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" Poland, after the First World War, was beset by chaos, disorder, and a foolish incursion by the Red Army, which helped to produce the ultra-nationalist military dictatorship of General Pilsudski. "

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" The Enlightenment attacked religion - Christianity, mainly - for two reasons: that it was a set of ideological delusions, and that it was a system of institutional oppression, with immense powers of persecution and intolerance. "

Tariq Ali

Enlightenment

Religion

Two

" The only continent where social movements have led to political parties that have pushed through serious social and political reforms is in South America. "

" For India, the links with the United States/Israel are the centrepiece of its foreign policy. "

" As a political current, Maoism was always weak in Britain, confined largely to students from Asia, Africa and Latin America. "

" Power can shape 'truth,' but not forever. "

" In the calculus of western interests, there is no suffering, whatever its scale, which cannot be justified. Chechens, Palestinians, Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis are of little importance. "

" There is no real agreement among scholars as to whether Homer and Hesiod were contemporaries or whether Homer came a hundred or so years later or earlier. How could there be, given that both poets recited and sang in an oral culture. "

" I didn't know a thing about Oxford and had never been to Britain. My father suggested it because in 1939 he had been about to take up a place at Wadham College, but the war broke out, and he joined the Army instead. "

" When I arrived to study at Oxford in October 1963, the bohemian style was black plastic or leather jackets for women and black leather or navy donkey jackets for men. I stuck to cavalry twills and a duffle coat, at least for a few months. "

" Western enthusiasm for democracy stops when those opposed to its policies are elected to office. "

" As long as the Pentagon bankrolls the Pakistan army to fight its wars, and NATO troops remain in Afghanistan, there will be quarrels, charges of infidelity, a reduction in the household allowance, perhaps a separation - but a divorce? Never. "

" The genealogy of fictional characters can become an obsession, like train-spotting, and should be firmly resisted. "

Tariq Ali

Become

Characters

" Scotland's political identity was destroyed, and a huge Scottish emigration to North America followed the brutal Highland clearances. These included every layer of Scottish society, not just the remnants of the defeated clans. "

" It is as difficult to define or classify Islamic cinema as it would be a Christian, Jewish or Buddhist one. "

" The weakness in traditional Scottish nationalism lay in its own inability to grasp that identity could not be the only factor in the march to independence. "

" I am, in general, favourable to activism and social movements and hostile to graft and corruption. "

Tariq Ali

Activism

Social

" The patchwork political landscape of the Arab world - the client monarchies, degenerated nationalist dictatorships, and the imperial petrol stations known as the Gulf states - was the outcome of an intensive experience of Anglo-French colonialism. "

" Revolutionaries are not infallible. "

Tariq Ali

Infallible

Revolutionaries

" In times of crisis, the incumbent suffers. And the bigger the crisis, the greater the punishment inflicted on those in power unless they do something that makes a change. "

" The origins of Indian classical music, not unlike their western counterparts, lie in the Vedas, the ancient Hindu scriptures of 2,000 years ago. "

" Scandinavia was awash with Maoism in the '70s. Sweden had Maoist groups with a combined membership and periphery of several thousand members, but it was Norway where Maoism became a genuine popular force and hegemonic in the culture. "

" There are, of course, deeply sincere people of religion in different parts of the world who genuinely fight on the side of the poor, but they are usually in conflict with organised religion themselves. "

" I don't regret what I did in the Sixties. I was young and took myself terribly seriously. In the Seventies, I spent too much time in inner-party factional disputes. "

" I do not accept the right of big powers to change governments as and when it affects their interests. "

" In 1962, President Kennedy expanded an earlier trade embargo put in place by a predecessor, President Eisenhower, to a total economic blockade, which pushed the Cubans further in Moscow's direction. "

" Those who really value Ukrainian sovereignty should opt for real independence and a positive neutrality: neither a plaything of the West nor Moscow. "

" In some ways, the '60s were a reaction to the '50s and the intensity of the Cold War. "

" I am an atheist and do not know the meaning of the 'religious pain' that is felt by believers of every cast when what they believe in is insulted. "

" We were constantly appealing for funds from readers when I edited 'The Black Dwarf' in 1968-69. "

" The hostility between India and Pakistan has become a habit to which both the elites have become addicted. Any attempt towards a rational solution to real problems is denounced by chauvinists on both sides. "