Freedom Next Time [Hardcover]

John Pilger is one of the world's pre-eminent investigative journalists and documentary film-makers. His best-selling books of reportage, which include Heroes and Hidden Voices, have in the words of Noam Chomsky 'been a beacon of light in often dark times'.

In Freedom Next Time he looks at five countries, in each of which a long struggle for freedom has taken place; in each the people, having shed blood and dreams, are still waiting. In Afghanistan, Iraq and South Africa there has been the promise of hope, and even an 'official' freedom, but the reality of these divided societies is that they are still waiting for real freedom. In Palestine, the cycle of violence continues with no resolution in sight. And the island of Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean, is a microcosm of the ruthlessness of great powers. The island was sold by the British to the American military in the 1960s. The indigenous population, descended from slaves, were forcibly removed to the slums of Port Louis in Mauritius. They have continued to fight for the return of their homeland ever since - three years ago the High Court granted them the right of return, but this has subsequently been blocked. The island remains the US's third biggest military base; a base from which they are able to launch attacks against the Middle East.

Once again John Pilger gives a voice to the people living through these momentous times and, in gripping detail, shows us the lives behind the headlines.

When Nelson Mandela stepped out of prison to freedom in 1990, the elation in South Africa and around the world was palpable. But true freedom for his people remains a distant dream. Why?From South Africa to India and beyond, a rapacious economic system condemns millions to poverty while men in decorous offices far away impose a ruthless political order with tariffs and embargoes, bombs and bullets, distorting the very language of freedom, causing suffering they never know, spilling blood they never smell.

In Freedom Next Time, renowned journalist and film-maker John Pilger describes how courageous people battling to free themselves often glimpse freedom, only to see it taken away. He challenges us in the West to 'look in the mirror' at the actions of 'our' governments for the true source of much of the world's fear and insecurity - and terrorism. In our name, often duplicitously, they operate a secret agenda, as in Diego Garcia, a paradise island in the Indian Ocean whose entire population was expelled clandestinely and brutally by the British government to make way for a huge American military base.

In Palestine, India, South Africa, Afghanistan, Britain and the United States, John Pilger's vivid eyewitness reporting and tenacious interviews, backed by meticulous research, blow away the secrets and lies of our rulers and turn a searchlight on to events consigned to the shadows by an unrecognized yet virulent censorship. With humanity, wit and passion, he salutes people who refuse to be victims and defiantly demand their freedom. They could soon be us.

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'John Pilger unearths, with steely attention to facts, the filthy truth and tells it as it is. I salute him.' Harold Pinter

'Pilger's gift is for finding the image, the instant, that reveals all - he is a photographer using words instead of a camera.' Salman Rushdie

'John Pilger is the antidote to easy, comfortable thinking, to smugness, to ignorance.' Daily Telegraph

'Pilger is the closest we have to the great correspondents of the 1930s . . . The truth in his hands is a weapon, to be picked up and brandished and used in the struggle against evil and injustice.' Guardian

'What makes John Pilger a truly great journalist is his conscience and bravery.' Martha Gellhorn

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