The following was published in openDemocracy
“DiEM25’s Manifesto is a bold effort to reverse the damage and restore the promise,” says Chomsky.
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, March 14, 2016– Distinguished American linguist, philosopher and political activist, Noam Chomsky, has officially endorsed DiEM25, the Democracy in Europe Movement launched last month by Greece’s former Finance Minister, Yanis Varoufakis.
“The formation of the European Union,” explained Chomsky, “was a highly encouraging step forward in world affairs, with great promise.” However, in the view of the American scholar, the EU “now faces severe threats, from within, tracing in no small measure to the attack on democracy.”
Upon becoming the latest signatory of the movement’s Manifesto, Chomsky affirmed, “[DiEM25’s] Manifesto is a bold effort to reverse the damage and restore the promise, an initiative of great significance.”
“Europe and the United States are responsible for some of the greatest gifts to, but also some of the worst crimes against, humanity,” said Varoufakis. “Together,” he elaborated, “Europeans and Americans (both North and South), we have given the world humanist rationalism, Bills of Rights, the idea of shared prosperity, internationalism, the anti-slavery movement, the United Nations, the list goes on.
But we have also inflicted upon the world various colonialisms, environmental destruction, the permanent violation of the Middle East, Vietnam, dictatorships, the surveillance state, multinational companies that plunder peoples and continents, self-defeating austerity, extraordinary rendition, the list goes on.”
The former Finance Minister believes that “it is time that Americans and Europeans joined forces, across the Atlantic, to produce the surge of democracy that can uniquely revive hope, silence the sirens of toxic populism, dissolve governmental authoritarianism, and create the foundations of a planetary future worth fighting for.”
“DiEM25, the movement for democratizing the European Union,” Varoufakis noted, “welcomes Noam Chomsky to its ranks.”
Yanis Varoufakis and Noam Chomsky will appear together at New York’s Public Library LIVE stage on Tuesday, April 26.
Born in Philadelphia on December 7, 1928, Chomsky is regarded as the father of modern linguistics. He has authored over 100 books on topics in his field and on issues of dissent and US foreign policy. Chomsky is currently Institute Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Noam Chomsky joins a growing list of intellectuals and global personalities’ endorsing DiEM25. Julian Assange, Ken Loach, James K. Galbraith, Saskia Sassen, Walter Baier and Brian Eno are among the more than 17,000 members who have joined DiEM25 since the movement’s foundation last February 9 in Berlin.
See more from openDemocracy’s coverage of DiEM25 here.
