Dissident intellectual Noam Chomsky at 90
Though Noam Chomsky has made his name as arguably the foremost political dissident of the last half a century, his intellectual legacy is firstly as a linguist. At the age of 90, he continues to talk the talk.
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Yet while the darling of the global anti-imperialist left, Chomsky has faced sustained criticism for whitewashing the genocide committed by the communist Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.
"What filters through to the American public is a seriously distorted version of the evidence available, emphasizing alleged Khmer Rouge atrocities and downplaying or ignoring the crucial US role, direct and indirect," wrote Chomsky in The Nation about the unfolding horror in Cambodia.
Chomsky has also been criticized for refusing to call the 1995 Srebrenica Massacre in Bosnia a genocide, again focusing instead on alleged US war crimes that he says have never been held to account. "[It's] certainly a horror story and major crime, but to call it "genocide" so cheapens the word," he told English journalist George Monbiot in 2011 of the Srebrenica Massacre.
"An intellectual and moral teacher and inspiration the likes of which one rarely encounters in the human record," said left news site Counterpunch on the eve of Chomksy's 90th birthday.
The publication contrasted the thinker's legacy with that of the recently deceased George H. W. Bush, of whom Chomsky was a major critic — primarily for invading Iraq during the 1990 Gulf War, and for Bush's invasion of Panama to overthrow Manuel Noriega the year before.
Though the dissident intellectual has been a fierce opponent of US imperialism under both major political parties in America, in 2017 he called the Republican Party "the most dangerous organization in human history" for its consistent rejection of the science of climate change.
"Has there ever been an organization in human history that is dedicated, with such commitment, to the destruction of organized human life on Earth?" he said in an interview with Amy Goodman of the Democracy Now news program after President Trump pulled the US out of the Paris climate agreement.
While nonagenarian Chomsky might no longer be protesting on the front lines, his words have not lost their impact.
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https://www.dw.com/en/dissident-inte...-90/a-46629642