In 2009, the British journalist Seumas Milne wrote an article in The Guardian in which he contacted Noam Chomsky, lamenting the lack of mainstream attention given to Chomsky’s work by the American media, despite his evergreen relevance.
As Milne explains, in the twenty-first century Chomsky, then 82, still enjoyed a considerable following on the lecture circuit. At the same time, his many books typically sold hundreds of thousands of copies. Still, despite all this, Chomsky was invited to make very few television appearances, while his ideas were often dismissed. Milne suggests that Chomsky’s ‘relentless’ dissidence, particularly against U.S. foreign policy, is undoubtedly the reason for his suppression, and points to the shocking fact that prisoners in Guantanamo Bay (pictured) have been banned from owning his books.
Rather than being past his prime, it seems that Chomsky and his ideas are as controversial and potent as ever. Via The Guardian, the year after Milne’s interview, Chomsky was barred from entering the West Bank to give a series of lectures at Birzeit University and the Institute for Palestine Studies, as a result of his criticism of the Israeli occupation of the region.
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