As the eminent Arnold Toynbee pointed out, “Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder”. Here, Arundhati Roy carries her Far-Left Post-Modernism to its logical suicidal ends –
…the longer you stay [in places like Iraq], the more you’re enforcing these tribal differences and creating a resistance, which obviously, on the one hand, someone like me does support; on the other hand, you support the resistance, but you may not support the vision that they are fighting for. And I keep saying, you know, I’m doomed to fight on the side of people that have no space for me in their social imagination, and I would probably be the first person that was strung up if they won. But the point is that they are the ones that are resisting on the ground, and they have to be supported, because what is happening is unbelievable.
So, it seems she’d rather cast her lot with the barbarians who’d “string her up” than implicitly support the Western hegemony responsible for her material well being, freedom of speech and physical security. So be it.
(hat tip – DesiDudeInGotham whose submission to the News page roused me from my blog slumber)
[previous SM coverage on Roy – “Back the Resistance” and “Tunku vs. Arundhati“]
KM, you also need to research a little more before making rhetorics. Roy is a five star activist without any qualitative input on many issues.
Mr. Hammer, since you mentioned Mahasweta Devi, may I suggest ‘Hazaar Chaurasi Ki Maa’ as a must-see film, based on one of her books, that deals with how the government dealt with the naxalites…no surprise there. Devi works with tribals and I met her a few years ago myself when she was brought over by Gayatri Spivak, a professor at Columbia. There is no doubt that she is doing what few others have done. But what is the point in comparing and bashing who is doing a shade more/less? I believe Roy has stated in the past, that it is a dubious distinction to be a famous writer in a country with millions of illiterates. I believe that by talking about caste, race, injustice through a literary text, ‘The God of Small Things’, she has contributed vastly and qualitatively to “issues”.
The problem w/ Roy is that this is 2006, not 1929. I mean we have already gone down this path many times, where great artists or intellectuals flirt with and become apologists for totalitarianism because of their disdain of capitalism. I think Roy would be taken more seriously if she could find it in her heart to say a word for the millions of victims of the Mao, Stalin, Lennin, or Castro and how she has learned from this history.
The time when we assume that artists who speak the language of justice that Roy does are motivated by good will should have ended with the collapse of the berlin wall. I’m afraid that if one pulls back her mask of social justice, one will see the ugly face of totalitarianism.
Manju,
In fact Roy was the one who with the recent rise of leftists in Latin America said that she wished she could tell people who were cheering the left in these countries, that it’s only two minutes of celebration and then it’s over, because invariably most of these leftists in power will turn into dictators! So, there. I think her politics is not what some of us are interpreting it to be…she IS skeptical of the left/communists. Wasn’t that obvious in her book?
intersting. I’ll have to look into it. Now, I wonder what she is for.
“the Western hegemony responsible for her material well being, freedom of speech and physical security”
The last I checked, Arundhati Roy was a citizen of India, and it was India that was responsible for her in various ways.
Arun:
I think you make a good point. I think it is a mistake to use the term “western” when reffering to liberal democracy or capitalism, after all socialism and communism are “western” values too. But I think vinod was using Roy’s own language against her.
But the main point is liberalism and Capitalism are universal values that all socities–and individuals w/i those societies (like roy)– benefit from. given that she’s gained so much from the free market, it’s ironic that she wants to deny these gains to others.
Ahhhh…. still love Arundhati Roy.
My local paan-thela walla also had his opinions and perspective on broad “issues” but at least he didnt pretend that he had all the solutions.
What one has to realize is that most of the communist crusades are “anti” campaings rather than constructive, qualitative work. They form a bottleneck in every developmental issue that will probably help most of the people they are defending, at least in the long term. For e.g.
Thanks! Statements like this make me like her more.
I saw her speak in person a couple weeks ago, and contrary to what is being voiced by most of the people objecting to her, she was fully prepared to discuss complicated issues. I didn’t agree with everything she said, but I did find that she was trying, at least, to come to grips with a number of important issues: the complications of being an outsider-activist working with people affected by an issue; what it’s like to place yourself on the side of people who wouldn’t necessarily place themselves on your side in other contexts; what to do when all strategies seem to fail; etc. But these are things that are lost on people who are too busy fixating on random statements that she makes here and there, rather than the substance of what she does and who she is. Give her (and the rest of us) a break.
Manju:
You may be familiar with the paper but it doesn’t seem like you have read it all. It has nothing to do with the media and everything to do with the leverage certain lobbying groups have towards America’s relationship with Israel.
Wow, that’s the best you can do? Smear Roy by pretty much calling her a communist, while draping yourself in the American flag and rehashing the bankrupt rhetoric of “Western values”? Now that’s old.
Israel has a nuclear stash. Big deal. That isn’t the crux of the issue. It is having political maturity while possessing such destructive weapons. Actions have shown India and Israel possess it. Fundamentally, people don’t trust the Islamic states because they haven’t show political maturity. This isn’t about a country’s right. Every nation has the ‘right’ to do what it wishes. Doesn’t mean it will be positive or beneficial.
Yup. She is an Indian national and guess what? India is a liberal representative republic, with a government and constitution based on western philosophy. Doesn’t mean it undercuts India’s own cultural heritage. It simply allows it to function, grow, and evolve in a far more stable society with consensus, better than previous empires under Mauryas, Guptas, Mughals, British, et. al.
A. Roy and many of her colleagues make wonderful speeches with poetry like prose flowing through their vocal chords and letters. Yet, they are intellectuals who don’t have an ounce of pragmatic common sense and grounded logic.
There are many things one can rant about the United States and the faults of western nations/superpowers. The biggest one would be its inability to study and understand foreign cultures for what they are, not what they expect them to be. Patience is a virtue of the wise, which is sorely lacking here at times. But the flipside can be said about nations that are way to patient and don’t act when time is ripe to be decisive.
Life is a balancing act and all fail at it at times. The world is more prosperous today than it ever was. People do have opportunities they never had before. There are threats – ecological, cultural, political, and above all ideological. If there is something that makes me groan about A. Roy AND GWB is that both are ideologues who get the cart ahead of the horse. BOTH. There are many similar to them. In this day and age when people are striving for sweeping change and great ideological peaks, one forgets that re-inventing the wheel isn’t necessary. Inventions and great ideas will come along from the most unexpected of individuals. Case in point: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Benjamin Franklin (and other founding fathers) and many more. Vicious ideas and men come along, too with Hitler, Stalin, Osama, Pol Pot, Mao, etc. Socialism isn’t bad, neither is capitalism. People are good and bad. Most successful nations in the world, including the United States use a bit of everything to attempt a balanced lifestyle and future for its citizens. Ones that do not have always suffered. First and foremost by suppressing the voice of the people said governments/movements try to represent.
Iraq has become a mess because pragmatic truths (basics of war doctrine, psychology of warfare, aka Sun Tzu art of war type stuff was put on the backburner for ‘ideas’) Iraq can still pull through this. Whatever one’s position on the war in Iraq, one cannot deny that a significant population did vote multiple times even in hardship conditions. Let them have a chance. Hold the United States accountable for its actions (good and the bad, there has been good, read Michael Yon). But in trying to feel rebellious and significant, don’t wish doom upon this experiment that is Iraq. I like what Michael Yon wrote because it had emotional honestly. As he says, Iraq is better than what the media portrays, and Afghanistan far worse than what the Government says.
Life is a bitch, so are leaders many times, yet things do work out despite them. In these war of ideas, people have got caught up in the big romanticized ideas and visions, yet forget to see that it is basics like honesty (which both sides lack), sound governance (which they lack again), and accepting responsibility for one’s actions and correcting the wrong and maybe even learning a thing or two from others that allows growth in life.
Watching the History Channel special on George Washington (not too happy with it since it wasn’t ‘deep’ enough for me) one thing stuck out to me. He made many mistakes. Accepting responsibility immediately. Grew and learned. He evolved. The man took those lessons and applied them and above all showed humility and a humble attitude that earned him the title of the First President of the United States of America. Abe Lincoln had such humility, so did Gandhi, MLK, Buddha, JC, etc. Men of ideas who talked and convinced people BY LEADERSHIP, not by scaring or preaching or belittling them (As the so called neo-Marxist ‘intellectuals’ or neo-con ‘tough guys’ like to do).
The pragmatic reality is Iraq and its fledgling government needs help and support. That government is far more legitimate, despite foreign occupation than Saddam’s ever was. People actually voted for an assembly. Give it a chance and lend your ideas and hand to them. Understand the practical reality that Israel has possessed nuclear weapons for decades, yet not called for the destruction of ANY of its neighbors who have attacked directly and failed, so they’ve pumped their money to Palestinians to kill. Instead, they could have used ALL the oil wealth to better educate and arm said people with the pen, rather than the sword. Made them a mighty financial force, once that could negotiate a way in. Pragmatic reality is that Bush, who basked in the glory of the 3 week maneuver warfare masterpiece into Iraq, stopped and basked in the glory of the ball he hit, only to realize it wasn’t a home run and only a double/triple and now hustling to make his way through the bases.
Goddamn. I apologize for the long post/rant. Not my home and I’m only a guest. I’m not looking to argue specifics; A beer, nice warm grill, tasty grub, and a group of individuals face to face is far more pleasant and emotionally honest. A nice deep conversation about philosophy and practical truths that would ensue is a welcome thought. One thing is true about all of these folks. They ain’t leaders. Preachers and intellectuals, but not leaders in the true sense. Very few are and I always hold hope that there is one somewhere around that you wouldn’t expect who’d change the course of history for the better. Life is dynamic and change is the only constant. One needs to adapt and leaders recognize this before others do. They can navigate the turbulent nature of change. They are adaptable, powerful, humble, and practical.
As Bruce Lee said, “Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way round or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.
Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend.”
GujuDude out.
Manju,
that should give you an understanding of my frustrations with her 🙂
Saurav, I agree that she has a right to be heard and to voice her opinions. But, as she admits herself, she is not interested in politics – policy is not her forte.
And her writer-activist stance is half assed since she is no longer a writer. Her last novel was published about 8 years ago. Now that she is just an activist, she has chosen to interpret the word to merely mean dissenter. And that often means dissenting on all issues and taking contrary stances. It is the natural illogicality of these stances that lead her to statements like the one cited. In fact there are times, like Manju, when I wonder what exactly she stands for.
There is inherent uncertainty about celebrities taking up humanitarian or political causes. As a rational human being, I know luminaries have brains like everyone else and are certainly capable of embracing a cause passionately. The current climate is obviously ripe for involvement. Stars themselves have become a big part of this phenomenon — prolonged human suffering (including but not limited to famine, poverty and that wrought by natural disaster), it seems, is the sexy celebrity cause du jour. Moreover, in a day and age of digitized and global media, it probably (hopefully?) becomes a lot harder for high-profile people to turn a blind eye to misery, especially for those who call themselves “role models.” There are even basic training camps for celebrities who want to get involved in something worthwhile but need a hand in understanding the issues. For example, the “Creative Coalition” brings together artists and celebrities to learn about causes, eventually enabling them to do things like lobby on their behalf in D.C. Similarly, “Participate” is a group linking up big films (and presumably their stars) with like-minded grassroots organizations. Associations such as these, of course, do wonderful and important things. But the little devil perched on my shoulder is whispering that they also shroud the celebrities involved from the get-go with disingenuousness. And to a certain extent, that’s fine. It’s a phenomenon that increases the awareness of people who might otherwise simply might not have too firm a grasp on what’s going on out there in the (increasingly complex) world. But when does the trend stop and real knowledge and action take root? In other words, when will the average citizen who takes note of a celebrity endorsement actually absorb it into her consciousness and translate it into activity, even on the most micro of levels — perhaps the true litmus test of celebrity involvement in anything? In a scathing op-ed in the “New York Times”, author Paul Theroux (who spent many years teaching in Africa under the auspices of the Peace Corps) derided the propensity (especially of celebrities, but specifically Bono, whom he says shouts “so loud people trust his answers”) to advocate, for example, the “more money platform” in Africa. He says it’s both patronizing and a mistake, “donors enable embezzlement by turning a blind eye to bad governance, rigged elections and the deeper reasons these countries are failing.” What Africa needs, he says, is home-grown citizen involvement, a stopping of the continental brain drain — not the computers Bono’s One campaign cohort Bill Gates wants to send to places that not only don’t have electricity, they don’t even have pencils and paper for schools. Kanye West shocked the entire world when last year at a Red Cross event benefiting Hurricane Katrina victims, he looked right into the camera and said live on national television, enunciating each word, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” His outcry against the wrenching inequalities exposed by that disaster was raw, angry and emotional. But could anyone ever accuse him of being insincere? Hell, no. Given all of the evidence, especially within the celebrity-industrial complex scenario, I suppose what each and every one of the celebrities — even the vapid or the stupid — do is, as previously pondered, give rise to some sort of awareness, which is (even when I am only grudgingly admitting it) in and of itself vital. That’s where the blogs come in, forcing the hand of the print magazines (across the board, most certainly not just in the celebrity sector) to become increasingly competitive in offering and breaking important news. According to blogcount, almost 1/3 of Americans regularly read blogs, and interestingly enough, while political blogs like Daily Kos (500,000 hits a day) and Talking Points Memo (150,000 hits a day) are increasing their readerships exponentially, especially among the young and internet-savvy, so are the more gossip-oriented blogs such as Gawker and Perez Hilton. The popularity of these blogs suggests the confluence of celebrity and news in the same way that politicians are morphing into celebrities, and vice versa. Maybe we young people are inundated by the merger of the cause-driven and the celebrity-driven issues in our society and are frankly weary from trying to tease them apart. Maybe it doesn’t, at the end of the day, matter to us whether a celebrity is invested in something important or something stupid, because the next hour, day or blog-post will bring another set of circumstances for us to ponder for ourselves.
Why we need more people like Arundhati Roy : *** while TV and radio news reports tell the latest about corporate fortunes, vast numbers of real people are struggling to make ends meet — and many are in a position of choosing between such necessities as medicine, adequate food and paying the rent. *** superficial news reports and commentaries, routinely describing war in flat phony antiseptic terms, are helpful to the U.S. war efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq — where the deaths of American troops, while horrific, are small in number compared to the civilian deaths as a result of daily slaughter catalyzed by U.S. military activities. *** each war death takes a precious life, and media outlets rarely convey more than surface accounts of the actual grief of loved ones left behind. *** many Americans have lost their limbs or their lives in on-the-job accidents that might have been prevented if overall media coverage had been anywhere near as transfixed with job safety as with, say, marital splits among Hollywood celebrities. *** each war death takes a precious life, and media outlets rarely convey more than surface accounts of the actual grief of loved ones left behind. *** no matter how much glorious rhetoric and how many chronic euphemisms are brought to bear on public opinion, most of war’s victims are not — by any definition — combatants or enemies. As New York Times reporter Chris Hedges, a former war correspondent, has pointed out, “In the wars of the 1990s civilian deaths constituted between 75 and 90 percent of all war deaths.”
Not every guy or girl can tell their parents or their friends stories from Iraq. They won’t understand. Or they don’t want them to know what they did. And it’s really rough. It’s really rough for veterans to come back and find themselves, and especially when they’re out of the service or even when they’re in. You are like the alien. You have your own type of language. Even still, at work, I’m around all these people, and they’re not like me. They don’t understand. As an Iraq war veteran, I feel Ms. Arundhati Roy helps us to open the eyes of our American brothers and sisters who don’t understand the untold pain and sufferings we undergo and how it affects our lives and also our families! We make the civilian people of Iraq suffer and we also suffer deeply at a later stage. We have learnt nothing from the Vietnam war and the pain and trauma it brought to the war veterans and the poor Vietnamese people.
says historian Howard Zinn, author of “A People’s History of the United States”. http://www.harpercollins.com/global_scripts/product_catalog/book_xml.asp?isbn=0060528427
Depoliticizing our culture is a media necessity in a society driven by consumerism. Every programmer knows the drill. It’s a market logic called KISS: Keep It Simple and Stupid. A national curriculum, “Lessons From History,” on the teaching of the past realizes that this phenomenon threatens democracy, warning, “Citizens without a common memory, based on common historical studies, may lapse into political amnesia, and be unable to protect freedom, justice, and self-government during times of national crisis. Citizens must understand that democracy is a process — not a finished product — and that controversy and conflict are essential to its success.” So even as this dialectic is deplored, it is, sadly, quite functional. More people vote for the best performer on American Idol than for our presidents. The architects of TV news know this from their market surveys and studies. It is this very media effect that they hype to lure advertisers to their real business: selling our eyeballs to sponsors, not deepening our awareness.
The function of propaganda in a democratic society – well, maybe Noam Chompsky is the person to read on this one, perhaps “Necessary Illusions”. The illusions are necessary, because if the general public knew what our fearless leaders have actually been up to for the past few decades (if not longer), there would be a lynch mob chasing them down the street.
All american wars have been set up the same way. In order for Americans to really appreciate your ideas, you need to hook them to a pattern of behavior. People can understand a pattern–it makes more sense to them. Otherwise, all the people see is “partisan politics.” You social activists right here are quite guilty of this same thing. You endlessly attack Bush when you should really be attacking the overclass. Because you have failed to do so, you have lost credibility with most people. Imagine the overclass as a filter that either rejects or accepts ideas that have political content. You might envision the overclass as environmental forces in an ecosystem (such as climate, food supply, parasites, etc). These forces allow some animal mutations to survive and flourish, while others are killed off. THe overclass kills of ideas that harm it. Thus the political amnesia. Note that the American Left has consistently failed to put the crimes of the Bush Admin into context in American History (you continually fail to show how the Iraq War has parallels, and so many other things).
The best and most valuable memorial to those who have died in service to our nation is a vibrant democracy. Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen & Marines don’t serve & fight for flag, god or country– they fight for the future of their loved ones at home. Like everyone else they want their families and friends to live in a peaceful world with an opportunity for a better life. Like everybody else they value their privacy and other civil liberties. I know because I served–fortunately in a more peaceful time. The very people sending our troops in harm’s way have made a mockery of all that these people hold, or will hold, dear in life. Most of America has or is awakening to the reality that we have been conned from day one. We had no business going into Iraq and no just cause. The people sending them are not in harm’s way and few of their children serve. The common people that this bunch has screwed 10 ways from sunday are the ones paying the price– today & tomorrow. Today in lives, separation and pain. Tomorrow under the crushing burden of an almost $10 trillion debt.
It’s enough to make me want to throw up.
The reason for the political amnesia has been well studied. When watching TV, the brain very quickly slips into Alpha brainwave mode. Alpha brainwaves are associated with daydreaming, not learning or analytical thought. This has been even more extensively studied by the advertising industry. The site would not accept this link, so go to http://www.leaonline.com and do a search for: television+alpha In fact television commercials are designed to speed up the brainwaves at certain points. The brainwaves are still in Alpha mode, but a little bit faster so that people can at least remember the product. For an excellent overview of TV and Alpha read this Scientific American Article: http://www.wu-wien.ac.at/usr/h99c/h9951826/television.PDF Americans watch (on average) over 4 hours of TV a day. This means that Americans are spending (on average) over 4 hours in Alpha Brainwave mode per day. And once you stop watching for the day, your brain takes a little while to completely leave the Alpha Brainwave state. That’s why after watching TV, people tend to feel sluggish and apathetic. That’s why it is especially important for young children to not watch TV as their brains are still forming. There is evidence that these extended Alpha brainwave sessions are especially harmful to the developing brain. “The Plug-In Drug : Television, Computers, and Family Life” by Marie Winn is an excellent book that describes the issues and scientific research.
DesiDude, I think that the statement that she made is contentious but it’s still thought provoking. It raises the issue of the extent to which politics and social change are about people as social beings and the extent to which they’re about the ideas that people hold. She evidently operates on the first idea, which poses this problem for her: People–including dispossessed people–rarely have perfect politics, if ever; how then, does the outsider activist–who has different politics–deal with the choice between “supporting” people who wouldn’t support her and standing idly by while watching a serious wrong done to them. In essence, it’s a clash between self-interest and solidarity both stemming from similar values, and I think you can see that tension if you read the whole passage rather than just the one line at the end.
This is a fair criticism. I just don’t think you should look to her for a policy platform. Her raison d’etre is pretty simple: to affirm the right of people who are less powerful to resist.
All writing is not fiction in book form, but even setting that aside you have very high demands of your fiction writers 🙂
No one is exempt from taking sides in crises such as the ones that have engulfed the entire planet now. By “taking sides” I don’t mean–and I don’t think Arundhati Roy means–embracing an ideology or maintaining somebody else’s position. I mean taking the side of people and the planet. But beware: if you take the side of people, of living things, you will almost always be setting yourself up in opposition to large corporations and the governments that cover for them. I can already hear some people saying: but there have always been these crises and there always will be. Fair enough. Then: no one was ever exempt from taking sides, and no one ever will be. Perhaps there will always be affronts to social justice, to peace, and to environmental sustainability. But can anyone honestly believe that as a consequence people should ignore such affrontery? “Exempt” implies rules, or authority, and is therefore an unfortunate word choice on my part. Everyone is “exempt”; there is no single moral code, and I (like you perhaps) simply do not trust the makers and executors of laws, disembodied, corrupt, and unable to reference in their work what it feels like to be human. And yet: failure to take sides is a taking of sides. How can an artist (or an accountant, or an architect, or an advertiser…) not take a position when confronted with the dangers and injustices of the world? How can that position not manifest itself in an individual’s work? Let me correct myself: not the dangers and injustices of the world, but those of one’s own culture, and so, to some extent, one’s own making. It seems to me that the person who asks “but what can I do?” has yet to realize the need for something to be done.
SepiaMutiny is a particularly good blog with many compelling thought lines. To be brief, I believe we are ALL artists – in one way or other. Some express via music – and writing; some via movement and dance; me, through the design of buildings, environments, neighborhoods, and the like. On a small scale, EVERY new assignment poses the question and challenge as to “what can I do?” For me, it is HOW the approach to the answer is formulated that is most meaningful. We all answer in one form or another. I like to think that my responses are more global perhaps and more encompassing of solutions dedicated to NEEDS as opposed to purity of form and space just for the sake of…..being. Like many, I LIKE what I do. Perhaps like many, I do get joy in people enjoying my stuff. Perhaps unlike many, I do NOT create out of any sense of anger. Rather, to assist and to help others with things of beauty is simply sublime. Good posts here; very provocative. Nice to discover this place!
Arundhati Roy has said the Government these days was neither respecting nor listening to those raising their voice via non-violent means. Instead, it was inviting those leading violent struggles for talks. Ms. Roy also said: “All such tactics are sending a dangerous message to those who are fighting peacefully.”
“The Government is taking undue advantage of the situation, but it must realise that it is doing so at its own peril,” the author warned. Poor people diplaced by dams had no option but to fight for their rights like many others who were now finding a common cause with them, she said, referring to families displaced by the removal of slums in Delhi and Mumbai.
“People are being displaced in millions, but they cannot go to cities, slums or villages. Then where will they go? There has to be an answer to this. In India, unlike other developed countries, those in majority are affected due to wrong Government policies and planning. If this continues, there will be some kind of a breakdown. It would be better if it happens because of a political struggle or due to an apolitical movement,” she added.
“i’ll stay political” – arundhati roy “I believe in political writing whether it is fiction or non-fiction. When you place yourself in it and try to make an honest declaration it is difficult. You can’t function like some government ministry with certain policies here. It is a very delicate writing. I write about the most politicised class in India which is the poor.”
“When I wrote ‘God of Small Things’, I wasn’t sure if it will work with anyone. It was five or six years of working, completely alone. I won the Booker and became darling of the middle-class. I won the national pride. Then, I wrote non-fiction. I wrote about nuclear tests and realised that speaking out is as political as keeping quiet. People who once were supportive and liked me, started looking at me as an enemy.”
Not for Arundhati Roy any of that arm-wringing about whether or not writing should be political.
I’m in love with Arundhati Roy. Not just because she is one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen. Not just because she has written one of the world’s greatest novels, “The God of Small Things”. Not even because she is an activist. No. I’m in love with her because she does something that very few people do these days. She brings hope. She brings Hope even. And Hope, or even hope, is a commodity that is rare at best. But that is what she gives to the world.
It is somewhat strange the way she does it. She does it by criticising the US. By criticising India, by criticising war et cetera. IÂ’ve heard people say that the left is just criticising, never positive. That is not true when it comes to Arundhati Roy. She is the living walking talking exemple of what Derrida calls lÂ’Ã venir – the to come – as in a justice, world or democracy to come. And when you read or listen to her, you really believe that it is to come. Really.
Perhaps she is best known for her views on Globilisation. Or as the powers like to call us, anti-globalists. Well, she attacs nationalism fiercely. She tells the story about global companies attacking democracy. She talks about how the market takes away peoples livelihood. “The Invisible Hand is not open, it is an Invisible Fist”, as Arundhati Roy herself would say, perhaps.
Andy Sullivan’s Moore Award nominee is Arundhati Roy, due to a quotation from an interview of her on Democracy Now! that I’ve actually seen, and I think Andy’s misinterpreting it. Andy Sullivan obviously thinks some parts of the interview to be apologism for Maoist terrorism. I wouldn’t take it that way. Taken in context, this is part of Roy’s discussion of the abuse of poor and rural areas of India by the government – particularly the case of dam development that causes both environmental damage and human displacement. I think Roy should be interpreted as saying that all movements opposing the current order in India – Maoists included – should be seen as resistance to the current order, which I think is right. Now, I’m no fan of Roy. Her anti-globalist writing are as frustrating as they are popular. Tom Frank said it best: “Maybe sometimes you just want to be on the side of whoever is more likely to take a bunker buster to Arundhati Roy.” But painting her as a modern day Weatherwoman isn’t fair.
P.S.: Weatherman, known colloquially as the Weathermen and later the Weather Underground Organization, was a U.S. Radical Left organization consisting of splintered-off members and leaders of the Students for a Democratic Society. The group referred to itself as a “revolutionary organization of communist women and men.” Their stated purpose was to carry out a series of militant actions to achieve the revolutionary overthrow of the Government of the United States (and of capitalism as a whole).
http://www.counterpunch.org/zirin01312005.html
I am aware of the hostility to Arundhati Roy in India. Why is that so? Is it because she keeps bringing up uncomfortable truths and is a bit of a dramatic diva or is it because she is seen as a limousine liberal who made millions from her blockbuster first novel and yet goes around bemoaning the plight of the poor? Is there also some envy involved in putting her down?
But I don’t think that being rich disqualifies one from speaking up for the dispossessed. By that standard, no one from the Gandhi family should be in any position of power in India. Nor should a Kennedy (or a Bush) run for office in the US.
I am not in total agreement with every one of Roy’s political positions. But I do find her an outspoken and very smart advocate of the positions she espouses. Criticizing one’s own government’s failings is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact it should be required in a democracy. After all, many blogs main purpose is to point out the faults of the ridiculous government that is currently in power in the US.
Whenever I go to India, I am amazed by the newspapers – their format, their content and their tone. If I sat at home and just read the papers and looked at the TV programs, I would come to believe that India is a country inhabited only by the super rich, super chic and ultra glamorous people cavorting at clubs and resorts. The front page of most major newspapers look like tabloids. I was in Delhi last February when Clinton was in town. The papers went on and on for a week about the grotesquely ostentatious Chatwal wedding which Clinton attended. It was distasteful enough to turn one’s stomach. I guess Roy is critical of that attitude of denial in the Indian media. While India is doing wonderfully on so many fronts, it is not right to pretend that it is going equally well for ALL Indians. One of the biggest culprits in presenting a one sided “shiny” Indian story is our own Thomas Friedman of The New York Times whom too Roy takes to task.
To have jumped from first time author to political activist is not a small feat. I respect Arundhati Roy for the genuine passion with which she speaks out, reminding us of the unwelcome costs of globalization/corporatization of India. To be sure, I don’t agree with her on all her stances. She can be a ‘Drama Queen’ of sorts, with her penchant for mild exaggeration. While many would like to dismiss some of what she brings up as pandering to the Western exoticizing of India and taking India’s image from shining bright tech-savvy economy back to dark ages of bullock carts, she is still giving India and the world a necessary reminder that the poorest segments of the Indian population aren’t benefitting from the riches, though there is a little trickle down. Arundhati is consciously using her celebrity for a greater goal, rather than sitting on her laurels after paying lipservice to the causes she supports. That’s more than ‘armchair liberals’ like me have been able to do. I loved her writing in God of Small Things- it was the most creative transmutation of Malayalam idiom into English that added a tremendous charm to a plot which I didn’t particularly care for.
On the state of our national media, just thinking about it is enough to give me apoplexy. I returned to India earlier this year, after spending 5 years in the U.S., where I was pursuing graduate studies and I feel I’ve returned to an entirely different country, if I was to go by what I read in the papers. Some good people at the Hindu and to an extent Tehelka are fighting the good fight, but for how long? The odds are stacked terribly against them. Times of India, the main villian, doesn’t differentiate between news reports and advertisements anymore. This is their official policy now. Some time back, they carried an ad, very cleverly camouflaged as copy, for a private institute for higher education, right next to an article on the 12th board results, with the aim of conveniently tying them together in the mind of the reader. The more I think of these developments, the more I depressed I get. Ms. Roy has very good reasons to be critical of the mass-media in India!
Ms Roy does have a tendency to speak in hyperbole and take artistic liberties in her political statements. That is dangerous. Let us remember what happened to Dan Rather of CBS news when he reported about Bush’s absence from Texas National Guard duty and his source turned out to be spurious? Everyone knows that the essential content of the report is true but because of the factual lapse, the whole story got discredited and no further enquiry took place. When the message is important, the messenger needs to be very careful. In case of a “diva” like Roy, she becomes the story and the content even when entirely accurate, gets dismissed as dramatic ranting. A pity.
The “infomercial” type of reporting by major Indian newspaper is a relatively recent development and very alarming. I find thoughtful discussion missing both from the print as well as the broadcast media. The entire mood among middle and upper middle class Indians seems to be one of denial and casual laissez faire. Which is why Arundhati Roy is to be commended for sticking her neck out. Perhaps I too would have been the same way if I had stayed on in India. But as a member of a minority community in the US, my antenna has become finely tuned to social and political improprieties. As Sujatha said, perhaps I too am mostly an armchair liberal. But I do my bit by participating in the process – writing in this blog is a large part of that.
Actively campaigning for suitable political candidates is another.
Voting my conscience rather than my own pocketbook is the most important.
I dont mind Bushbashing but Ms.Roy has become a pain…I think being contrary was cute for a whle and for me,’small things’ carried her a goodwll from me,now I find her her enjoying her role as a permanent fly in the ointment..no matter what ointment!!
I “googled” Arundhati Roy and the first result shows this..
http://website.lineone.net/~jon.simmons/roy/tgost2.htm
Suzanna Arundhati Roy was born on the 24th November 1961, the child of a marriage between a Christian woman from Kerala and a Bengali Hindu tea planter. It was not a happy marriage and she is unable to speak of her father without difficulty. “I don’t want to discuss my father. I don’t know him at all. I’ve only seen him a couple of times, that’s it,” she told Sunday Plus when pressed.
I din’t know about this. It is interesting..
Ok, further info. from that website.. sorry if you folks know of this already..
Arundhati Roy has been no stranger to controversy, from her mother’s campaigning through to her own article on Shekar Kapur’s celebrated film ‘Bandit Queen’, about Phoolan Devi, in which Roy charged Kapur with exploiting Devi and misrepresenting both her life and its meaning. That ended with a court case, and her giving up the world of film.
She’s kinda against the tide even before she became famous.. I am beginning to like Arundhati Roy.. She is into anarchy.. 🙂
IÂ’m no fan of RoyÂ’s political writings, but if she were looking for fame & fortune (aside from having achieved it with her novel), writing anti-imperialist essays for a western audience isnÂ’t really the way to go. Could you imaging the fat fellowships and advances that would hers if she were to write apologias for imperialism? Her income would rival that of the manager of a small hedge fund.
my core problem is that she professes a rather cheap anti-globalization (which to her is synonomous with Westernization or American Hegemony)
And yet, it’s PRECISELY because of that process that she (an Indian) can get a UK book award, that her books are mass produced in the west, sold on the Internet, can be read by a growing pool of literate Afghan women, can be imported into Iraq, that she can easily jet over to the USofA to deliver her invectives, and yet all the while loathe that process that has lifted 100 M out of poverty in the last decade in India alone.
and now, she publicly sides with the folks who would deny all of those advantages to nearly 100M in the Middle East, turn back the clock a few centuries, and, as she eloquently admits, would readily “string her up”.
all out of spite for the US. Roy may be able to turn quite a phrase, but far from lifting anyone out of poverty (well, except for herself & her publicists), she’d rather cast them all back but feel good about herself while doing it. Pathetic.
Our political dialogue has become appalling restricted if you cannot criticize an illegitimate war, the dispossession of people from their land and livelihood, the destruction of the environment and the erosion of democracy and civil liberties without being cast as a Leninist! Such paronoia is hardly becoming for those who flaunt the values of western liberal democracies. Democratic debate is surely a more involved process than mere name-calling. Engaging with concrete problems, difficult ideas and abstract concepts takes real intellectual effort. Let’s not foreclose the debate with mud flinging before it even begins.
A point about the recurring notion in this thread that leftists lack practical solutions and live in the airy fairy world of abstractions and theory. All perspectives on politics/society/economy are born as theory. You begin in theory, not in practice. Capitalism itself is based on creative theories – the invisible hand, trickle down effect, assumptions about human nature. It tooks 500 yrs to mould us into creatures who produce, accumulate and consume, produce, accumulate and consume. 500 yrs of ‘practice’.
Perhaps then, it’s not surprising that in 2006 we are finding it so hard to even conceive ‘practicing’ any other way of life, especially those of us who are reaping the benefits of ceaseless production, accumulation and consumption. Not all of us can be self-satisfied with our ‘gains’ as millions plunge into the oblivion of poverty…..so we write, imagine, protest, speak out, demonstrate, campaign, cry, sing, struggle with the contradictions of our identity and try to fight the pervasive cynicism of mainstream society.
You try being a five star activist.
Oh Puleeeeeeez
This kind of Idol worshipping cluelessness hysteria and hyperbole is hilarious!
She’s the messiah! Worship her! She gives HOPE! Wooo hooo! She is like a God! Beautiful, but she will save us, she bashes America, she gives us hope, let us suckle on her teat of hope! Goddess! Hope Goddess! The Goddess of Hope!
This kind of hyperbole shows how bereft of intellect and perspective some people on the left are. It also accounts for the pant-wetting when her ideas are criticised and mangled and ripped apart for what they are, why some people sulk like cry babies or religious fanatics who have had their God blasphemed against.
Get a life! The Left needs to move beyond stupid and inane fetishising and hero worshipping! Roy’s arguments don’t stand up!
In one of her essays she compares the displaced people of the Narmada Dam to Jews being herded into the gas chambers. That is not ‘mild exaggeration’. That is an obscenity of comparison and hysteria that makes you believe the woman’s brain is dislodged. It’s plain and simple stupidity, emotionalism run rampant, idiocy to the millionth degree. That is just one example. The woman is an egotistical hysteric. So are some of her ‘fans’ – just read the description above of how she glimmers with a halo and gives HOPE to the masses and will heal the sick and cure the lepers.
PLEASE! GIVE ME A BREAK!
The Left deserves better than this emotionally incontinent who sups and sides with extreme right fanatics like Hamid Gul, and kisses the ass of fascist suicide bombers. Doesnt the Left have any perspective of ability to work through this dilemma? Doesnt the left have an intellect?
Oh! The trials of being a five star activist! The horror! The strains! The ordeal of being Arundhati Roy, dreaming and scheming and protesting and crying and singing for HOPE!
Oh, you have no idea about what life is like for a five star activist, you brutal and unthinking wretches. Just you try it, just you try to imagine what life is like for five star activists. The oppression! The difficulty of thinking! Somebody help me before I faint!
In the meantime, let me kiss suicide bombers ass – how is that for a dream?
Pathetic.
Scout, good points.
Anyone have a count of the death toll in Afghanistan, post-Soviet withdrawal and prior to 9/11? Anyone here have any clue as to Hamid Gul’s and the like (the Pakistani establishment’s) role in that carnage?
If Arundhati Roy was truly a moral person, she would not be seen with them.
Let’s remind ourselves of what Arundhati Roy, Joan of Arc, the Messiah and Goddess of HOPE, the dreamer, the five star activist saving the world with her grace, the wonderful beautiful savior of humanity, who dreams and gives hope to us all, let’s remind ourselves of who she supports.
She supports men who strap bombs to their bodies, blowing themselves up in markets killing children, women and men, in order to spark a sunni-shia war, in order to oust the Americans and make Iraq fall apart.
ARUNDHATI ROY SUPPORTS SUICIDE BOMBING!
Get it?
She supports mass murder, as long as it is targetted at the Yanks! It doesnt matter that civilians are murdered and blown to shreds, as long as the Yanks are the targets. Yahoo! The Goddess of HOPE!
Oh the Goddess of Hope she dreams and sings and dreams for us all to rescue and save humanity! She is the five star activist who dreams of kissing the ass of suicide bombers! It doesnt matter who they kill as long as their objective is to kill Americans, lets kiss their ass and destroy globalisation!
And all her fans and disciples who fall to her feet for her beauty and hope, in their safe comfortable homes in San Franscisco and London and Delhi shall love her for her wonderful dream of supporting suicide bombing fascists!
Because she gives us HOPE!
LEFTISTS! You used to have some sense of morality! But you have dissapeared so far up the anus of your own contradictions that you are fully supporting FASCIST SUICIDE BOMBERS!
Of course, anyone calling such people spineless hypocrites is a fascist stooge of the Zionist-American-Globalisation conspiracy, right?
Oh Arundhati Roy, Joan of Arc, you shall die for our sins, you are the messiah.
Vinod —
Your critiques of the AR comment you quote seem to take the ostrich approach.
Er, “India Shining” much, Vinod? Millions of people are getting pushed further behind in the process as well, and your “barbarians” are simply a symptom of that, not the fundamental problem itself. Cure the disease and the symptoms will go away; pretend the disease doesn’t exist, and the cancer will metastasize.
And if we’re turning from India to Iraq, the Keystone Kops, Where-Are-The-WMDs War that is taking place over there is not the “process that has lifted 100 M out of poverty in the last decade in India alone” — I should think that as an advocate of globalization you’d want to keep your theories about global economic progress free and clear of that debacle.
Although I do admit, what’s happening in Iraq has been best described by Stephen Colbert:
So maybe the pretty picture over there appeals to your libertarian sensibilities. 😉
(Sigh. You primitive humans with your 18th century ideologies.)
absolutely. I’m doing the worm right now. hope that helped.
So how do you cure the disease of poverty? Wallow in the mud of poverty from your five star activist academic post and jet set lecturing circuit, or create wealth and incentivise business? So maybe you campaign for re-distribution, instead of declaring a HOLY WAR against capitalism? You mean, you want to scream and scream against the capitalists until you are sick?
Has anyone noticed how these Arundhati Royists resemble Hindutvadis? The idea of a virginal and pure India that must not be tainted by the outside world, that all Indians must be kept poor and protected from contamination, either Muslims/Christians, in the case of the Joan of Arc/Arundhati Royists, the poor are to be rescued by them by screaming and screaming until they make themselves sick against the evils of the disgusting capitalism as represented by hook nosed Uncle Sam come to rape the virginal peasents who the five star activists in their India Habitat debating chambers and prosperous creature comfortable lives are to defend?
Hmmmmm? Anyone noticed that? Anyone?
It is of course just one short step away to outright support of fascist murder – Hindutvadis to support Gujarat carnage and Arundhati Royist maniacs to support extreme right wing fascist suicide bombers as long as they target the yanks and Tony Blair and of course, the chief architect of the deaths of thousands of Indians Hamid Gul, who is also a hero to these geniuses of compassion.
Funny that, isnt it?
Oh Arundhati, Messiah and Goddess of HOPE, these horrible nasty people are being cruel about our five star activism, what can we do?
“Why of course the people don’t want war…That is understood. But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship … Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.”
Goering, Hermann (1893–1946), German Nazi leader and politician. He was responsible for the German rearmament program, founder of the Gestapo, and director of the German economy.
Yes, all of the above, capitalism is a cancer, and it is better to whine and moan and support suicide bombers for their resistance rather than support modification and campaign for re-distribution.
But that takes nuance and real sweat and hard work – there is no glamour or international attention to be ganied by doing that, working at the coal face.
No – it is better to fight against the evil Satanic capitalism as represented by hook nosed Uncle Sam come to rape our virginal Indian culture and poor, better to stomp our feet than work to do something CONSTRUCTIVE at the coal face of Indian politics and life, better to scream and scream and thrill middle class Marxists fat from the cream of American and British society who get a thrill at the whiff of revolution. And of course, doing practical, constructive politics and coalface campaigning to ammeliorate the excesses of business and ensure wealth is distributed and invested in health, litearacy and infrastructure programnmes, that is not going to get you invited to San Fransisco, is it?
No it isnt. Better to rant like Don Quixote at the windmills of global-capitalism, because doing something constructive would involve using an INTELLECT, which only Arundhati Roy of Arc possesses.
Lets cheer the suicide bombers! Hooray for the suicide bombers and their resistance!
Bless us Saint Arundhati of Roy, give us HOPE from your halo and beauty, let us worship you and save us from the disgusting grubby capitalists, only you can save us! Our five star activism is being mocked!
Maybe the suicide bombers can rescue us?
So how do you cure the disease of poverty? Wallow in the mud of poverty from your five star activist academic post and jet set lecturing circuit, or create wealth and incentivise business? So maybe you campaign for re-distribution, instead of declaring a HOLY WAR against capitalism? You mean, you want to scream and scream against the capitalists until you are sick?
Well, fair enough. But maybe the right answer, in that case, is to have that discussion in a constructive, vigorous and yet open, civil way, rather than to respond by “screaming and screaming at [people like Arundhati Roy about barbarians and five-star activists] until you are sick.”