come from I mean I personally am a Marxist that's my orientation political theoretical orientation which is why I'm very interested in the idea of context and setting context and perspective and so on but I'm all the things you said. I'm all those things may not be liberal humanist. I will try to draw the line there. But I'm all those things in the sense that you know I read. The work of somebody like say France fan on and I find that to be stimulating for me personally intellectually you know and I look at the work of the All India women's Democratic Association and I see how they have developed an analysis of why it is that you know Women's Freedom in India is compromised and I think wow they are intellectuals that I should pay attention to but more than anything else I think the question isn't what label you have you know your framework you have the real question is do you believe firmly that indignity is completely unacceptable in a world that it's sort of question of Should people eat or whatever but do you believe that people should leave dignified lives now if that's not your belief then it's a struggle if that is to veg an idea or you know an idea that everybody agrees with what's that Janis Joplin song Freedom is another word with you know whatever it is nothing left to lose I mean you know OK I got it dignity everybody agrees dignity Actually that's not true what was the slogan from Egypt I mean dignity is not so easy friends Soviet revolution 100 years ago the slogan was land peace and bread land peace and bread Irish rebellion land and freedom freedom freedom is a very complicated would. It doesn't mean that you don't enter it and have those debates but I think that's fundamental to journalism is journalists should not merely be writing about current events as if the question of freedom is not at the center of stories you know what is freedom how are people understanding freedom what are the clashes between different understandings of freedom what does it mean to be dignified what is dignity why is somebody immolated themselves what does that mean why is it that there were 500 immolations and one the militia and caught the imagination of people what does that mean what are people searching for I mean if we don't ask those questions we're dishonest in other words what I'm just trying to say is Who are you a journalist I think has to have a perspective has to be quite open and comfortable with it but more than anything else has to be honest to the people that they're listening to I mean honestly I think is a very important value for us it's different than truth I think honesty means when people talk to me I shouldn't misrepresent what they're saying I should give them the dignity to stand with what they see now I may not agree with them and I might want to argue with them but then I should go talk to somebody else to argue with them or find a weird to give them this piece but yet argue with them so I would say what I am all those things except perhaps a liberal human is because I don't want to just be a dreamer thanks so much. That was V J Pretty shot on truth is the 1st casualty of war he spoke at the American University of Beirut V.J. Parishad is a journalist and scholar he's chief editor of leftward books and executive director of trans continental Institute for Social Research He's the author of many books including Arab Spring Libyan winter and the death of the nation and the future of the Arab revolution this program is produced by alternative radio based in Boulder Colorado we are independent and part of the nonprofit media education organization rise up we are supported solely by individuals just like you we feature of progressive voices rarely heard in the media such as Abby Martin Ramsey booed Nancy McLean Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz Michael Parenti and Noam Chomsky to access our complete audio and book catalog just go to our website alternative radio dot org Again our website where we are pod casting alternative radio dot O.-R. G. To place a credit card order for C.D.'s M P 30 written transcripts of today's program Fiji Parishad on truth is the 1st casualty of war call us at 1800 triple 41977 again the number is 180-444-1977 where you can order on our website alternative radio dot org Special thanks to Mohammed 10 Rai and Ray on alert mean Joe Ritchie is a general manager and editor I'm David Barsamian thank you for listening. This is K.T. You are Durango at 91.9 or 13.9 F. Am Bret is a proud supporter of alternative radio in K.T. You are bread bakers a holding specialty breads N paste reason a warm spot for morning coffee or a healthy lunch is located at the intersection of County Road 250 N. Florida road bread can be reached by phone at 247-5100 bread not bombs right now we have a couple of minutes a pulse of the planet in Miami Mr Hackney and I'm up here at the radio station with Patrick we are co-host tonight