Tariq Ali will be peaking at “The Festival of Dangerous Ideas” this year along with a myriad of other speakers – it is a must for anyone with an inquisitive mind…
WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM TERRORISTS
“Whatever else we might think about those labelled as terrorists, it is clear that their tactics have changed the world in ways that serve their religious, political and ideological aims.
For example, they have managed to force the West to curtail centuries of commitment to the principles of liberal democracy – winding back hard-won freedoms in the name of security – despite the proclamations of politicians who used to insist: “They shall not change our way of life.”
Given this, is there anything that terrorists have to teach us – about the single-minded pursuit of purpose; about the necessity of puncturing the consensus of mainstream politics and culture? Or about the need to feed the ever-hungry media beast?
Writer, essayist and film-maker Tariq Ali was born in Lahore in 1943 and educated at Oxford University. He is an occasional broadcaster on BBC Radio, writes regularly for The Guardian and the London Review of Books and is a longstanding editor of the New Left Review.
His fiction includes a series of historical novels about Islam, a quintet that was concluded recently with The Night of the Golden Butterfly. His non-fiction includes include The Clash of Fundamentalisms, Bush in Babylon, Pirates of the Caribbean: An Axis of Hope and due this October, The Obama Syndrome: Surrender at Home: War Abroad.
Tariq Ali is in Australia to present the 2010 Edward Said Memorial Lecture at the University of Adelaide.”
Venue: Opera Theatre
Dates: Sunday 3 October 3:45pm (Please note daylight saving commence Sunday 3 October)
Duration: 1 hour inc. Q&A
