Tariq Ali (Urdu: طارق علی; /ˈtærɪk ˈæli/; born 21 October 1943)[1] is a Pakistani-British political activist, writer, journalist, historian, filmmaker, and public intellectual.

The Death of a State (1983), Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity (2002), Bush in Babylon (2003), Conversations with Edward Said (2005), Pirates of the Caribbean: Axis Of Hope (2006), A Banker for All Seasons (2007), The Duel (2008), The Obama Syndrome (2010),[4] and The Extreme Centre: A Warning (2015).

Ali's mother, Tahira, was the daughter of Sir Sikandar Hyat Khan, who led the Unionist Muslim League and was later Prime Minister of the Punjab from 1937 to 1942.

[6] His parents therefore decided to get him out of Pakistan and sent him to England, where he studied Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Exeter College, Oxford.

"[18] During this period he was an IMG candidate in Sheffield Attercliffe at the February 1974 general election and was co-author of Trotsky for Beginners, a cartoon book.

NATO's Balkan Crusade in which he negated extent and nature of crimes committed by Serbian forces in Bosnia and Kosovo.

[27] Ali participated in the 2012 Sight & Sound critics' poll, where he listed his ten favourite films as follows: The Battle of Algiers, Charulata, Crimson Gold, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, Entranced Earth, If...., Osaka Elegy, The Puppetmaster, Rashomon, and Tout Va Bien.

[29] During the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, Ali was sympathetic to a Leave vote on left-wing grounds, whilst simultaneously criticising right-wing support for Brexit based on opposition to immigration.

[30] In 2020, Ali was a member of the Belmarsh Tribunal organised by Progressive International, investigating and evaluating the war crimes committed by the United States government in the 21st century.

The surveillance began in 1965 when he became president of the Oxford Union, and continued until at least 2003, when Ali was on the national committee of the Stop the War Coalition trying to prevent the invasion of Iraq.

Ali said "It is incredible to think that after 35 years, in 2003, under the Tony Blair Labour government, that Special Branch were still engaging in the same anti-democratic activity as they had been at the outset".

Never previously produced because of a censorship controversy, it was finally premiered in New York in October 2007, the day before former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto returned to her home country after eight years in exile.

Interviewed in the documentary, Ali explained the role that Bolivian water privatisation and the 2000 Cochabamba protests played in eventually bringing Evo Morales to power.

Ali currently lives in Camden, north London, with his partner Susan Watkins, editor of the New Left Review.