In this episode, we plunge into the incendiary brilliance of Tariq Ali—a lifelong contrarian, eloquent dissenter, and literary provocateur. Born in 1943 in Lahore to a family steeped in political defiance, Ali came of age railing against tyranny with a wit as sharp as his convictions. Oxford-educated and globally ungovernable, he became a charismatic voice of the New Left in the 1960s, skewering the Vietnam War, interrogating empire, and haunting television screens with his debater’s precision and theatrical flair.
A polymath of protest, Ali has penned fierce polemics, sweeping historical narratives, and lush novels that map the psychic fault lines between Islam and the West. Never content to play court intellectual, he’s remained rooted in anti-imperialism, radical imagination, and the belief that resistance begins with telling the truth—loudly, and often.
Tune in as we trace the arc of a man who has made a life out of speaking against power, and for the possibility of a more just world.
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