Confronting
EMPIRE
By
Arundhati Roy
Porto
Alegre, Brazil, January 27, 2003
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pdf.file
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I've
been asked to speak about "How to confront Empire?" It's a
huge question, and I have no easy answers.
When
we speak of confronting "Empire," we need to identify what
"Empire" means. Does it mean the U.S. Government (and its
European satellites), the World Bank, the International
Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, and
multinational corporations? Or is it something more than
that?
In
many countries, Empire has sprouted other subsidiary heads,
some dangerous byproducts - nationalism, religious bigotry,
fascism and, of course terrorism. All these march arm in arm
with the project of corporate globalization.
Let
me illustrate what I mean. India - the world's biggest
democracy - is currently at the forefront of the corporate
globalization project. Its "market" of one billion people is
being prized open by the WTO. Corporatization and
Privatization are being welcomed by the Government and the
Indian elite.
It
is not a coincidence that the Prime Minister, the Home
Minister, the Disinvestment Minister - the men who signed
the deal with Enron in India, the men who are selling the
country's infrastructure to corporate multinationals, the
men who want to privatize water, electricity, oil, coal,
steel, health, education and telecommunication - are all
members or admirers of the RSS. The RSS is a right wing,
ultra-nationalist Hindu guild which has openly admired
Hitler and his methods.
The
dismantling of democracy is proceeding with the speed and
efficiency of a Structural Adjustment Program. While the
project of corporate globalization rips through people's
lives in India, massive privatization, and labor "reforms"
are pushing people off their land and out of their jobs.
Hundreds of impoverished farmers are committing suicide by
consuming pesticide. Reports of starvation deaths are coming
in from all over the country.
While
the elite journeys to its imaginary destination somewhere
near the top of the world, the dispossessed are spiraling
downwards into crime and chaos. This climate of frustration
and national disillusionment is the perfect breeding ground,
history tells us, for fascism.
The
two arms of the Indian Government have evolved the perfect
pincer action. While one arm is busy selling India off in
chunks, the other, to divert attention, is orchestrating a
howling, baying chorus of Hindu nationalism and religious
fascism. It is conducting nuclear tests, rewriting history
books, burning churches, and demolishing mosques.
Censorship, surveillance, the suspension of civil liberties
and human rights, the definition of who is an Indian citizen
and who is not, particularly with regard to religious
minorities, is becoming common practice now.
Last
March, in the state of Gujarat, two thousand Muslims were
butchered in a State-sponsored pogrom. Muslim women were
specially targeted. They were stripped, and gang-raped,
before being burned alive. Arsonists burned and looted
shops, homes, textiles mills, and mosques.
More
than a hundred and fifty thousand Muslims have been driven
from their homes. The economic base of the Muslim community
has been devastated.
While
Gujarat burned, the Indian Prime Minister was on MTV
promoting his new poems. In January this year, the
Government that orchestrated the killing was voted back into
office with a comfortable majority. Nobody has been punished
for the genocide. Narendra Modi, architect of the pogrom,
proud member of the RSS, has embarked on his second term as
the Chief Minister of Gujarat. If he were Saddam Hussein, of
course each atrocity would have been on CNN. But since he's
not - and since the Indian "market" is open to global
investors - the massacre is not even an embarrassing
inconvenience.
There
are more than one hundred million Muslims in India. A time
bomb is ticking in our ancient land.
All
this to say that it is a myth that the free market breaks
down national barriers. The free market does not threaten
national sovereignty, it undermines democracy.
As
the disparity between the rich and the poor grows, the fight
to corner resources is intensifying. To push through their
"sweetheart deals," to corporatize the crops we grow, the
water we drink, the air we breathe, and the dreams we dream,
corporate globalization needs an international confederation
of loyal, corrupt, authoritarian governments in poorer
countries to push through unpopular reforms and quell the
mutinies.
Corporate
Globalization - or shall we call it by its name? -
Imperialism - needs a press that pretends to be free. It
needs courts that pretend to dispense justice.
Meanwhile,
the countries of the North harden their borders and
stockpile weapons of mass destruction. After all they have
to make sure that it's only money, goods, patents and
services that are globalized. Not the free movement of
people. Not a respect for human rights. Not international
treaties on racial discrimination or chemical and nuclear
weapons or greenhouse gas emissions or climate change, or -
god forbid - justice.
So
this - all this - is "empire." This loyal confederation,
this obscene accumulation of power, this greatly increased
distance between those who make the decisions and those who
have to suffer them.
Our
fight, our goal, our vision of Another World must be to
eliminate that distance.
So
how do we resist "Empire"?
The
good news is that we're not doing too badly. There have been
major victories. Here in Latin America you have had so many
- in Bolivia, you have Cochabamba. In Peru, there was the
uprising in Arequipa, In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez is
holding on, despite the U.S. government's best efforts.
And
the world's gaze is on the people of Argentina, who are
trying to refashion a country from the ashes of the havoc
wrought by the IMF.
In
India the movement against corporate globalization is
gathering momentum and is poised to become the only real
political force to counter religious fascism.
As
for corporate globalization's glittering ambassadors -
Enron, Bechtel, WorldCom, Arthur Anderson - where were they
last year, and where are they now?
And
of course here in Brazil we must ask ...who was the
president last year, and who is it now?
Still
... many of us have dark moments of hopelessness and
despair. We know that under the spreading canopy of the War
Against Terrorism, the men in suits are hard at work.
While
bombs rain down on us, and cruise missiles skid across the
skies, we know that contracts are being signed, patents are
being registered, oil pipelines are being laid, natural
resources are being plundered, water is being privatized,
and George Bush is planning to go to war against Iraq.
If
we look at this conflict as a straightforward eye-ball to
eye-ball confrontation between "Empire" and those of us who
are resisting it, it might seem that we are losing.
But
there is another way of looking at it. We, all of us
gathered here, have, each in our own way, laid siege to
"Empire."
We
may not have stopped it in its tracks - yet - but we have
stripped it down. We have made it drop its mask. We have
forced it into the open. It now stands before us on the
world's stage in all it's brutish, iniquitous nakedness.
Empire
may well go to war, but it's out in the open now - too ugly
to behold its own reflection. Too ugly even to rally its own
people. It won't be long before the majority of American
people become our allies.
Only
a few days ago in Washington, a quarter of a million people
marched against the war on Iraq. Each month, the protest is
gathering momentum.
Before
September 11th 2001 America had a secret history. Secret
especially from its own people. But now America's secrets
are history, and its history is public knowledge. It's
street talk.
Today,
we know that every argument that is being used to escalate
the war against Iraq is a lie. The most ludicrous of them
being the U.S. Government's deep commitment to bring
democracy to Iraq.
Killing
people to save them from dictatorship or ideological
corruption is, of course, an old U.S. government sport. Here
in Latin America, you know that better than most.
Nobody
doubts that Saddam Hussein is a ruthless dictator, a
murderer (whose worst excesses were supported by the
governments of the United States and Great Britain). There's
no doubt that Iraqis would be better off without him.
But,
then, the whole world would be better off without a certain
Mr. Bush. In fact, he is far more dangerous than Saddam
Hussein.
So,
should we bomb Bush out of the White House?
It's
more than clear that Bush is determined to go to war against
Iraq, regardless of the facts - and regardless of
international public opinion.
In
its recruitment drive for allies, The United States is
prepared to invent facts.
The
charade with weapons inspectors is the U.S. government's
offensive, insulting concession to some twisted form of
international etiquette. It's like leaving the "doggie door"
open for last minute "allies" or maybe the United Nations to
crawl through.
But
for all intents and purposes, the New War against Iraq has
begun.
What
can we do?
We
can hone our memory, we can learn from our history. We can
continue to build public opinion until it becomes a
deafening roar.
We
can turn the war on Iraq into a fishbowl of the U.S.
government's excesses.
We
can expose George Bush and Tony Blair - and their allies -
for the cowardly baby killers, water poisoners, and
pusillanimous long-distance bombers that they are.
We
can re-invent civil disobedience in a million different
ways. In other words, we can come up with a million ways of
becoming a collective pain in the ass.
When
George Bush says "you're either with us, or you are with the
terrorists" we can say "No thank you." We can let him know
that the people of the world do not need to choose between a
Malevolent Mickey Mouse and the Mad Mullahs.
Our
strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay
siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock
it. With our art, our music, our literature, our
stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer
relentlessness - and our ability to tell our own stories.
Stories that are different from the ones we're being
brainwashed to believe.
The
corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what
they are selling - their ideas, their version of history,
their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability.
Remember
this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we
need them.
Another
world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet
day, I can hear her breathing.
Emanzipation
Humanum,
version 01. 2003, Criticism, suggestions as to form and
content, dialogue, translation into other languages are all
desired
http://emanzipationhumanum.de/english/roy01.html
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