DISSIDENTS OF THE INTERNATIONAL LEFT
About the author
Andy Heintz is a freelance writer based in the US Midwest. His work has been published in numerous progressive media outlets around the world, including New Internationalist, Foreign Policy in Focus, The Wire, Common Dreams, Tikkun, Culture Project and New Politics. He is also studying for a Masters in addictions counselling.
Acknowledgements
I want to thank my supportive and talented wife Sara Jordan-Heintz for giving me the love, support and time to work on this book for four years. Without my wife’s love and support, I would never have had the self-esteem or confidence to take on this task.
I also want to thank my parents Tom and Ellie Heintz for being amazing role models and sticking with me during good and bad times. Thanks also go to my spirited and supportive older brother Erik Heintz and my grandma Jo Thoele for being the embodiment of what it means to be an empathetic person. Special thanks to my father-in-law Larry Jordan, a veteran journalist who played an integral role in helping me enlarge pictures, and my mother-in-law Julie for showing by example what it means to be classy and hard working.
I’m grateful to the New Internationalist, especially editor Chris Brazier, designer Juha Sorsa and marketing manager Dan Raymond-Baker, for believing in this project and working long hours to help me finish it. I also want to thank: Carrie Campbell for all the hard work she put into translating many of my interviews with leftwing figures from Latin America from Spanish to English and childhood friend Kevin Colston for introducing me to Tina Hwayoon Kim, who translated my interview with Lee Sang Yong. Other people who translated interviews from Spanish to English, or helped me find translators, include Joa LaVille, Jodie Bowden-Fuentes, Alexis Acosta, Felipe Albuquerque, Kimberly Brouhard, Joe Henry, Mayra de Catalan and Luis Roman. In addition, I’m indebted to Marieme Helie Lucas, Bill Weinberg, Maryam Namazie, Noam Chomsky, Gina Vargas, Ana Cofino, Alejandro Velasco, Sarah Eltantawi, Sodfa Daaji and Sonia Correa for helping me get in touch with interviewees.
Some of the interview material in this book originally appeared in:
New Internationalist: Noam Chomsky; Kwame Anthony Appiah; Pervez Hoodbhoy
CounterVortex: Teesta Setelvad; Moon Nay Li
Foreign Policy in Focus: Sokeel Park; Bridget Conley
Workers’ Liberty: Meredith Tax
Balkan Witness: Bill Weinberg
New Arab: Robin Yassin-Kassab; Gideon Levy
Muftah: Yassin al-Haj Saleh
Al-Jumhuriya: Yassin al-Haj Saleh
Secularism is a women’s issue: Diep Saeeda; Marieme Helie-Lucas; Anissa Helie; Houzan Mahmoud; Hawzhin Azeez; Fatou Sow; Maryam Namazie
Europe Solidaire: Harsh Kapoor; Predrag Kojovic; Janet Biehl.
DISSIDENTS OF THE INTERNATIONAL LEFT
Kwame Anthony Appiah, Noam Chomsky, Glenn Greenwald, Anabel Hernández, Malalai Joya, George Monbiot, Meredith Tax and 70 other leftwing thinkers and activists from around the world. Their own views, their own words.
INTERVIEWS BY ANDY HEINTZ
New Internationalist
Dissidents of the International Left
First published in 2019 by
New Internationalist Publications Ltd
The Old Music Hall, 106-108 Cowley Road
Oxford OX4 1JE, UK
newint.org
© Andy Heintz
The right of Andy Heintz to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1998.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing of the Publisher.
The interview with Amartya Sen was extracted, with the permission of Mr Sen, from passages in his books Identity and Violence (WW Norton, 2006), On Ethics & Economics (Blackwell, 1987) and Development As Freedom (Random House, 1999).
The interview with Mahmood Mamdani was extracted, with the permission of Mr Mamdani, from his book Define and Rule: Native as Political (Harvard University Press, 2015) and his article ‘Settler Colonialism: Then and Now,’ Critical Inquiry 41 (3), 2015.
Editor: Chris Brazier
Design: Juha Sorsa
Printed by T J International Limited, Cornwall, UK
who hold environmental accreditation ISO 14001.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data.
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-1-78026-499-8
(ISBN ebook 978-1-78026-500-1)
To think and to be fully alive are the same
Hannah Arendt
……………
The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion
Thomas Paine
……………
If liberty means anything at all it means to tell people what they don’t want to hear
George Orwell
CONTENTS
Foreword by John Feffer
Introduction by Andy Heintz