Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Buy One, Get One Free

Arundhati Roy | 22.05.2003 09:55

Penetrating analysis of US Imperialism by a troublesome native.

Here is a new ZNet Update for you...
> For this message, we mostly wanted to convey a new essay by Arundhati
> Roy, as well as news of her new South End Press book.
>
> About the book, in it Arundhati Roy examines democracy and dissent,
> racism and empire, and war and peace. The book highlights the global
> rise of religious and racial violence condeming militarism and
> nationalism.
>
> Fully annotated versions of all Roy's most recent essays, including
> her Lannan Foundation lecture from September 2002 and her January
2003
> address to the World Social Forum in Brazil, are included in War
Talk.
> Text of her May 13 address at the Riverside Church in New York City
is
> available at the website of the Center for Economic and Social
> Rights,  http://www.cesr.org/roy/ and is included below.
>
> For more information on War Talk, please go to
>  http://www.southendpress.org/books/wartalk.shtml
>
>
> Buy One, Get One Free
> By Arundhati Roy
>
> In these times, when we have to race to keep abreast of the speed at
> which our freedoms are being snatched from us, and when few can
afford
> the luxury of retreating from the streets for a while in order to
> return with an exquisite, fully formed political thesis replete with
> footnotes and references, what profound gift can I offer you tonight?
>
> As we lurch from crisis to crisis, beamed directly into our brains by
> satellite TV, we have to think on our feet. On the move. We enter
> histories through the rubble of war. Ruined cities, parched fields,
> shrinking forests, and dying rivers are our archives. Craters left by
> daisy cutters, our libraries.
>
> So what can I offer you tonight? Some uncomfortable thoughts about
> money, war, empire, racism, and democracy. Some worries that flit
> around my brain like a family of persistent moths that keep me awake
> at night.
>
> Some of you will think it bad manners for a person like me,
officially
> entered in the Big Book of Modern Nations as an "Indian citizen," to
> come here and criticize the U.S. government. Speaking for myself, I'm
> no flag-waver, no patriot, and am fully aware that venality,
> brutality, and hypocrisy are imprinted on the leaden soul of every
> state. But when a country ceases to be merely a country and becomes
an
> empire, then the scale of operations changes dramatically. So may I
> clarify that tonight I speak as a subject of the American Empire? I
> speak as a slave who presumes to criticize her king.
>
> Since lectures must be called something, mine tonight is called:
> Instant-Mix Imperial Democracy (Buy One, Get One Free).
>
> Way back in 1988, on the 3rd of July, the U.S.S. Vincennes, a missile
> cruiser stationed in the Persian Gulf, accidentally shot down an
> Iranian airliner and killed 290 civilian passengers. George Bush the
> First, who was at the time on his presidential campaign, was asked to
> comment on the incident. He said quite subtly, "I will never
apologize
> for the United States. I don't care what the facts are."
>
> I don't care what the facts are. What a perfect maxim for the New
> American Empire. Perhaps a slight variation on the theme would be
more
> apposite: The facts can be whatever we want them to be.
>
> When the United States invaded Iraq, a New York Times/CBS News survey
> estimated that 42 percent of the American public believed that Saddam
> Hussein was directly responsible for the September 11th attacks on
the
> World Trade Center and the Pentagon. And an ABC News poll said that
55
> percent of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein directly supported
> Al Qaida. None of this opinion is based on evidence (because there
> isn't any). All of it is based on insinuation, auto-suggestion, and
> outright lies circulated by the U.S. corporate media, otherwise known
> as the "Free Press," that hollow pillar on which contemporary
American
> democracy rests.
>
> Public support in the U.S. for the war against Iraq was founded on a
> multi-tiered edifice of falsehood and deceit, coordinated by the U.S.
> government and faithfully amplified by the corporate media.
>
> Apart from the invented links between Iraq and Al Qaida, we had the
> manufactured frenzy about Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction. George
> Bush the Lesser went to the extent of saying it would be "suicidal"
> for the U.S. not to attack Iraq. We once again witnessed the paranoia
> that a starved, bombed, besieged country was about to annihilate
> almighty America. (Iraq was only the latest in a succession of
> countries - earlier there was Cuba, Nicaragua, Libya, Grenada, and
> Panama.) But this time it wasn't just your ordinary brand of friendly
> neighborhood frenzy. It was Frenzy with a Purpose. It ushered in an
> old doctrine in a new bottle: the Doctrine of Pre-emptive Strike,
> a.k.a. The United States Can Do Whatever The Hell It Wants, And
That's
> Official.
>
> The war against Iraq has been fought and won and no Weapons of Mass
> Destruction have been found. Not even a little one. Perhaps they'll
> have to be planted before they're discovered. And then, the more
> troublesome amongst us will need an explanation for why Saddam
Hussein
> didn't use them when his country was being invaded.
>
> Of course, there'll be no answers. True Believers will make do with
> those fuzzy TV reports about the discovery of a few barrels of banned
> chemicals in an old shed. There seems to be no consensus yet about
> whether they're really chemicals, whether they're actually banned and
> whether the vessels they're contained in can technically be called
> barrels. (There were unconfirmed rumours that a teaspoonful of
> potassium permanganate and an old harmonica were found there too.)
>
> Meanwhile, in passing, an ancient civilization has been casually
> decimated by a very recent, casually brutal nation.
>
> Then there are those who say, so what if Iraq had no chemical and
> nuclear weapons? So what if there is no Al Qaida connection? So what
> if Osama bin Laden hates Saddam Hussein as much as he hates the
United
> States? Bush the Lesser has said Saddam Hussein was a "Homicidal
> Dictator." And so, the reasoning goes, Iraq needed a "regime change."
>
> Never mind that forty years ago, the CIA, under President John F.
> Kennedy, orchestrated a regime change in Baghdad. In 1963, after a
> successful coup, the Ba'ath party came to power in Iraq. Using lists
> provided by the CIA, the new Ba'ath regime systematically eliminated
> hundreds of doctors, teachers, lawyers, and political figures known
to
> be leftists. An entire intellectual community was slaughtered. (The
> same technique was used to massacre hundreds of thousands of people
in
> Indonesia and East Timor.) The young Saddam Hussein was said to have
> had a hand in supervising the bloodbath. In 1979, after factional
> infighting within the Ba'ath Party, Saddam Hussein became the
> President of Iraq. In April 1980, while he was massacring Shias, the
> U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinksi declared, "We see
> no fundamental incompatibility of interests between the United States
> and Iraq." Washington and London overtly and covertly supported
Saddam
> Hussein. They financed him, equipped him, armed him, and provided him
> with dual-use materials to manufacture weapons of mass destruction.
> They supported his worst excesses financially, materially, and
> morally. They supported the eight-year war against Iran and the 1988
> gassing of Kurdish people in Halabja, crimes which 14 years later
were
> re-heated and served up as reasons to justify invading Iraq. After
the
> first Gulf War, the "Allies" fomented an uprising of Shias in Basra
> and then looked away while Saddam Hussein crushed the revolt and
> slaughtered thousands in an act of vengeful reprisal.
>
> The point is, if Saddam Hussein was evil enough to merit the most
> elaborate, openly declared assassination attempt in history (the
> opening move of Operation Shock and Awe), then surely those who
> supported him ought at least to be tried for war crimes? Why aren't
> the faces of U.S. and U.K. government officials on the infamous pack
> of cards of wanted men and women?
>
> Because when it comes to Empire, facts don't matter.
>
> Yes, but all that's in the past we're told. Saddam Hussein is a
> monster who must be stopped now. And only the U.S. can stop him. It's
> an effective technique, this use of the urgent morality of the
present
> to obscure the diabolical sins of the past and the malevolent plans
> for the future. Indonesia, Panama, Nicaragua, Iraq, Afghanistan - the
> list goes on and on. Right now there are brutal regimes being groomed
> for the future - Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan, the Central
> Asian Republics.
>
> U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft recently declared that U.S.
> freedoms are "not the grant of any government or document, but....our
> endowment from God." (Why bother with the United Nations when God
> himself is on hand?)
>
> So here we are, the people of the world, confronted with an Empire
> armed with a mandate from heaven (and, as added insurance, the most
> formidable arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in history). Here
we
> are, confronted with an Empire that has conferred upon itself the
> right to go to war at will, and the right to deliver people from
> corrupting ideologies, from religious fundamentalists, dictators,
> sexism, and poverty by the age-old, tried-and-tested practice of
> extermination. Empire is on the move, and Democracy is its sly new
war
> cry. Democracy, home-delivered to your doorstep by daisy cutters.
> Death is a small price for people to pay for the privilege of
sampling
> this new product: Instant-Mix Imperial Democracy (bring to a boil,
add
> oil, then bomb).
>
> But then perhaps chinks, negroes, dinks, gooks, and wogs don't really
> qualify as real people. Perhaps our deaths don't qualify as real
> deaths. Our histories don't qualify as history. They never have.
>
> Speaking of history, in these past months, while the world watched,
> the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq was broadcast on live TV.
> Like Osama bin Laden and the Taliban in Afghanistan, the regime of
> Saddam Hussein simply disappeared. This was followed by what analysts
> called a "power vacuum." Cities that had been under siege, without
> food, water, and electricity for days, cities that had been bombed
> relentlessly, people who had been starved and systematically
> impoverished by the UN sanctions regime for more than a decade, were
> suddenly left with no semblance of urban administration. A
> seven-thousand-year-old civilization slid into anarchy. On live TV.
>
> Vandals plundered shops, offices, hotels, and hospitals. American and
> British soldiers stood by and watched. They said they had no orders
to
> act. In effect, they had orders to kill people, but not to protect
> them. Their priorities were clear. The safety and security of Iraqi
> people was not their business. The security of whatever little
> remained of Iraq's infrastructure was not their business. But the
> security and safety of Iraq's oil fields were. Of course they were.
> The oil fields were "secured" almost before the invasion began.
>
> On CNN and BBC the scenes of the rampage were played and replayed. TV
> commentators, army and government spokespersons portrayed it as a
> "liberated people" venting their rage at a despotic regime. U.S.
> Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said: "It's untidy. Freedom's
untidy
> and free people are free to commit crimes and make mistakes and do
bad
> things." Did anybody know that Donald Rumsfeld was an anarchist? I
> wonder - did he hold the same view during the riots in Los Angeles
> following the beating of Rodney King? Would he care to share his
> thesis about the Untidiness of Freedom with the two million people
> being held in U.S. prisons right now? (The world's "freest" country
> has the highest number of prisoners in the world.) Would he discuss
> its merits with young African American men, 28 percent of whom will
> spend some part of their adult lives in jail? Could he explain why he
> serves under a president who oversaw 152 executions when he was
> governor of Texas?
>
> Before the war on Iraq began, the Office of Reconstruction and
> Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) sent the Pentagon a list of 16 crucial
> sites to protect. The National Museum was second on that list. Yet
the
> Museum was not just looted, it was desecrated. It was a repository of
> an ancient cultural heritage. Iraq as we know it today was part of
the
> river valley of Mesopotamia. The civilization that grew along the
> banks of the Tigris and the Euphrates produced the world's first
> writing, first calendar, first library, first city, and, yes, the
> world's first democracy. King Hammurabi of Babylon was the first to
> codify laws governing the social life of citizens. It was a code in
> which abandoned women, prostitutes, slaves, and even animals had
> rights. The Hammurabi code is acknowledged not just as the birth of
> legality, but the beginning of an understanding of the concept of
> social justice. The U.S. government could not have chosen a more
> inappropriate land in which to stage its illegal war and display its
> grotesque disregard for justice.
>
> At a Pentagon briefing during the days of looting, Secretary
Rumsfeld,
> Prince of Darkness, turned on his media cohorts who had served him so
> loyally through the war. "The images you are seeing on television,
you
> are seeing over and over and over, and it's the same picture, of some
> person walking out of some building with a vase, and you see it
twenty
> times and you say, 'My god, were there that many vases? Is it
possible
> that there were that many vases in the whole country?'"
>
> Laughter rippled through the press room. Would it be alright for the
> poor of Harlem to loot the Metropolitan Museum? Would it be greeted
> with similar mirth?
>
> The last building on the ORHA list of 16 sites to be protected was
the
> Ministry of Oil. It was the only one that was given protection.
> Perhaps the occupying army thought that in Muslim countries lists are
> read upside down?
>
> Television tells us that Iraq has been "liberated" and that
> Afghanistan is well on its way to becoming a paradise for
women-thanks
> to Bush and Blair, the 21st century's leading feminists. In reality,
> Iraq's infrastructure has been destroyed. Its people brought to the
> brink of starvation. Its food stocks depleted. And its cities
> devastated by a complete administrative breakdown. Iraq is being
> ushered in the direction of a civil war between Shias and Sunnis.
> Meanwhile, Afghanistan has lapsed back into the pre-Taliban era of
> anarchy, and its territory has been carved up into fiefdoms by
hostile
> warlords.
>
> Undaunted by all this, on the 2nd of May Bush the Lesser launched his
> 2004 campaign hoping to be finally elected U.S. President. In what
> probably constitutes the shortest flight in history, a military jet
> landed on an aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, which was
> so close to shore that, according to the Associated Press,
> administration officials acknowledged "positioning the massive ship
to
> provide the best TV angle for Bush's speech, with the sea as his
> background instead of the San Diego coastline." President Bush, who
> never served his term in the military, emerged from the cockpit in
> fancy dress - a U.S. military bomber jacket, combat boots, flying
> goggles, helmet. Waving to his cheering troops, he officially
> proclaimed victory over Iraq. He was careful to say that it was "just
> one victory in a war on terror ... [which] still goes on."
>
> It was important to avoid making a straightforward victory
> announcement, because under the Geneva Convention a victorious army
is
> bound by the legal obligations of an occupying force, a
responsibility
> that the Bush administration does not want to burden itself with.
> Also, closer to the 2004 elections, in order to woo wavering voters,
> another victory in the "War on Terror" might become necessary. Syria
> is being fattened for the kill.
>
> It was Herman Goering, that old Nazi, who said, "People can always be
> brought to the bidding of the leaders.... All you have to do is tell
> them they're being attacked and denounce the pacifists for a lack of
> patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way
> in any country."
>
> He's right. It's dead easy. That's what the Bush regime banks on. The
> distinction between election campaigns and war, between democracy and
> oligarchy, seems to be closing fast.
>
> The only caveat in these campaign wars is that U.S. lives must not be
> lost. It shakes voter confidence. But the problem of U.S. soldiers
> being killed in combat has been licked. More or less.
>
> At a media briefing before Operation Shock and Awe was unleashed,
> General Tommy Franks announced, "This campaign will be like no other
> in history." Maybe he's right.
>
> I'm no military historian, but when was the last time a war was
fought
> like this?
>
> After using the "good offices" of UN diplomacy (economic sanctions
and
> weapons inspections) to ensure that Iraq was brought to its knees,
its
> people starved, half a million children dead, its infrastructure
> severely damaged, after making sure that most of its weapons had been
> destroyed, in an act of cowardice that must surely be unrivalled in
> history, the "Coalition of the Willing" (better known as the
Coalition
> of the Bullied and Bought) - sent in an invading army!
>
> Operation Iraqi Freedom? I don't think so. It was more like Operation
> Let's Run a Race, but First Let Me Break Your Knees.
>
> As soon as the war began, the governments of France, Germany, and
> Russia, which refused to allow a final resolution legitimizing the
war
> to be passed in the UN Security Council, fell over each other to say
> how much they wanted the United States to win. President Jacques
> Chirac offered French airspace to the Anglo-American air force. U.S.
> military bases in Germany were open for business. German Foreign
> Minister Joschka Fischer publicly hoped for the "rapid collapse" of
> the Saddam Hussein regime. Vladimir Putin publicly hoped for the
same.
> These are governments that colluded in the enforced disarming of Iraq
> before their dastardly rush to take the side of those who attacked
it.
> Apart from hoping to share the spoils, they hoped Empire would honor
> their pre-war oil contracts with Iraq. Only the very naïve could
> expect old Imperialists to behave otherwise.
>
> Leaving aside the cheap thrills and the lofty moral speeches made in
> the UN during the run up to the war, eventually, at the moment of
> crisis, the unity of Western governments - despite the opposition
from
> the majority of their people - was overwhelming.
>
> When the Turkish government temporarily bowed to the views of 90
> percent of its population, and turned down the U.S. government's
offer
> of billions of dollars of blood money for the use of Turkish soil, it
> was accused of lacking "democratic principles." According to a Gallup
> International poll, in no European country was support for a war
> carried out "unilaterally by America and its allies" higher than 11
> percent. But the governments of England, Italy, Spain, Hungary, and
> other countries of Eastern Europe were praised for disregarding the
> views of the majority of their people and supporting the illegal
> invasion. That, presumably, was fully in keeping with democratic
> principles. What's it called? New Democracy? (Like Britain's New
> Labour?)
>
> In stark contrast to the venality displayed by their governments, on
> the 15th of February, weeks before the invasion, in the most
> spectacular display of public morality the world has ever seen, more
> than 10 million people marched against the war on 5 continents. Many
> of you, I'm sure, were among them. They - we - were disregarded with
> utter disdain. When asked to react to the anti-war demonstrations,
> President Bush said, "It's like deciding, well, I'm going to decide
> policy based upon a focus group. The role of a leader is to decide
> policy based upon the security, in this case the security of the
> people."Democracy, the modern world's holy cow, is in crisis. And the
> crisis is a profound one. Every kind of outrage is being committed in
> the name of democracy. It has become little more than a hollow word,
a
> pretty shell, emptied of all content or meaning. It can be whatever
> you want it to be. Democracy is the Free World's whore, willing to
> dress up, dress down, willing to satisfy a whole range of taste,
> available to be used and abused at will.
>
> Until quite recently, right up to the 1980's, democracy did seem as
> though it might actually succeed in delivering a degree of real
social
> justice.
>
> But modern democracies have been around for long enough for
> neo-liberal capitalists to learn how to subvert them. They have
> mastered the technique of infiltrating the instruments of democracy -
> the "independent" judiciary, the "free" press, the parliament - and
> molding them to their purpose. The project of corporate globalization
> has cracked the code. Free elections, a free press, and an
independent
> judiciary mean little when the free market has reduced them to
> commodities on sale to the highest bidder.
>
> To fully comprehend the extent to which Democracy is under siege, it
> might be an idea to look at what goes on in some of our contemporary
> democracies. The World's Largest: India, (which I have written about
> at some length and therefore will not speak about tonight). The
> World's Most Interesting: South Africa. The world's most powerful:
the
> U.S.A. And, most instructive of all, the plans that are being made to
> usher in the world's newest: Iraq.
>
> In South Africa, after 300 years of brutal domination of the black
> majority by a white minority through colonialism and apartheid, a
> non-racial, multi-party democracy came to power in 1994. It was a
> phenomenal achievement. Within two years of coming to power, the
> African National Congress had genuflected with no caveats to the
> Market God. Its massive program of structural adjustment,
> privatization, and liberalization has only increased the hideous
> disparities between the rich and the poor. More than a million people
> have lost their jobs. The corporatization of basic services -
> electricity, water, and housing-has meant that 10 million South
> Africans, almost a quarter of the population, have been disconnected
> from water and electricity. 2 million have been evicted from their
> homes.
>
> Meanwhile, a small white minority that has been historically
> privileged by centuries of brutal exploitation is more secure than
> ever before. They continue to control the land, the farms, the
> factories, and the abundant natural resources of that country. For
> them the transition from apartheid to neo-liberalism barely disturbed
> the grass. It's apartheid with a clean conscience. And it goes by the
> name of Democracy.
>
> Democracy has become Empire's euphemism for neo-liberal capitalism.
>
> In countries of the first world, too, the machinery of democracy has
> been effectively subverted. Politicians, media barons, judges,
> powerful corporate lobbies, and government officials are imbricated
in
> an elaborate underhand configuration that completely undermines the
> lateral arrangement of checks and balances between the constitution,
> courts of law, parliament, the administration and, perhaps most
> important of all, the independent media that form the structural
basis
> of a parliamentary democracy. Increasingly, the imbrication is
neither
> subtle nor elaborate.
>
> Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, for instance, has a
> controlling interest in major Italian newspapers, magazines,
> television channels, and publishing houses. The Financial Times
> reported that he controls about 90 percent of Italy's TV viewership.
> Recently, during a trial on bribery charges, while insisting he was
> the only person who could save Italy from the left, he said, "How
much
> longer do I have to keep living this life of sacrifices?" That bodes
> ill for the remaining 10 percent of Italy's TV viewership. What price
> Free Speech? Free Speech for whom?
>
> In the United States, the arrangement is more complex. Clear Channel
> Worldwide Incorporated is the largest radio station owner in the
> country. It runs more than 1,200 channels, which together account for
> 9 percent of the market. Its CEO contributed hundreds of thousands of
> dollars to Bush's election campaign. When hundreds of thousands of
> American citizens took to the streets to protest against the war on
> Iraq, Clear Channel organized pro-war patriotic "Rallies for America"
> across the country. It used its radio stations to advertise the
events
> and then sent correspondents to cover them as though they were
> breaking news. The era of manufacturing consent has given way to the
> era of manufacturing news. Soon media newsrooms will drop the
> pretense, and start hiring theatre directors instead of journalists.
>
> As America's show business gets more and more violent and war-like,
> and America's wars get more and more like show business, some
> interesting cross-overs are taking place. The designer who built the
> 250,000 dollar set in Qatar from which General Tommy Franks
> stage-managed news coverage of Operation Shock and Awe also built
sets
> for Disney, MGM, and "Good Morning America."
>
> It is a cruel irony that the U.S., which has the most ardent,
> vociferous defenders of the idea of Free Speech, and (until recently)
> the most elaborate legislation to protect it, has so circumscribed
the
> space in which that freedom can be expressed. In a strange,
convoluted
> way, the sound and fury that accompanies the legal and conceptual
> defense of Free Speech in America serves to mask the process of the
> rapid erosion of the possibilities of actually exercising that >
freedom.
>
> The news and entertainment industry in the U.S. is for the most part
> controlled by a few major corporations - AOL-Time Warner, Disney,
> Viacom, News Corporation. Each of these corporations owns and
controls
> TV stations, film studios, record companies, and publishing ventures.
> Effectively, the exits are sealed.
>
> America's media empire is controlled by a tiny coterie of people.
> Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission Michael Powell, the
> son of Secretary of State Colin Powell, has proposed even further
> deregulation of the communication industry, which will lead to even
> greater consolidation.
>
> So here it is - the World's Greatest Democracy, led by a man who was
> not legally elected. America's Supreme Court gifted him his job. What
> price have American people paid for this spurious presidency?
>
> In the three years of George Bush the Lesser's term, the American
> economy has lost more than two million jobs. Outlandish military
> expenses, corporate welfare, and tax giveaways to the rich have
> created a financial crisis for the U.S. educational system. According
> to a survey by the National Council of State Legislatures, U.S.
states
> cut 49 billion dollars in public services, health, welfare benefits,
> and education in 2002. They plan to cut another 25.7 billion dollars
> this year. That makes a total of 75 billion dollars. Bush's initial
> budget request to Congress to finance the war in Iraq was 80 billion
> dollars.
>
> So who's paying for the war? America's poor. Its students, its
> unemployed, its single mothers, its hospital and home-care patients,
> its teachers, and health workers.
>
> And who's actually fighting the war?
>
> Once again, America's poor. The soldiers who are baking in Iraq's
> desert sun are not the children of the rich. Only one of all the
> representatives in the House of Representatives and the Senate has a
> child fighting in Iraq. America's "volunteer" army in fact depends on
> a poverty draft of poor whites, Blacks, Latinos, and Asians looking
> for a way to earn a living and get an education. Federal statistics
> show that African Americans make up 21 percent of the total armed
> forces and 29 percent of the U.S. army. They count for only 12
percent
> of the general population. It's ironic, isn't it - the
> disproportionately high representation of African Americans in the
> army and prison? Perhaps we should take a positive view, and look at
> this as affirmative action at its most effective. Nearly 4 million
> Americans (2 percent of the population) have lost the right to vote
> because of felony convictions. Of that number, 1.4 million are
African
> Americans, which means that 13 percent of all voting-age Black people
> have been disenfranchised.
>
> For African Americans there's also affirmative action in death. A
> study by the economist Amartya Sen shows that African Americans as a
> group have a lower life expectancy than people born in China, in the
> Indian State of Kerala (where I come from), Sri Lanka, or Costa Rica.
> Bangladeshi men have a better chance of making it to the age of forty
> than African American men from here in Harlem.
>
> This year, on what would have been Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 74th
> birthday, President Bush denounced the University of Michigan's
> affirmative action program favouring Blacks and Latinos. He called it
> "divisive," "unfair," and "unconstitutional." The successful effort
to
> keep Blacks off the voting rolls in the State of Florida in order
that
> George Bush be elected was of course neither unfair nor
> unconstitutional. I don't suppose affirmative action for White Boys
> From Yale ever is.
>
> So we know who's paying for the war. We know who's fighting it. But
> who will benefit from it? Who is homing in on the reconstruction
> contracts estimated to be worth up to one hundred billon dollars?
> Could it be America's poor and unemployed and sick? Could it be
> America's single mothers? Or America's Black and Latino minorities?
>
> Operation Iraqi Freedom, George Bush assures us, is about returning
> Iraqi oil to the Iraqi people. That is, returning Iraqi oil to the
> Iraqi people via Corporate Multinationals. Like Bechtel, like
Chevron,
> like Halliburton.
>
> Once again, it is a small, tight circle that connects corporate,
> military, and government leadership to one another. The
> promiscuousness, the cross-pollination is outrageous.
>
> Consider this: the Defense Policy Board is a government-appointed
> group that advises the Pentagon. Its members are appointed by the
> under secretary of defense and approved by Donald Rumsfeld. Its
> meetings are classified. No information is available for public
> scrutiny.
>
> The Washington-based Center for Public Integrity found that 9 out of
> the 30 members of the Defense Policy Board are connected to companies
> that were awarded defense contracts worth 76 billion dollars between
> the years 2001 and 2002. One of them, Jack Sheehan, a retired Marine
> Corps general, is a senior vice president at Bechtel, the giant
> international engineering outfit. Riley Bechtel, the company
chairman,
> is on the President's Export Council. Former Secretary of State
George
> Shultz, who is also on the Board of Directors of the Bechtel Group,
is
> the chairman of the advisory board of the Committee for the
Liberation
> of Iraq. When asked by the New York Times whether he was concerned
> about the appearance of a conflict of interest, he said, "I don't
know
> that Bechtel would particularly benefit from it. But if there's work
> to be done, Bechtel is the type of company that could do it."
>
> Bechtel has been awarded a 680 million dollar reconstruction contract
> in Iraq. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Bechtel
> contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republican campaign
> efforts.
>
> Arcing across this subterfuge, dwarfing it by the sheer magnitude of
> its malevolence, is America's anti-terrorism legislation. The U.S.A.
> Patriot Act, passed in October 2001, has become the blueprint for
> similar anti-terrorism bills in countries across the world. It was
> passed in the House of Representatives by a majority vote of 337 to
> 79. According to the New York Times, "Many lawmakers said it had been
> impossible to truly debate or even read the legislation."
>
> The Patriot Act ushers in an era of systemic automated surveillance.
> It gives the government the authority to monitor phones and computers
> and spy on people in ways that would have seemed completely
> unacceptable a few years ago. It gives the FBI the power to seize all
> of the circulation, purchasing, and other records of library users
and
> bookstore customers on the suspicion that they are part of a
terrorist
> network. It blurs the boundaries between speech and criminal activity
> creating the space to construe acts of civil disobedience as
violating
> the law.
>
> Already hundreds of people are being held indefinitely as "unlawful
> combatants." (In India, the number is in the thousands. In Israel,
> 5,000 Palestinians are now being detained.) Non-citizens, of course,
> have no rights at all. They can simply be "disappeared" like the
> people of Chile under Washington's old ally, General Pinochet. More
> than 1,000 people, many of them Muslim or of Middle Eastern origin,
> have been detained, some without access to legal representatives.
>
> Apart from paying the actual economic costs of war, American people
> are paying for these wars of "liberation" with their own freedoms.
For
> the ordinary American, the price of "New Democracy" in other
countries
> is the death of real democracy at home.
>
> Meanwhile, Iraq is being groomed for "liberation." (Or did they mean
> "liberalization" all along?) The Wall Street Journal reports that
"the
> Bush administration has drafted sweeping plans to remake Iraq's
> economy in the U.S. image."
>
> Iraq's constitution is being redrafted. Its trade laws, tax laws, and
> intellectual property laws rewritten in order to turn it into an
> American-style capitalist economy.
>
> The United States Agency for International Development has invited
> U.S. companies to bid for contracts that range between road building,
> water systems, text book distribution, and cell phone networks.
>
> Soon after Bush the Second announced that he wanted American farmers
> to feed the world, Dan Amstutz, a former senior executive of Cargill,
> the biggest grain exporter in the world, was put in charge of
> agricultural reconstruction in Iraq. Kevin Watkins, Oxfam's policy
> director, said, "Putting Dan Amstutz in charge of agricultural
> reconstruction in Iraq is like putting Saddam Hussein in the chair of
> a human rights commission."
>
> The two men who have been short-listed to run operations for managing
> Iraqi oil have worked with Shell, BP, and Fluor. Fluor is embroiled
in
> a lawsuit by black South African workers who have accused the company
> of exploiting and brutalizing them during the apartheid era. Shell,
of
> course, is well known for its devastation of the Ogoni tribal lands
in
> Nigeria.
>
> Tom Brokaw (one of America's best-known TV anchors) was inadvertently
> succinct about the process. "One of the things we don't want to do,"
> he said, "is to destroy the infrastructure of Iraq because in a few
> days we're going to own that country."
>
> Now that the ownership deeds are being settled, Iraq is ready for New
> Democracy.
>
> So, as Lenin used to ask: What Is To Be Done?
>
> Well...
>
> We might as well accept the fact that there is no conventional
> military force that can successfully challenge the American war
> machine. Terrorist strikes only give the U.S. Government an
> opportunity that it is eagerly awaiting to further tighten its
> stranglehold. Within days of an attack you can bet that Patriot II
> would be passed. To argue against U.S. military aggression by saying
> that it will increase the possibilities of terrorist strikes is
> futile. It's like threatening Brer Rabbit that you'll throw him into
> the bramble bush. Any one who has read the documents written by The
> Project for the New American Century can attest to that. The
> government's suppression of the Congressional committee report on
> September 11th, which found that there was intelligence warning of
the
> strikes that was ignored, also attests to the fact that, for all
their
> posturing, the terrorists and the Bush regime might as well be
working
> as a team. They both hold people responsible for the actions of their
> governments. They both believe in the doctrine of collective guilt
and
> collective punishment. Their actions benefit each other greatly.
>
> The U.S. government has already displayed in no uncertain terms the
> range and extent of its capability for paranoid aggression. In human
> psychology, paranoid aggression is usually an indicator of nervous
> insecurity. It could be argued that it's no different in the case of
> the psychology of nations. Empire is paranoid because it has a soft
> underbelly.
>
> Its "homeland" may be defended by border patrols and nuclear weapons,
> but its economy is strung out across the globe. Its economic outposts
> are exposed and vulnerable. Already the Internet is buzzing with
> elaborate lists of American and British government products and
> companies that should be boycotted. Apart from the usual targets -
> Coke, Pepsi, McDonalds - government agencies like USAID, the British
> DFID, British and American banks, Arthur Andersen, Merrill Lynch, and
> American Express could find themselves under siege. These lists are
> being honed and refined by activists across the world. They could
> become a practical guide that directs the amorphous but growing fury
> in the world. Suddenly, the "inevitability" of the project of
> Corporate Globalization is beginning to seem more than a little
> evitable.
>
> It would be naïve to imagine that we can directly confront Empire.
Our
> strategy must be to isolate Empire's working parts and disable them
> one by one. No target is too small. No victory too insignificant. We
> could reverse the idea of the economic sanctions imposed on poor
> countries by Empire and its Allies. We could impose a regime of
> Peoples' Sanctions on every corporate house that has been awarded
with
> a contract in postwar Iraq, just as activists in this country and
> around the world targeted institutions of apartheid. Each one of them
> should be named, exposed, and boycotted. Forced out of business. That
> could be our response to the Shock and Awe campaign. It would be a
> great beginning.
>
> Another urgent challenge is to expose the corporate media for the
> boardroom bulletin that it really is. We need to create a universe of
> alternative information. We need to support independent media like
> Democracy Now!, Alternative Radio, and South End Press.
>
> The battle to reclaim democracy is going to be a difficult one. Our
> freedoms were not granted to us by any governments. They were wrested
> from them by us. And once we surrender them, the battle to retrieve
> them is called a revolution. It is a battle that must range across
> continents and countries. It must not acknowledge national boundaries
> but, if it is to succeed, it has to begin here. In America. The only
> institution more powerful than the U.S. government is American civil
> society. The rest of us are subjects of slave nations. We are by no
> means powerless, but you have the power of proximity. You have access
> to the Imperial Palace and the Emperor's chambers. Empire's conquests
> are being carried out in your name, and you have the right to refuse.
> You could refuse to fight. Refuse to move those missiles from the
> warehouse to the dock. Refuse to wave that flag. Refuse the victory
> parade.
>
> You have a rich tradition of resistance. You need only read Howard
> Zinn's A People's History of the United States to remind yourself of
> this.
>
> Hundreds of thousands of you have survived the relentless propaganda
> you have been subjected to, and are actively fighting your own
> government. In the ultra-patriotic climate that prevails in the
United
> States, that's as brave as any Iraqi or Afghan or Palestinian
fighting
> for his or her homeland.
>
> If you join the battle, not in your hundreds of thousands, but in
your
> millions, you will be greeted joyously by the rest of the world. And
> you will see how beautiful it is to be gentle instead of brutal, safe
> instead of scared. Befriended instead of isolated. Loved instead of
> hated.
>
> I hate to disagree with your president. Yours is by no means a great
> nation. But you could be a great people.
>
> History is giving you the chance.
>
> Seize the time.
>

Arundhati Roy

Comments

Hide the following comment

You can also listen to her give this address

22.05.2003 11:23

in the Riverside Church in NYC.

 http://www.democracynow.org/

Somewhere in the archives - last week I think.

For those who don't know, Democracy Now is the most amazing resistance radio station in the world.

It has a massive base of listeners (played all over the States and in Australia, not to mention online) and gives 2 hours per week day of hard-hitting fascist-demolishing talk radio!

Tune in every day and replemish your hope levels!

Dannyboy


Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech