Power and Politics: Reflections on Human Nature and the Social Order
By Noam Chomsky
Allen & Unwin, 1996. 244 pp., $35R>Reviewed by Alex Bainbridge
Avid followers of Chomsky's work and newcomers alike will not be disappointed with Power and Politics. The book is a collection of articles based on the speeches he gave on his Australian tour in 1995.
The variety of topics covered in the book reflects the range of areas about which Chomsky can speak with authority. These include linguistics, East Timor, the Middle East settlement and more general questions such as the nature of capitalist markets and democracy.
Chomsky is undoubtedly among the best and most lucid of radical scholars in the world today. While many academics seem to live in ivory towers, Chomsky critically examines the world in order to better understand it so we can change it.
His conclusion is a damning condemnation of capitalist exploitation, media distortion and the stark injustice which is inevitable under the current system of social organisation. His arguments are all the more convincing because he backs them up with documentary evidence drawn from (published or leaked) government correspondence, media reports and academic research.
Part of his strength, reflected in a number of the articles, is his ability to examine a specific issue in detail (for example East Timor) and put it in the context of a much broader picture.
One of Chomsky's central themes is that the imperialist powers (notably the USA, but also Australia) are responsible for most of the human rights and social disasters around the rest of the world. He points out in particular the gap — "or more accurately the chasm" — between the official doctrine of human rights and democratic values in foreign policy and the reality.
Chomsky uses a dry irony to drive home his point. (Try this for an opening line: "I've been asked to talk about the great powers and human rights. That's actually a very brief talk.") This is perhaps more the case with his speeches than his writings, and certainly comes across clearly in this book.
The chapters about East Timor are very useful in the context of the upsurge of and crackdown on the Indonesian democracy movement. One chapter in particular includes a useful background sketch of the imperialist government backing for Suharto against the nationalist movement before he came to power and against the people of Indonesia and East Timor since.
Chomsky's strength is in his analysis of the world, and he has been criticised for not coming forward with a strategy for change. I was hoping that the chapter on "goals and visions" — based on the talk he gave to an anarchist conference in Sydney — would shed some light on the topic. While it was very interesting, I felt that it would have been useful to address some of the questions of strategy that weren't taken up clearly.
Nevertheless, Chomsky's conclusion is clear. "To ... restore a modicum of respect for freedom and human rights, will be no simple matter", he writes in the speech about the New World Order. "The first step is to penetrate the clouds of deceit and distortion and learn the truth about the world, then to organise and act to change it. That's never been impossible, and never been easy. It's not impossible now, and not easy either." And there is no other option.