Interview with Noam Chomsky, 1984

Dr. Chomsky is [emeritus] Institute Professor in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and the Palestinians (1983). The following interview was conducted by Anne Joyce, editor of Middle East Policy, on October 18, 1984 (when the title of this publication was American‐Arab Affairs).     

Reflections on Chomsky and Revisionist Views of Pre-War Japan

Abstract

Noam Chomsky's article on Japan will evoke, as is customary with his writings, angry reaction from some quarters and silent patronizing disdain from others—namely, the specialists. Some will accuse him of ignoring the Chinese case; others, of failing to explain clearly what the pacifist alternative was. Yet, it would be tragic if the scholars in our field ignored the profoundly moral and complex interpretive problems raised by this essay about the responsibility for war. With the perspective of time, and of failure, we have gradually reached more rational interpretations of the origins of the First World War, and of the Cold War. It is obviously time we did the same for the Second World War. In this connection, I wish to add comments both on Japan and on U.S. foreign policy, which, while differing in emphasis from Professor Chomsky's article, are not meant as criticisms of it.     

Minority manipulation in colonial Indochina: Lessons and legacies

Abstract

As one student of the ethnohistory of the highlands of Indochina, Hickey, has written, the French “penetration” of Kontum, Ban Me Thuot, and Dalat had achieved a certain success by the beginning of the First World War. Central to the viability of the French colonial project of economic exploitation in the highlands was the need for road construction and other public works, including labor for privately owned French plantations. Not only did the subject peoples of the remote villages of the interior—broadly designated Montagnards in this essay—find themselves obliged to pay taxes, but they were also expected by the French to provide corvée labor or labor dues (prestation). Colonialism indubitably demands the services of local collaborators, and such was the case in the highlands where local chiefs were vested with new authority by the French administration. Even though by the 1930s the French “pacification” of the interior had reduced armed opposition to the nuisance level, pacification's twin imperative of administrative penetration of the conquered zones and peoples posed equally serious ethical questions.     

An interview with Eben Venter: Trencherman and environmentalism in South Africa

This interview explores the role of environmentalism – specifically as it relates to meat and agriculture – in the literature of South African writer Eben Venter. As discussed in the interview, Venter’s novel Trencherman, through its envisioning of a post-apocalyptic South Africa, serves as an especially productive text for examining the interplay of colonialism and ecological violence.     

从经济上看美国执意对伊拉克动武的前因与后果

本文首先分析美国执意要对伊拉克动武的经济原因,从短期看,主要是为了转移其国内选民对经济问题的注意力,以利于共和党在中期选举中获胜,同时也想通过战争增加美国军火出口,以回报军火商对共和党的支持;从长远看,则是为了牢牢地控制世界石油资源,并抑制其经济上的竞争对手。接着,分析研究美对伊动武可能对美国经济以至世界经济的负面影响。最后,提出面对美国的新帝国主义战略,我应加强研究并制定相应对策。     

伊拉克战争对国际战略态势及中国安全的影响

伊拉克战争是美国在新世纪初依据“先发制人”国家安全新战略发动的第一场局部战争,标志着美国已进入新一轮霸权扩张期。这场战争将深刻影响世界战略态势的演进,并对中国周边安全环境产生重要的影响。     

Lionel Smith on education in Iraq

Dr Grace E. Goodell (The Elementary Structures of Political Life: Rural Development in Pahlavi Iran. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. Pp.362. £40.00)

Dr Habib Ladjevardi (Labour Unions and Autocracy in Iran. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1985. Pp.328. $29.95)