Tariq Ali quotes - page 3

Tariq Ali is a British-Pakistani writer, journalist, and historian known for his outspoken political activism. His work covers topics such as global politics, history, and empire, and he has authored numerous books and essays. He continues to be a prominent voice in leftist intellectual and political circles worldwide. Here are 112 of his quotes:

Not even the largest party can 'make' or 'steal' a revolution, but the success of such an endeavor depends on the ability, lucidity, energy and single-mindedness of a revolutionary party when confronted with a prerevolutionary crisis. (Tariq Ali)
The function of a bourgeois democracy is to secure the consent of the masses to their own exploitation and oppression. View quote
Tariq Ali
People are increasingly beginning to feel that democracy itself is being destroyed by this latest phase of globalization and that politics doesn't matter because it changes nothing. View quote
Tariq Ali
Basically, we are witnessing the twilight of democracy. View quote
Tariq Ali
The sobbing of the weak today is the sobbing of the victims of neoliberal policies. They consist of billions of people all over the world. View quote
Tariq Ali
The U.S. should come out openly and say to the world, "We are the only imperial power, and we're going to rule you, and if you don't like it you can lump it." View quote
Tariq Ali
As for ISIS, we know where they come from. We know who has used them in the past. We know their sectarianism leads to killings. Here the Turkish state, like its NATO bosses, has helped to create a monster that it now claims to oppose. View quote
Tariq Ali
To fight tyranny and oppression by using tyrannical and oppressive means, to combat a single-minded and ruthless fanaticism by becoming equally fanatical and ruthless, will not further the cause of justice or bring about a meaningful democracy. It can only prolong the cycle of violence. View quote
Tariq Ali
The extreme center is the political expression of the neoliberal state. View quote
Tariq Ali
Journalists go to press briefings at the Ministry of Defense in London or the Pentagon in Washington, and no critical questions are posed at all. It's just a news-gathering operation, and the fact that the news is being given by governments who are waging war doesn't seem to worry many journalists too much. View quote
Tariq Ali
After flirting with neoisolationism, the U.S. is now deciding it wants to run the world. (Tariq Ali)
The war in Afghanistan, the first war of the twenty-first century, shows the United States doing what it wants to do, not caring about who it antagonizes, not caring about the effects on neighboring regions. View quote
Tariq Ali
All these wars are similar in the way ideology is being used. It's the ideology of so-called humanitarian intervention. We don't want to do this, but we're doing this for the sake of the people who live there. This is, of course, a terrible sleight of hand because all sorts of people live there, and, by and large, they do it to help one faction and not the other. View quote
Tariq Ali
There are different versions of Islam... it is meaningless to claim to speak in the name of a ‘real' Islam. View quote
Tariq Ali
American imperialism has always been the imperialism that has been frightened of speaking its name. Now it's beginning to do so. In a way, it's better. We know where we kneel. View quote
Tariq Ali
Economics and politics are so intertwined and interlinked that politics now, mainstream politics, extreme center politics, are little else but a version of concentrated economics. And this means that any alternative - alternative capitalism, left Keynesianism, intervention by the state to help the poor, rolling back the privatizations - becomes a huge issue. The entire weight of the extreme center and its media is turned against it, which in reality now is beginning to harm democracy. View quote
Tariq Ali
The main implication is a remapping of the world in line with American policy and American interests. Natural resources are limited, and the United States wants to make sure that its own population is kept supplied. The principle effect of this will be for the United States to control large parts of the oil which the world possesses. View quote
Tariq Ali
In many parts of the Islamic world, secular forces, where they exist, tend to be so unsure of themselves, so lacking in self-confidence, that in many cases they line themselves up fairly squarely behind the imperial project and that then creates a big vacuum in which the Islamists become the dominant power because they are the only ones then who are seen as resisting. View quote
Tariq Ali
If you see what passes as the news on the networks in the United States, there's virtually no coverage of the rest of the world, not even of neighboring countries like Mexico or neighboring continents like Latin America. View quote
Tariq Ali
The "coalition against terrorism" means the United States. It does not wish anyone else to interfere with its strategy. View quote
Tariq Ali
What we are seeing in Turkey is a non-uniformed authoritarian regime led by a politician, Tayyip Erdogan, who has allowed power to go to his head and is behaving more and more like a despot. Sooner or later this will provoke political uprisings throughout the country as happened after Gezi. (Tariq Ali)
The real problem is the total capitulation of German social democracy to capitalism, reflected and symbolized by actual extreme center coalition governments in Germany, which have been in power for a long time and still are even as we speak. That is the real problem: that there is no serious opposition in Germany at all. And the Left party is divided. View quote
Tariq Ali
The past has too much knowledge embedded in it, and therefore it's best to forget it and start anew. View quote
Tariq Ali
There are huge political problems in Germany, but German economic power is something which was bound to happen. The way out of this situation is through the further democratization of the European Union and a changing of its structures. View quote
Tariq Ali
Terror breeds terror. I am completely opposed to both state terror and those who respond in a similar way. There is no justification for any group that associates itself with the Left to kill innocents and encourage suicide bombings. View quote
Tariq Ali

Tariq Ali

Tariq Ali - Image
Photo: Wikimedia commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
Occupation: British Historian
Born: October 21, 1943
Quotes count: 112
Wikipedia: Tariq Ali

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