Reports are emerging that Noam Chomsky, the renowned American linguist, political analyst, critic and friend of the Kurds, has been hospitalised in Brazil following a massive stroke in June last year.
An emeritus professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Arizona, the 95-year-old linguist has been internationally known and respected for decades for his willingness to speak out to defend oppressed peoples and challenge the media and the powers that be, including US policy, across the world.
Chomsky, who is himself of Jewish origin, is particularly noted for his vocal defence of the Palestinians having written at least four books on the subject, and his lack of commentary on the Gaza war over the last nine months has raised questions.
According to his wife, Valeria Chomsky, a linguist from Rio de Janeiro, Noam Chomsky had a serious stroke in Arizona where they lived in June 2023 but the local doctors there did not hold out much hope for his recovery. After researching the subject, Valeria decided to take him to São Paulo in Brazil as soon as he was well enough to be moved. Once there, his condition improved somewhat.
Valeria Chomsky reports that he still has difficulty speaking and that the right side of his body is affected, but that he follows the news and is able to express his distress and anger at the situation in Gaza by gesturing with his left arm.
Chomsky has spoken frequently in defence of the Kurds and in support of the Kurdish cause in general, including the practical application of Abdullah Öcalan’s democratic confederalism model in North and East Syria (Rojava). In an interview with Medya Haber TV late last year, Chomsky drew attention to numerous crimes perpetrated by Turkey against the Kurds, referring to “hideous crimes that they committed in the 1990s, more recent crimes, crimes in Afrin, and their invasion of Kurdish areas in Syria.”
