Tariq Ali

Tariq Ali on Masters of Money

Tuesday, 11 September 2012

Masters of Money, a new three-part documentary series on how the work of Keynes, Hayek and Marx shaped the 20th century. Tariq Ali will be contributing to the episode about Karl Marx.

The series begins on September 17th, 9pm on BBC2.

From the archive

  • ‘Pakistan’s people want an end to the nightmare’
    August 10, 2007

    ‘Pakistan’s people want an end to the nightmare’ by Tariq Ali for The Guardian, August 10, 2007

    Declaring a state of emergency would only prove Pervez Musharraf’s inability to break from a brutal, shabby legacy

    Every Pakistani leader, civilian or military, sits on a throne that is placed on a volcano periodically shaken by convulsions. As a crisis-ridden country prepares to commemorate the 60th anniversary of its foundation next week, the government is seriously divided, and its uniformed president was reported to be considering the imposition of a state of emergency, usually the last act of a government about to fall.

    In most countries the very existence of a military leader symbolises a state of emergency, but not in Pakistan. The military has ruled the country for more than 30 years, survived the hot lava of numerous uprisings  …

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  • ‘America’s selective vigilantism will make as many enemies as friends’
    September 6, 2011

    ‘America’s selective vigilantism will make as many enemies as friends’ by Tariq Ali for the Guardian, September 6 2011

    “Sovereign is he who decides on the exception,” Carl Schmitt wrote in different times almost a century ago, when European empires and armies dominated most continents and the United States was basking beneath an isolationist sun. What the conservative theorist meant by “exception” was a state of emergency, necessitated by serious economic or political cataclysms, that required a suspension of the constitution, internal repression and war abroad.

    A decade after the attentats of 9/11, the US and its European allies are trapped in a quagmire. The events of that year were simply used as a pretext to remake the world and to punish those states that did not comply. And today while the  …

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  • ‘You say you want a revolution’
    April 1, 2011

    Tariq Ali interviewed by Toby Manhire for the New Zealand Listener, March 19 2011

    My last encounter with Tariq Ali did not go so well. I was comment editor at the Guardian newspaper, and had invited him to write on events in Pakistan. An email flew back. No. He certainly would not. The recent appearance in the paper of a piece by Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, had been a “disgrace”, and he “would feel out of place on your pages these days”. My effort at an explanatory, conciliatory response went unans–wered.

    Nearly a year later, waiting on the line in New Zealand as his phone rings in north London, I’m a bit nervous. One of the most respected figures on the British left, he has since written a number of times for the paper, so that’s repaired, but  …

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