Noam Chomsky

If you go to a workshop on foraminifera taxonomy you don't expect to get the father of modern linguistics with that. But sometimes the unexpected happens! The organiser of our workshop mentioned that at the end of the day, when our workshop schedule mentioned only beer, wine, nibbles and socialising, there would be a public lecture by nobody less than Noam Chomsky. He was in town as he would get an honorary doctorate of the university. I thought the whole workshop would jump up like one man and rush to the venue! But how mistaken I was.

When the foram work was over only four of us walked over to the hall selected for this occasion. Four! How often does one stumble across a lecture by such a renowned and interesting man? And how often can one consume drinks and nibbles? Some people just don't get their priorities right, in my view.

Not many of us foraminifera geeks appreciate Chomsky. But the rest of the wold does! When we approached the building that would host the lecture we saw a queue coming out. We walked around the corner to find its end. Upon rounding the corner our hope faded: we could barely see the end of the queue. No way all these people would fit inside that hall! And indeed; just then some officials came out of the building, telling the queue to go home as it was full. Too bad!

We walked back to university, but Bill kept bumping into acquintances, and that way we didn't move fast. Which meant we were still near the road when we suddenly observed a stampede. Bill immediately realised what that meant: the organisers of the lecture had decided to relocate to a bigger venue! So we didn't hesitate and joined the stampede. We got into the hall, and there Bill quickly assessed the situation again; he figured they would open the balconies. So we queued up at the stairs; if they indeed did we would be the first ones up! In theory.

Queuing up in front of the building (the improvised, bigger one)

It took a while before we gor permission to scale the stairs. In that time Bill, who is very kind and polite, had yielded and yielded to pushier people and lost his pole position. And the two other ladies with him. Fortunately I am Dutch so I stood my ground. And ran up as soon as I could. I managed to get us four good seats! Funily enough, Bill managed to come in last, even behind the 7 months pregnant lady. The Brits sometimes...

But we had our seats! And soon a venerable figure appeared. To great applause.

Chomsky did not talk about linguistics; he talked about the Magna Carta, the distant ancestor of the British Constitution. And of many other important charters, such as the US declaration of independence. One of the things the Magna Carta is famous for is the right for any free man to not be convicted and punished without having been trialled by his peers. No arbitrary executions ordered by the monarch anymore! And of course only a small part of the population counted as a free man. But one has to start somewhere...

Not a bad venue for such a last minute decision!

Since the Magna Carta most countries have realised that a human is a human, quite irrespective of religion, race and gender. Unfortunately, there are still countries that have not realised this also holds irrespective of sexual orientation. And the US seem to think it only holds for "our kind of people". Was Bin Laden trialled by his peers? What's going on in Guantanamo Bay? And Chomsky isn't very optimistic about where this is going. He has seen companies gain rights which are close to these of humans, and now being able to act against those who stand in the way of their profit. He mentioned a mining company suing a South American government for protecting forest land in order to reserve space for their indeginous peoples. That land is on top of mineral richess! He has seen this trampling on the thoughts behind the Magna Carta, he is afraid this is only the beginning of the abuse the document will suffer. And he may well be right.

The man speaking. Note it was so busy they even had people seated behind him...

Listening to Chomsky won't cheer you up. But it's well worth it. So reader, if you ever happen to attend a workshop on foraminifera taxonomy, and you can have Chomsky as bonus: grab that chance! And if you somehow don't end up in that situation (unthinkable!); his website is a treasure trove of information...