Chomsky Draws Record Crowd; Online Video Available
3 November 2009
More than 1,300 people watched Noam Chomsky speak at an event hosted by the School of Oriental and African Studies on 27 October. It was the largest crowd ever to attend a SOAS event.
Chomsky is a professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and is widely considered the father of modern linguistics. But today he is more widely known for his political activism, particularly his condemnation of U.S. foreign policy and what he sees as the manipulation of the mass media by governments and large corporations.
The audience was drawn from SOAS, the general public and the media, who turned out to watch Chomsky deliver his free talk, entitled Crises and the Unipolar Moment, at the Institute of Education’s Logan Hall. The event was sponsored by SOAS’s Development Studies Department and the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy.
Noam Chomsky: Crises and the Unipolar Moment
The event was booked up well in advance, but that didn’t stop hundreds of Chomsky fans from showing up at the door hoping for last-minute seats. However, it was also broadcast to students and staff in the SOAS Students’ Union and streamed live on the School’s website. Web traffic was so great at times that some would-be viewers were unable to stream the talk, including at least one eager Chomsky fan in Lebanon who called the School asking for technical help.
"The turnout for this event was truly extraordinary, and I think it’s a testament to how much Professor Chomsky’s ideas chime with our challenging times,” said Dan Plesch, Director of the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy. “SOAS is a natural home for speakers who can spark a thoughtful and provocative debate on issues of global importance.”
Chomsky, who is 81, spoke for nearly three hours on subjects ranging from the banking crisis to nuclear proliferation. A central premise of his talk was that the dominance of the United States as the sole remaining superpower is coming to a close with what he sees as the collapse of its economic model.
SOAS Director Paul Webley welcomed Chomsky to the School along with Alfredo Saad Filho, Professor of Political Economy; Dan Plesch, Director of the School's Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy; and Gilbert Achcar, Professor of Development Studies and International Relations.
Others in attendance included Baroness Kennedy, President of SOAS, and Bianca Jagger, who is noted for her human-rights activism.
