Noam Chomsky answers the Cardiffian's questions

Professor Noam Chomsky, who was in Cardiff last weekend to deliver a talk called The Current Crises in the Middle East, has an almost magical ability to answer, with authority and reason, any question regarding international relations at the moment.

A retired linguistics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the USA, the 82-year-old sage still travels the world to talk on politics, language, psychology and anything else thrown at him.

During a talk at St David's Hall last Saturday, part of a two-week European tour, he bravely approached issues in the Middle East saying "there's a very simple solution to the Israel-Palestine problem", and lauded devolution as progressive because "it moves the decision making power closer to the people."

But would Prof Chomsky have any answers on Wales's political situation?

During an interview with The Cardiffian, just before his appearance at a question and answer session at the Pierhead in Cardiff Bay, he spoke on a few Welsh issues.

Would devolution be a positive step for the future of Wales?

"By and large I think it is a healthy development. One of the reactions to the centralisation of power in the European Union has been regionalisation", he said.

"It creates a richer, more complex, less rigid society."

Is bilingualism here a politcal move or does it have a genuine cultural value?

"There are genuine values [in bilingulaism] but on the other hand they cannot be forced. When it's forced it doesn't work very well. So just go across the Irish sea. There they tried to force Gaelic - in Dublin you're not going to hear Gaelic. But on the other hand, here in Cardiff you hear children coming out of schools speaking Welsh.

"There has to be an effort and a will to sustain minority languages. Actually, I think to an extent Wales, compared to Ireland, reflects that. There is evidently more of a will here to sustain the language than in the urban areas of Ireland", he responded, without taking pause for thought.

Can we compare the protests Cardiff saw last weekend against government cuts to the uprisings in northern Africa, as some protestors were doing on the day?

"The trajectories are intersecting but they are going in opposite directions. In, say, Egypt, the people are struggling to gain rights that have been denied them. In Britain and other European countries, and the US, they're stuggling to retain rights that are being taken away."

And when posed the question where in the world could we expect to see the greatest political progress at his talk, he hesitated only momentarily before replying: "Wales?".

An audience of almost 2,000 were at St David's Hall last Saturday - a testament to how highly-regarded his views on Middle Eastern politics are.

But what he has to say on Welsh politics is valuable too.