“In the West, since the collapse of Communism and the fall of the Soviet Union, the one discipline both the official and unofficial have united in casting aside is history. It’s as if history has been subversive. The past has too much knowledge embedded in it, and therefore it’s best to forget it and start anew. But as everyone is discovering, you can’t do that to history; it refuses to go away. If you try and suppress it, it re-emerges in a horrific fashion. That’s essentially what’s been going on.”
Tariq Ali, Speaking of Empire and Resistance, published today by Scribe.