A Change of Guard

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Saturday 3 December 2011

Averaging Wrong Answers: Noam Chomsky and the Cambodia Controversy


Courtesy of mekong.net/cambodia via CamWatchblogs.blogspot.com.

by Bruce Sharp
This article is divided into ten sections:
I. Genocide and So On
II. The Right Villains
III. The Wrong Villains
IV. Eyes Wide Shut
V. Apples, Oranges, and Myopia
VI. Rewriting the History of Dissent
VII. You Are Either With Me...
VIII. The Ministry of Counter-Propaganda
IX. Links, Acknowledgements and End Notes
X. Addendum
Note: This is a long article, and it may take a few moments to load.

I. Genocide and So On
"I mean the great act of genocide in the modern period is Pol Pot, 1975 through 1978 - that atrocity - I think it would be hard to find any example of a comparable outrage and outpouring of fury and so on and so forth." -- Noam Chomsky (pictured), in the documentary "Manufacturing Consent," 1993.(1)16, 2002.

How did a man who describes the Khmer Rouge regime as "the great act of genocide of the modern period" come to be vilified as a vocal supporter of Pol Pot?
In a long, illustrious career, Chomsky has amassed a formidable array of books, articles, and speeches. He has been a tireless advocate for the underdog, and has demonstrated admirable commitment to his principles.
The underdogs, however, are not always the good guys, a fact clearly illustrated by the Khmer Rouge. The question of whether or not Noam Chomsky supported the Khmer Rouge is not as clear as either his critics or his defenders would like to pretend. His critics frequently extract a handful of quotes from "Distortions at Fourth Hand" or After the Cataclysm and suggest that Chomsky was an enthusiastic advocate for the Cambodian communists. His defenders, meanwhile, limit their collections of quotes to Chomsky's disclaimers and qualifiers, conveniently ignoring the underlying theme of his articles: that Khmer Rouge Cambodia was not nearly as bad as the regime's detractors claimed. Gathering all of Chomsky's fig leaves into a single pile, they exclaim: My, what a lot of greenery.(*) Read the rest of the article here.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

wrting books, asking people for interview are not the same thing as experiencing it yourself. Only a person that lived through the ordeal will understand the pain and suffering. There many scholars made speculation by pulling fact here and there to support its claimed. If you trying make excuse to lessen the blow; it is good one.