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01/31/2006:

"Interview with Tariq Ali: "The Real Threat is from Imperial Fundamentalism""

Writer and political activistTariq Alidescribes himself as a "person of the Left." In a recent interview in Kolkata, he talked about his concerns over an Asia which is "politically undetermined and economically over-determined," and of an Indian political leadership "obsessed with money and markets."

...Dam: Do you see Latin America being an inspiration to the rest of the developing world in the search for alternative strategies to the Washington Consensus?

Ali: The Washington Consensus has received its first serious challenge from within Latin America; which was a continent the United States had used as its laboratory. All the prescriptions of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the U.S. Trade Department, the World Trade Organisation, were imposed there before even in other parts of the world. So it is only fitting that the reply should come first from Latin America. And it has come initially in the shape of the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela which is a democratic revolution and a democratic upheaval... And [Hugo] Chavez has shown how it is possible to defy the Washington Consensus if you have the will and the popular support to do so even though the Venezuelan elite is squealing.
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