- Simon Malley
Simon Malley (
May 25 1923 -September 7 ,2006 ), was a prominentfrancophone journalist and a strong supporter ofThird World independence movements.Malley was "one of the best known francophone journalists of his generation" and a "partisan, fearless and controversial" writer who spoke and wrote easily in both French and English as well as his native Arabic, according to his obituary in "
The Guardian " of London.Brittain, Victoria, [http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329586505-103684,00.html "Obituary: Simon Malley: Journalist with rare insight into Africa's anti-colonial struggles",] "The Guardian ",September 27 ,2006 . Retrieved onJanuary 27 ,2008 ] He was a sympathizer of thePalestine Liberation Organization . [Pipes, Daniel, [http://books.google.com/books?id=CBsSovwFpbcC&pg=PA137&dq=daniel+pipes+%22simon+malley%22&sig=HV_L8a8AdhTnSYFHB-N4Bkj9oOE "The Long Shadow: Culture and Politics in the Middle East"] Transaction Publishers: 1989. ISBN 0887388493, p 137, as presented in a Google Books search. Retrieved onJanuary 27 ,2008 ]Life and career
Simon Malley was born in
Cairo to a Jewish-Syrian family [http://lavantgardeliberal.net/INTERNATIONAL2.html] of modest circumstances. After graduating from high school, he became a journalist and was sent by an Egyptian newsaper to cover theUnited Nations . In New York City, he met his wife, Barbara, an American, when she worked for the United Nations delegation of the National Liberation Front (NLF), the Algerian independence group. Malley took up the cause of the NLF and was important in publicizing its cause.Malley supported
Gamal Abdul Nasser 's revolution in Egypt in 1952, and Nasser made him the representative of the Egyptian daily newspaper "Al Goumhouria " in New York City.He moved to France in 1969, where he founded the journal "
Afrique Asie " (its name was changed to "L'Economiste du Tiers Monde " in the 1970s, and it published an English version, "Africaasia "). The journal published reports from Third World areas which received relatively little coverage elsewhere, and its contributors included Third World economists and academics.Malley became the "best known voice" of Third World anti-colonialist movements. He conducted a 20-hour interview with
Fidel Castro , and long interviews withYasser Arafat andOliver Tambo . "At Non-Aligned Movement meetings other journalists had press passes; he had a delegate's pass", according to his obituary in "The Guardian "."Afrique Asie" became a longtime critic of the regimes of
King Hassan II ofMorocco andMobutu Sese Seko inZaire , among others. Malley was a strong critic of French foreign policy and alleged intelligence activities in Africa. In October 1980, at the end of the administration of French PresidentValéry Giscard d'Estaing , French special services police pulled Malley from a taxi and put him on a plane to New York City without his passport. In the airport at New York, an airline employee helped him avoid customs in order to take another flight, and he spent eight months inGeneva, Switzerland editing his journal until the election of PresidentFrancois Mitterand , then returned to France with the assent of the new administration.Simon and Barbara Malley's son,
Robert Malley , was a national security advisor in the Clinton administration and foreign policy advisor in theBarack Obama presidential campaign. Robert Malley wrote about Third Worldism and its decline in his book, "The Call From Algeria: Third Worldism, Revolution, and the Turn to Islam", described in a "Times Literary Supplement " review as "a personal perspective on the movement in which his father played a notable part, and an epitaph of sorts." [ [http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/6721.html Web page titled "The Call From Algeria"] at The University of California Press website. RetrievedJanuary 27 ,2008 ]ee also
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Third-worldism Notes
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