December 15, 2002

For the past several decades, Noam Chomsky has become more famous for his trenchant critiques of United States foreign policy than for his ground-breaking linguistic theories. Without mincing words, he courageously holds his country, the USA, to be the greatest rogue state, which is responsible for millions of deaths and unaccountable destruction throughout the world, particularly the third world. Our generation is lucky that we have seen two great genius crusaders for world peace, Bertrand Russell and Noam Chomsky.

Noam Chomsky is the author of several books. Among the lot, his best-known contribution is Manufacturing consent, a critique of the way public opinion is formed, often manipulated by the vested interests and sometimes by the press barons themselves.

According to London’s Independent newspaper, Chomsky is among “our greatest living philosophers”. However, like Edward Said and some other honest to the core intellectuals, he has been consigned to a kind of oblivion by the “high priests” of the United States’ hawker intellectuals. Steve Wasserman, editor of The Los Angles Times Book Review, is not off the mark, when he says, “Noam Chomsky is ignored by the mafia that controls America’s op-ed pages, and that is unfortunate.”

Today Chomsky is fond of analogies between the US and the Nazi attempts to rationalize state violence in pursuit of international supremacy. Of course the US had “justifications” for gassing the Tora Bora caves and also a “rationale” for flattening Baghdad, which it will do whatever the UN findings are. Nazi Germany had “solid reasons” for gassing the Jews. According to Chomsky, “everyone has reasons”. The question is whether they are morally and politically justified.

Chomsky’s books have been translated into a number of languages, except Urdu. After his visit to this country in 2001, some of the Urdu language papers published a few of his articles, which were well received.

Aslam Khwaja, the translator, and Scheherzade, the publishers, have done a great service to the Urdu reading public by bringing out this booklet. People who read Urdu have felt a dire need for sober, scholarly, and serious literature. I hope that Scheherzade grows into a great publishing house and publishes not only the originals but also the translations of Chomsky, Edward Said, Gore Vidal and so many others who are neglected by the mainstream American press and publishers. These giant intellectuals are the true conscience of the United States and not the semi-literates, such as the present incumbent in the White House.

Chacha Sam kiya chahta hai (What Uncle Sam really wants)
By Noam Chomsky
Translated by Aslam Khwaja
Scheherzade, B-155, Block 5, Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Karachi.
Email: scheherzade@ahmedgraf.com
88pp. Rs40

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