After the scandal that generate and generate the Wikileaks revelations Ñ the Magazine published an extensive series of interviews with several intellectuals, this opportunity offers an interview with Noam Chomsky, the most important linguist of the second half of the twentieth century and one of the most prolific critics of his government .
believes that what he is doing WikiLeaks is a legitimate and ethical journalism? And what are the consequences of these revelations to the short and long term?
believes that what he is doing WikiLeaks is a legitimate and ethical journalism? And what are the consequences of these revelations to the short and long term?
is worth remembering that government secrecy is, in essence, defense of government against its own population. And in a democratic society people should know what their government is doing to monitor it and, in fact, determine what the government does. Now, there are exceptions, with which all agree, but in general the case is. I have not read all the cables, of course, but from what I've seen I think it illustrates the significance of this point: there are things in the cables that governments do not want their own people know.
I think it is a legitimate form of journalism, but I think it will take strong measures to block it.
Do you wonder who is doing work
WikiLeaks is not completely again. There have been many leaks before-the Pentagon Papers, for example, in which I participated, it was very important and more substantial than the latter. I'm not surprised. I think that while increasing accessibility to information with electronic forms will be more cases like this.
What WikiLeaks elect traditional media to edit and broadcast the leaks in a first moment, is inconsistent with his philosophical stance of openness?
I think not. I suppose it could have gone directly to the Internet. But that way would circulate only within the Internet culture and not an audience general.
How are you managing the information the U.S. media?
First of all we must bear in mind that from the beginning there is a very severe filter mechanism. Then, the same diplomatic cables provide the government what diplomats want to know and what we assume that the government itself wants to hear. Then you are very edited input from the beginning.
For example, one of the most incendiary cables coming out so far: the Saudi king calling for the bombing of Iran. Well. That was selected. We do not know the context. We have only the phrases they chose the diplomats.
After a form of censorship is much more severe than are the titles of the papers that say that Arab states are terrified by Iran and the U.S. want to do something about it. Well, there's a very significant hidden in this issue: there are opinion polls of western Arabic. The most recent was published by the Brookings Institute last month, a very careful survey, which showed that in the Arab world, 10 percent of the population sees Iran as a threat, while 80 percent see the United States and Israel as a threat. This is not revealed here [in the news]. First of all, the diplomats do not care, people do not care, just care about dictators. The State Department does not care for the same reasons, and apparently the media does not care, because this is public information ... and all this shows utter contempt for democracy. And not just in government, also in the intellectual culture and media. This is another type of selection, selection severe. And if you look at the published documents see many similar cases.
Do these cables show that the Obama administration is, in many ways a continuation of Bush?
Yes, but we already knew.
Do you have any message of hope for the future?
Well, my latest book called Hope and perspectives that emerged first in Castilian, because its origin was in talks I gave in South America ... The party of hope is mostly about America. I think things have been going great hope here in the last decade. We can not predict human history. But if you look back you can find a moment when it seemed impossible to leave slavery, or to allow rights to women ... Things change. But if people change change. No change alone and do not change because political leaders.
