Tariq the pirate: a review of 'Pirates of the Caribbean'

Some may wonder what Ali’s qualifications are for writing such a book on recent developments in Latin America but his links to the region stretch back over three decades. In 1967 he travelled to Bolivia as a member of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation to observe the trial of French writer Régis Debray as Che Guevara aimed to create a new revolution before his capture and execution under the orders of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Delayed at the airport as Bolivian customs officials did not believe his passport and country of origin, Pakistan, were real, Ali once on the streets of La Paz writes how he realised the “indigenous people rarely smiled” as they “appeared to be occupied from without and within”.

Soon, from the glances of many creoles, Ali notes that he himself was viewed as “another Indian” experiencing local racism first hand. Such personal recollections make Ali’s book particularly interesting while his chapters on Bolivia and Venezuela make it clear why neoliberal policies have been rejected en masse by the populations of those countries.

In his chapter on Cuba, Ali notes how he met with local writers and intellectuals who asked him what he thought of their revolution. A frank response followed in that he believed it was his generation’s revolution too until “you betrayed us by going to bed with a fat, ugly, bureaucrat named Brezhnev”, referring to Cuba’s defence of the Warsaw Pact’s invasion of Czechoslovakia. Today, however, Ali writes that he and the Cuban revolution are both old and they need each other as it is “love in the time of cholera”.

I was disappointed the book does not attempt to summarise Ali’s thoughts on the changes taking place in the region, in particular, what the future could hold for the populations of Latin America. The poor in Venezuela are undoubtedly benefiting from the Chávez government’s programs, Morales is pushing through policies aimed at regaining national sovereignty and Cuba may (hopefully) carryout further reforms regarding freedom of speech, however, the alliance between the Axis of Hope is still undoubtedly weak.

Evo Morales, for example, faces the real threat of a coup. Although the recent triumph of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and Rafael Correa in Ecuador may swell the ranks of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (the Axis of Hope’s answer to Washington’s Free Trade Agreement of the Americas), the reality is that until a major country in the region decides to join Caracas and Havana, the project for the regional integration of Latin America around popular democracies with strong social policies, remains unstable and far from consolidated.

The support for Chávez by Lula’s centre-left government in Brazil has certainly been important (even crucial at times), however, the former factory worker’s own policies, both national and international, have disappointed many as he has not sought for a strong enough shift away from neoliberal economics and US hegemony.

However, despite these limitations, the winds of change are certainly moving Latin America forward. While one should expect Pirates of the Caribbean to obtain few reviews, those wishing to gain a deeper understanding of the enormous political shifts in Latin America would be wise to turn to the pages written by a pirate named Tariq Ali.