Noam Chomsky on the Arab Spring

Noam Chomsky on the Arab Spring
12 March, 2012 – Mario Martinez – The Tech

Famed professor and linguist Noam Chomsky gave a lecture on the Arab Spring and some of its consequences Thursday night in 26-100. This event was sponsored and carried out by both Amnesty International and i-House, and its main purpose was to bring awareness of issues from the Arab Spring and provide a perspective from a distinguished speaker.

The Arab Spring describes the revolutions and protests that have recently swept through the Middle East. It began with local demonstrations and quickly grew into a large series of national power reversals in the Middle East, starting in Tunisia, continuing with Egypt, and later, Tripoli, all the while igniting public action and governmental response from many of the countries in the region.

At 6 p.m., the event started with an opening speech by MIT Amnesty International president, Ngee Yong Teo. In his speech, he gave a quick retelling of the events of the Arab Spring, and then called for a moment of silence for all of those hurt by effects of the Arab Spring.

Teo then went on to introduce Chomsky, the father of modern linguistics. Chomsky has been at MIT since 1955 and is a political theorist and activist. His political activity began in the time of the Vietnam War and continues to today.

Chomsky’s focus centered around how U.S. foreign policy shaped the events of the Arab Spring. Throughout his talk, he highlighted the idea that the U.S. only acts in ways that will be favorable for its own interests, and that since the areas with power changes did not really affect U.S interests, the U.S. would do nothing to stop revolutions. In nations in which the U.S. held high stakes, however, governmental change would be struck down.

He began speaking by bringing up two points about U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East that would become the basis for his lecture:

The “U.S. wants to control energy resources in the region”
What the U.S. “[doesn’t] want is very clearly Democracy”, since it blocks control on energy and its plans to organize the world

He then went on to bring out a few polls on the Arab world, some of which included:

73% see Israel and the U.S. as the biggest threat.

5% are afraid of Iran

80% believe the cause of Palestine should be the cause of every Arab

55% see Israel having nuclear weapons as dangerous

From here, he continued to weave the argument that the U.S. is not hated by groups in the Middle East because of the way we live or the freedoms we have, but because of the policies the U.S. has enacted and supported across that region. According to Chomsky, the perception in the Arab world is that the U.S. supports harsh and brutal regimes to control the energy supply.

Chomsky repeated the theme of the U.S. in search of its own interests, following the “state model” of behavior — one which compels the state to favor itself. The kind of democracy Chomsky said the U.S. would support is one that serves its own interests — a top down procedural democracy in which the U.S. could control as much a possible. ….more