I went to see and hear Noam Chomsky in person today.

His lecture, entitled “Illegal But Legitimate”, was held at the Law School, which was a mere five-minute walk from my place. Hence, I left my place approximately six or five minutes earlier before the lecture started. For those of you who need an introduction on him, the excellent Wikipedia provides more than sufficient details of him. Support Wikipedia. Bookmark it.

Heaven forbids but I thought I was early. When I first got through the Law School's doors, I was surprised to witness an extremely large mass trying to take a peek into the auditorium where the lecture was held. When Ralph Nader came the other day, there was a big turnout but it was nowhere as large as Professor Chomsky’s lecture.

The auditorium has three doors and the doorways were packed. In fact, even the windows were packed. Many, having not the chance of getting into the auditorium, heard the lecture from outside and inside the windows.


Didn't your mother tell you to stop biting your nails? Ooo, shiny head...
I was rather discouraged upon seeing the state of the moment until I saw a few uncivilized folks standing on a sturdy wooden table located just outside auditorium, in front of one of the doorways. Badly wanting to hear what the professor had to say, I decided to join the uncivilized. Who cares about being civilized when one has the chance of being enlightened eh?

I saw the podium through a doorway, from the top of the table. Alas, I couldn’t hear anything. It was as if the auditorium was completely designed to prevent any sound originating from the podium from traversing outside of the auditorium. By this time, Professor Chomsky hadn’t given his lecture yet. Instead, some unknown person, probably some faculty member from Michigan, was probably giving a much unneeded introduction to the much celebrated professor. I didn’t know for certain what that person was saying since I simply couldn’t hear anything.

So instead, I had a conversation with a girl who was standing on the table right beside me until unfortunately, a lady came and shooed us off the table. Moments later, she and a few others removed the table to somewhere else. Sigh…

With the table out of the picture, I forced myself into the doorway. I got nowhere far since the doorway was packed. Despite my effort, I still heard naught though I managed to position myself in a way that the podium was in my field of view.

Worse, a f-guy was pushing me from behind! And I swear his dick was on my ass! And I am not sure whether he was interested in the lecture or me!

Uncomfortable with his intimacy, I intentionally elbowed the person. He was gone within minutes to my luck. Come to think of it, it would be ugly if there were a confrontation. But the end justifies the mean; he was gone and I was happily struggling to listen to the lecture.

Noam Chomsky later came up and a loud applause followed. In fact, the professor received a standing ovation even before he said anything. By this moment, I managed to get closer into the auditorium but I was still somewhere at the doorway.

For a good fifteen minutes, I was standing, watching the professor without hearing anything. It was a sad situation but I managed to take a few pictures from the doorway. Here is one.


I'm hearing Noam Chomsky! I think I'm in heaven!
There was probably a war of attrition happening among the pack of people but my resilience paid off. A few gave up and hence instantly allowing me to forward farther into the hall. More importantly, the resilience gave me a chance to hear the lecture.

When I got thus far, Professor Chomsky was talking about Nicaragua and how the US government manipulated the situation there via illegal means toward their advantages. I don’t remember the progression of the lecture properly but he also talked about the situation in Vietnam, Kosovo and Afghanistan. The conquest of Florida by the US was also mentioned. Somewhere along the line, he mentioned how and why the US refuses to submit itself under the International Court of Justice. The situations given in his lecture were to reflect the title of his lecture – illegal but legitimate. He argued that the current US administration truly believes in this “illegal but legitimate” ideology. This sounds like Bismark's realpolitik in a different light to me.

The lecture most likely went for an hour and 15 minutes with a questions and answer session lasting for about half an hour. One of the questions that were asked concerned Clinton’s impeachment.

The question roughly went: Why Clinton was impeached because of lying about his sexual misconduct but Bush isn’t being tried despite the latter lied to the public about the situation in Iraq?

The professor, whether it was by wit or by accident, replied by saying, roughly, lying to the public is not the supreme sin. The hall burst into laughter upon hearing that. You will need to watch the lecture to understand the joke because the supreme sin (or something like that) was somewhat defined in the lecture.

Once the Q&A ended, the crowd quickly dispersed but I stayed around to get closer to the professor. Apparently, there were a number of people thinking of what I was thinking - most wanted to get his autograph. Some merely want to shake hand. I merely wanted to take a picture of him.


The professor up close.
If you are interested in hearing the lecture, there is supposed to be a recording on the University’s server. However, when I visited the site, the link was bad. I don’t know when it will be up.

And tomorrow, the former Prime Minister of Norway, Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, will be giving a lecture on sustainability. With all midterms done for the moment, I intend to give myself a treat.

p/s - this is what I meant by inside the windows.