[Reader-list] Second statement by Comsky et al.

[V Ramaswamy]

Dear Friends

Here is the statement signed by Prof Noam Chomsky and others in the wake of 
the critique of their earlier statement following the recent events in 
Nandigram.

V Ramaswamy
Calcutta
cuckooscall.blogspot.com

................

We are taken aback by a widespread reaction to a statement we made with the 
best of intentions, imploring a restoration of unity among the left forces 
in India  --a reaction that seems to assume that such an appeal to overcome 
divisions among the left could only amount to supporting a very specific 
section of the CPM in West Bengal.  Our statement did not lend support to 
the CPM's actions in Nandigram or its recent economic policies in West 
Bengal, nor was that our intention.  On the contrary, we asserted, in 
solidarity with its Left critics both inside and outside the party, that we 
found them tragically wrong.  Our hope was that Left critics would view 
their task as one of putting pressure on the CPM in West Bengal to correct 
and improve its policies and its habits of governance, rather than dismiss 
it wholesale as an unredeemable party.  We felt that we could hope for such 
a thing, of such a return to the laudable traditions of a party that once 
brought extensive land reforms to the state of West Bengal and that had kept 
communal tensions in abeyance for decades in that state. This, rather than 
any exculpation of its various recent policies and actions, is what we 
intended by our hopes for 'unity' among the left forces.


We realize now that it is perhaps not possible to expect the Left critics of 
the CPM to overcome the deep disappointment, indeed hostility, they have 
come to feel towards it, unless the CPM itself takes some initiative against 
that sense of disappointment. We hope that the CPM in West Bengal will show 
the largeness of mind to take such an initiative by restoring the morale as 
well as the welfare of the dispossessed people of Nandigram through the 
humane governance of their region, so that the left forces can then unite 
and focus on the more fundamental issues that confront the Left as a whole, 
in particular focus on the task of providing with just and imaginative 
measures an alternative to neo-liberal capitalism that has caused so much 
suffering to the poor and working people in India.


Signed


Michael Albert


Tariq Ali


Akeel Bilgrami


Victoria Brittain


Noam Chomsky


Charles Derber


Stephen Shalom