The Independent has published Chomsky’s responses to a number of questions put to him by readers. A sample:
The first victims of the Communist oppression in Cuba were anarchists, so how can you, as a confessed Libertarian Socialist (Anarchist?) justify ideologically your uncritical visit in October 2003 to dictator Fidel Castro? CLAUDE MOREIRA, WELLING, LONDON
The “uncritical visit” is a fabrication of British editors. As they knew, I was an invited speaker (along with prominent British and American scholars) at an international conference of the society of Latin American scholars, which happened to meet that year in Havana, and used the opportunity to criticise state repression quite harshly on Cuban national TV and in a public meeting. Castro routinely met attendees. I’ve often actually met high officials of countries that have carried out incomparably worse crimes than anything attributed to Castro, even travelled to meet them, unlike this case: the US, to take the most obvious example.
Will Anarchism ever be taken seriously as a political philosophy? IAN DUNT
That’s up to us.
