arundhati roy

[new delhi]

Charles quotes her in his book, the more beautiful world (heading of chapter on hope)…

roy another world law:

another world is not only possible, she is on her way. on a quiet day, i can hear her breathing.

roy voiceless law:

there’s really no such thing as the ‘voiceless’. there are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard. – Arundhati Roy

more on Arundhati:

In a 2001 opinion piece in the British newspaper The Guardian, Arundhati Roy responded to the US military invasion of Afghanistan, finding fault with the argument that this war would be a retaliation for the September 11 attacks: “The bombing of Afghanistan is not revenge for New York and Washington. It is yet another act of terror against the people of the world.” According to her, US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair were guilty of a Big Brother kind of doublethink: “When he announced the air strikes, President George Bush said: ‘We’re a peaceful nation.’ America’s favourite ambassador, Tony Blair, (who also holds the portfolio of prime minister of the UK), echoed him: ‘We’re a peaceful people.’ So now we know. Pigs are horses. Girls are boys. War is peace.”

She disputes US claims of being a peaceful and freedom-loving nation, listing China and nineteen 3rd World “countries that America has been at war with—and bombed—since the second world war”, as well as previous US support for the Taliban movement and support for the Northern Alliance (whose “track record is not very different from the Taliban’s”). She does not spare the Taliban: “Now, as adults and rulers, the Taliban beat, stone, rape and brutalise women, they don’t seem to know what else to do with them.”

In the final analysis, Roy sees American-style capitalism as the culprit: “In America, the arms industry, the oil industry, the major media networks, and, indeed, US foreign policy, are all controlled by the same business combines.” She puts the attacks on the World Trade Center and on Afghanistan on the same moral level, that of terrorism, and mourns the impossibility of imagining beauty after 2001: “Will it be possible ever again to watch the slow, amazed blink of a newborn gecko in the sun, or whisper back to the marmot who has just whispered in your ear—without thinking of the World Trade Centre and Afghanistan?”

In May 2003 she delivered a speech entitled “Instant-Mix Imperial Democracy (Buy One, Get One Free)” at the Riverside Church in New York City. In it she described the United States as a global empire that reserves the right to bomb any of its subjects at any time, deriving its legitimacy directly from God. The speech was an indictment of the US actions relating to the Iraq War. In June 2005 she took part in the World Tribunal on Iraq. In March 2006, Roy criticised US President George W. Bush’s visit to India, calling him a “war criminal”.

In August 2006, Roy, along with Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, and others, signed a letter in The Guardian called the 2006 Lebanon War a “war crime” and accused Israel of “state terror.”

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via: http://www.alternet.org/world/chomsky-americas-obsession-destroys-earths-climate?page=0%2C1

Arundhati Roy suggests that the “most appropriate metaphor for the insanity of our times” is the Siachen Glacier, where Indian and Pakistani soldiers have killed each other on the highest battlefield in the world. The glacier is now melting and revealing “thousands of empty artillery shells, empty fuel drums, ice axes, old boots, tents and every other kind of waste that thousands of warring human beings generate” in meaningless conflict. And as the glaciers melt, India and Pakistan face indescribable disaster.

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in Naomi Klein‘s this changes everything:

“The first step towards reimagining a world gone terribly wrong would be to stop the annihilation of those who have a different imagination—an imagination that is outside of capitalism as well as communism. An imagination which has an altogether different understanding of what constitutes happiness and fulfillment. To gain this philosophical space, it is necessary to concede some physical space for the survival of those who may look like the keepers of our past, but who may really be the guides to our future.” —Arundhati Roy, 20101

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march 2014:

Capitalism: A Ghost Story – An Evening with Arundhati Roy and Siddhartha Deb

india’s 100 richest people hold accepts equal to 1/4 of the gdp

15 min – there hasn’t been a year since 1947 that the people of india hasn’t been deployed against its own people

29 min – govt wanting to move 500 mill people into the cities

happiness mining

32 min – even thinking as an offense

40 min – debt enters – turns to microfunding – turns to 250000 farmers’ suicides, then

44 min – after 20 yrs of “growth” 60% of india’s workforce is self-employed and 90% of india’s labor force works in the unorganized sector

46 min – what you have is jobless growth – with a few doing well – looks like huge growth – because india is so big.. but the rest – like medieval times. now – the show window isn’t even doing well

59 min – modernism in west came from colonialism… india doesn’t have that – so creating own colonies..  all other countries have a history of committing genocide (told to Arundhati by indians)

1:01 – the profound questioning is by people who’s bodies are on the line – rather than about who’s land is whose – but rather – about happiness

1:02 – what are these people supposed to do? can hungry people go on a hunger strike?

so while in tv studios and academia people discuss violence/non-violence – it’s actually strategic – the same person can be ghandi on the streets and a mouse in the forest (on how people are seeing Arundhati)

1:04 – most recent – annihilation of caste – dr and the saint – harsh on ghandi – his views on caste – what he did in africa was extremely disturbing

1:08 – we’re getting to the point where literature is being stifled – nobody can right about the other without being (ridiculed)

1:10 – book withdrawn because small pressure group thinks it’s offensive – fascinating that the more you legislate about free speech – free speech declines – it’s almost unbelievable how little you can say now

1:12 – it’s not like you’re living in a dictatorship.. the censorship has been outsourced to the mob – you’re left to the danger of being someone who censors themself all the time – ie: how do you know what i would like to say…

1:14  – called anti-american, anti-national – you have to ask who gets to decide what american and national is.. i tend to not think in countries. the elites have sent themselves to outerspace…

1:16 – how do we think in terms of countries – one woman here completely different than one 5 min away. i’m not anti american – but am anti policies

i’m very bad at taking advice – so i don’t have any advice

black people worship ghandi without knowing how he treated people in s africa with contempt

any advice for a struggling writer – never ask for any advice

1:24 – institutionalized violence against women – anyone resisting this can be called a maoist and go to jail… thousands die there.. yet – we are known as this great democracy  — army pitting people against each other

seeking acceptability is not a good thing for a writer

1:30 – writers spend a lifetime trying to close the gap between thought and word

writers of policy – trying to mask thought

1:35 – there are other worlds – dreams in which failure is even worth striving for.. rather than recognition… the only dream worth having is to dream that you live while you’re alive.. and die only when you’re dead.

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the god of small things

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Arundhati Roy & Howard Zinn on Democracy & Dissent, Racism & Empire, and War & Peace (2003)

5 min – Roger Normand – traveled to see the truth of the war in iraq – because media was blinding us to it –

24 min – Arundhati – my message as a slave of the american empire

34 min – it’s an effective technique: this use of the urgent morality of the present to obscure the diabolical sins of the past and the malelovant plans for the future

37 min – securing of the oil fields – as they watch the people dying

38 min – the world’s free-ist country has the highest number of prisoners

49 min – more than 10 mill people marched against the war across the continents.. ignored

57 min – media control

58 min – who’s paying for the war? 75 bill dollar cuts to public – 80 bill spent on war – during bush – 2002ish

59 – who’s fighting the war? american’s poor. america’s volunteer army depends on a poverty draft in order to earn a living & get an education. african amer: 21% of armed forces 29% of the us army – and they count for only 12% of general population.

1:00 – prison – 4 mill of americans 2% of pop … 1.4 mill are african americans.. 13% of all voting age black people have been disenfranchised

1:14 – a revolution that must cross national boundaries – but must start here in america – you have access to the emperiel palace and the emperors chambers

you have a rich history of resistance – you only need to read Howard Zinn’s – a history

you are not a great nation – but you are a great people – history is giving you a chance – seized the time

1:21 – Howard – we need to reclaim the word – democracy

1:26 – Modi – indian govt has never been closer to govt of us – and also worse time for indians

1:35 – annoyed by – saving private ryan – when ww2 is paraded before us – to glorify war – ww2 – the “best of wars” and at the end 50 mill people have died. and has it ended…/ – Howard

1:37 – we have reached that point in human history that we can not tolerate the mass killing – for whatever cause – Howard

1:39 – defending the american people – so called anti -indian .. – we must disagree about what america is – it’s not the govt… govt are artifical constructs – when govt become destructive of those ends – it is the right of the people to alter or abolish the govt – the govt is being anti-american when it goes against the principals of democracy- Howard

1: 41 – i try not to participate in these categories – i’m actually not a nationalist of any kinds. it’s time for us to stop coming up short of these artificial boundaries.. – Arhundhati

the danger of nationalism -..- if all children everywhere have an equal right to live – then war is impossible.. because war is against children.  – Howard

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Published on Jul 26, 2014

Arundhati Roy Speech on Gandhi in Kerala University

changing our heroes

2:30 – ghandi’s words on indians in s africa – lie as a disease – no way to change that

3 – ghandi’s words on black people – cafers as a rule are uncivilized/savages

5 min – his basis was on the inhumanity of the caste system… but he says  – my ideal scavenger..

at some point we have to stop being dishonest..

6:30 – 1936 – the ideal scavenger –

7:40 – modi – have to do this job bestowed on them by gods

12 min – i don’t believe there is a voiceless.. just the deliberately silenced..

17 min – capitalism and caste have combined to become the mother of all capitalism…

she read of tons of stats – showing the horrors

1947 on – we’ve been deployed against our own people – every day of the year.. an upper caste in its dna

so how are we going to change this..? it has to be done in 100 different ways..

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Arundhati Roy on Obama’s Wars and other

Published on Mar 9, 2012

7:45 – line drawn between india and pakistan

14 min – operation greenhunt – taking control of places where they were pillaging for the sales of billions for oil et al.. emptying the forests for the corporates – moved to camps…

not a resistance that rose up against mining – was already there. but the miners weren’t used to waiting – so hastened along

we are not using this word genocidal war lightly.. the poorest people of this country – there’s nothing – and now there’s a siege – because they are seen as the resistance. cutting the off from their resources

23 min – the falsification of so many years of untold misery

26 min – the elections cost more than the american elections..

28 min – we need people who will resist – but not only on the weekends.. what does peace even mean..

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Published on Aug 22, 2013

Noam Chomsky on “Democracy’s Endgame?” (with Arundhati Roy and Amy Goodman)

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dec 2014:

the nation on Arundhati’s excellent new book capitalism: a ghost story..

http://www.thenation.com/article/192881/indias-love-affair-privatization-everything

..a highly readable and characteristically trenchant mapping of early-twenty-first-century India’s impassioned love affair with money, technology, weaponry and the “privatization of everything,” and—because these must not be impeded no matter what—generous doses of state violence.

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Arundhati’s film we (1:03:49) – via thought maybe site:

http://thoughtmaybe.com/we/

power and power less ness

can never be a single story

the paranoia ruthlessness – physics of power

relationship between citizen and state

nationalism of one kind or another was cause of most of the genocide of the 20th century

flags used to shrink brains, then ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead

to call someone anti-american – failure of the imagination

in order to see the world in terms other than one others have set out for you. if you’re not for us.. your’e against us.

i too made mistake of scoffing at post 11 rhetoric – 9-11 it’s actually a canny recruitment drive for a misconceived dangerous war. 3000 civilians. a strand deadly war is raging round the world

no war.. no revenge.. will blunt the edges of pain

yet – cynically manipulating people’s grief. the commerce of grief. a terrible violent thing for a state to do to its people.

9-11 – to say to america = welcome to the world. (9-11’s around the world)

guatemala, costa rica, ecuador, brail, peru, bolivia, fr, honduras, columbia – 100s of thousands of latin americans via culvert u.s. actions

countries in africa, asia, how many sept’s have billions.. been bombed/slaughtered at hand of u.s.

1922 – sept 11 palestine, 1937 – churchill – i don not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger. i do not admit that a wrong has been given. that a higher/stronger race has come in and take their place

1947 – 50% of palestine to zionists. u.s. helps israel. palestinian people become refugees.

1967 – israel occupies west bank and gaza strips

uprising, wars, 10s of thousands died. palestine still remains illegally occupied. they never know when homes will be demolished, children will be shot.

young palestinians that can’t control their anger – blow themselves up. solidifying both sides anger/hatred.

every year israel receives several billion from us.s

sept 11 1990 – bush – war against iraq. hussain razed many villages – his worst atrosities.. us and uk were closest allies. that year 500 million in subsidies. u.s. doubles to 1 billion. his sin wasn’t that he’d committed an act of war, but that he acted independently.

jan 1991 – longest sustained air attack since vietnam (iraq). u.s. – largest arsenal of nuclear in world and only one that has used them on civilians.

who is guilty for preaching peace while raging war (bush)

wars are never fought for altruistic reasons – the business of war —-> oil. middle east has 2/3 of world’s oil preserves. whoever controls oil controls the world’s market

freidman – craziness pays. u.s. will use force. hidden hand of market will never work w/o hidden fist

america’s other weapon – the free market. the task that never ends. america’s perfect war. free market. poor getting poorer. rich getting richer.

civil unrest – resistance against global marketization. corporate globalization. protestors labeled terrorists.

making sure it’s only money and goods that are globalized.. not people.. justice. as though even a gesture toward accountability would wreck the whole enterprise.

the american way of life is not sustainable because it does not imagine there is a world beyond america.

fortunately power has a shelf life. america’s corporate heart is hemorrhaging. international monetary fund, world bank, world trade organization

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in conversation with Eduardo in 2006

http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2015/4/14/eduardo_galeano_arundhati_roy_in_conversation 

Arundhati read from god of small things

20 min – along as the markets are open – fascism is fine

22 min – steal from the poor, subsidize the rich, and call it the free market… and thomas freidman calls india a democracy

25 min – Eduardo read from voices of time

38 min – perhaps to imagine another world we have to imagine another past… on immigration – columbus et al

44 min – it took him years to realize she was asking for someone to touch her..

1:03 – we have to stop that. we (you) have to find a way of stopping it..

1:05 – we are trying (by writing) to integrate all this dis integrated part of the world – Eduardo

1:08 – wars are factories for terrorists – Eduardo

1:14 – international run by 5 countries – Eduardo

world bank ruled by 8 countries.. i’m allergic to the world efficiency – Arundhati

1:15 – an incredible system – ie: anti-war supporting kerry – but he wasn’t saying he was going to pull out troops.. like comparing 2 brands of soap – created by same company – Arundhati

1:16 – divorce between words and facts – Eduardo

1:19 – it’s not worth just saying these are bad people.. because there’s a system in place.. Arundhati

systemic change

1:21 – 3/4 of youth in chile didn’t vote… Eduardo

but when you have tide and ivory snow – what’s the point in voting… democracy is not democracy any more.. it’s becoming the ceremony of democracy – Arundhati

1:27 – Eduardo reads – the human condition is worth the trouble.. let’s be crazy enough to be called crazy..  who refuse to forget in times of obligatory amnesia.. and clever enough to be disobedient when we receive orders in contradiction of our conscience

1:32 – Arundhati reads – nuclear weapons – 1998

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notes/highlights:

(probably could read 5+ times to do it justice. the non-linear ness of it all.)

Estha’s silence was never awkward. Never intrusive. Never noisy.

It usually took strangers awhile to notice him even when they were in the same room with him. It took them even longer to notice that he never spoke. Some never noticed at all. Estha occupied very little space in the world.

They provided the care (food, clothes, fees), but withdrew the concern.

reading this while leaning toward refugee camps. fitting.

She could hear the raucous, scrambled world inside his head.

She felt she spoke much better English than everybody else. This made her lonelier than ever.

Esthappen and Rahel thought of themselves together as Me, and separately, individually, as We or Us.

the arrangement suited mammachi, because in her mind, a fee clarified things. disjuncted sex from love. needs from feelings.

money ness

if he toucher her he couldn’t talk to her, if he loved her he couldn’t leave, if he spoke he couldn’t listen, if he fought he couldn’t win.

he grew to depend on margaret kochamma for not depending on him. he adored her for not adoring him.

he was deeply in love with his love for margaret kochamma and had no room in his heart for anyone else.

only that once again they broke the love laws. that lay down who should be loved. and how. and how much.

b) anything can happen to anyone.

lose your dreams and you will lose your mind.

as though her life depended on her getting there in time.

how his labor had shaped him…each thing he made had molded him. had left its stamp on him. had given him his strength, his supple grace…. his white sudden smile that he carried with him from boyhood into manhood. his only luggage.

they knew that there was nowhere for them to go. they had nothing. no future. so they stuck to the small things.

they chose him (dying ish spider) because they knew that they had to put their faith in fragility. stick to smallness. each time they parted, they extracted only one promise from each other: tomorrow? tomorrow. they knew that things could change in a day.

end of book interview:

It took me a very long time to understand what I was doing… I could sense a rhythm and I trusted it.

it’s uncomfortable to face the fact that all of us are complicit in what’s going on

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nov 2015 – roy, cusack, ellsberg to see snowden

all 4: http://linkis.com/www.outlookindia.com/G4gb7

1\ things that can and cannot be said:

http://linkis.com/www.outlookindia.com/vV5dY

AR – the United States is unable to understand how irrelevant it is, actually. And how wicked…. Your short-term gains are the rest of the world’s long-term disasters—for everybody, including yourselves. And, I’m sorry, I’ve been saying you and the United States or America, when I actually mean the US government. There’s a difference. Big one.

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2\ we brought you the promise of the future

http://www.outlookindia.com/article/we-brought-you-the-promise-of-the-future–but-our-tongue-stammered-and-barked/295797

in 65 – Within weeks, the campaign called Rolling Thunder was announced. American jets began to bomb South Vietnam. Something like 175,000 marines were deployed in that small country on the other side of the world, 8,000 miles away from Washington, DC. The war would go on for eight more years. (According to the testimonies in the recently published book about the Vietnam War Kill Anything that Moves by Nick Turse, what the US army did in Vietnam as it moved from village to village with orders to “kill anything that moves”—which included women, children and livestock—was just as vicious, though on a much larger scale, as anything ISIS is doing now. It had the added benefit of being backed up by the most powerful air force in the world.)

ay. 61.

By the end of the Vietnam war, three million Vietnamese people and 58,000 US troops had been killed and enough bombs had been dropped to cover the whole of Vietnam in several inches of steel.

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3\ things that cannot be said:

http://www.outlookindia.com/article/things-that-can-and-cannot-be-said-contd-/295810

ar – the revolution cannot be funded. It’s not the imagination of trusts and foundations that’s going to bring real change.

[..]

JC: So the term human rights can take the oxygen out of justice?

AR: Human rights takes history out of justice.

[..]

now if the “human rights” NGOs make a noise, or even whisper too loudly…this government will shut them down.

[..]

JC: Is Modi going to succeed long-term?

AR: It’s hard to say. There’s no real opposition, you know? He has an absolute majority and a government that he completely controls, and he himself—and I think this is true of most people with murky pasts—doesn’t trust any of his own people, so he’s become this person who has to interface directly with people. The government is secondary. Public institutions are being peopled by his acolytes, school and university syllabi are being revamped, history is being rewritten in absurd ways. It’s very dangerous, all of it. And a large section of young people, students, the IT crowd, the educated middle class and, of course, Big Business, are with him—the Hindu right-wing is with him. He’s lowering the bar of public discourse—saying things like, “Oh, Hindus discovered plastic surgery in the Vedas because how else would we have had an elephant-headed god.”

[..]

Anyway, then the cop says to me, “You know, Arundhati, I’ve told my seniors that however many police we put into this area, into the forest, we can’t win this battle with force—the only way we can win it is to put a TV in every tribal person’s house because these tribals don’t understand greed.” His point was that watching TV would teach them greed.

[..]

JC – She can disarm you at any time with her friendly hustler’s grin but her eyes see things and love things so fiercely, it’s frightening at times.

[..]

JC – The meeting between these two living symbols of American conscience was historic. It needed to happen. Seeing Ed and Dan together, trading stories, exch­an­ging notes, was both heartwarming and deeply inspiring, and the conversation with Roy and the two former Presi­dent’s Men was extraordinary. It had depth, insight, wit, generosity and a ligh­tness of touch not possible in a formal, structured interview. Aware that we were being watched and monitored by forces greater than ourselves, we talked. Maybe one day the NSA will give us the minutes of our meeting. What was remarkable was how much agreement there was in the room. It wasn’t just what was said, but the way it was said, not just the text, but the subtext, the warmth, and laughter that was so exhilarating. But that’s ano­ther story.

[..]

Roy listened to all this without saying very much. In The End of Imagination, the essay she wrote after India’s 1998 nuclear tests, she had gotten herself into serious trouble when she declared, “If it is anti-national to protest against nuclear weapons, then I sec­ede. I declare myself a mobile republic.” Dan, who is writing a book on the nuclear arms race, told me it was one of the finest things he’s ever read on the subject. “Wouldn’t you say,” Roy said for the record, or to anybody willing to listen, “that nuclear wea­pons are the inevitable, toxic corollary of the idea of the Great Nation?”

[..]

AR: And—I might as well say it now that I’m in the Red Square—to capitalism. Every time I say the word capitalism, everyone just assumes….

JC: You must be a Marxist.

AR: I have plenty of Marxism in me, I do…but Russia and China had their bloody revolutions and even while they were Communist, they had the same idea about generating wealth—tear it out of the bowels of the earth. And now they have come out with the same idea in the end…you know, capitalism. But capitalism will fail, too. We need a new imagination. Until then, we’re all just out here….

we need a new imagination..

a nother way to leapfrog to a global do-over – imagine that.

[..]

JC – Suddenly she turned to me and thanked me formally for organising the meeting with Edward Snowden. “He presents himself as this cool systems man, but it’s only passion that could make him do what he did. He’s not just a systems man. That’s what I needed to know.”

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4\ what shall we love

http://www.outlookindia.com/article/what-shall-we-love/295799

What the two of them clearly had in common was a strong, almost corporeal sense of moral righteousness—of right and wrong. A sense of righteousness that was obviously at work not just when they decided to blow the whistle on what they thought to be morally unacceptable, but also when they signed up for their jobs—Dan to save his country from Communism, Ed to save it from Islamist terrorism. What they did when they grew disillusioned was so electrifying, so dramatic, that they have come to be identified by that single act of moral courage.

[..]

The refugees fleeing from wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria to Europe are refugees of the Lifestyle Wars. But the thousands of people in countries like India who are being jailed and killed by those same Lifestyle Wars, the millions who are being driven off their lands and farms, exiled from everything they have ever known—their language, their history, the landscape that formed them—are not. As long as their misery is contained within the arbitrarily drawn borders of their ‘own’ country, they are not considered refugees. But they arerefugees. And certainly, in terms of numbers, such people are the great majority in the world today. Unfortunately in imaginations that are locked down into a grid of countries and borders, in minds that are shrink-wrapped in flags, they don’t make the cut.

[..]

We’re told, often enough, that as a species we are poised on the edge of the abyss. It’s possible that our puffed-up, prideful intelligence has outstripped our instinct for survival and the road back to safety has already been washed away. In which case there’s nothing much to be done. If there is something to be done, then one thing is for sure: those who created the problem will not be the ones who come up with a solution.

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via Toni Mac‘s ted – the laws that sex workers really want at 16 min

roy voiceless law:

there’s really no such thing as the ‘voiceless’. there are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard. – Arundhati Roy

not voice less

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EXCLUSIVE: Arundhati Roy on Kashmir | Why can’t azadi be discussed? https://t.co/vfBLn0eu7S https://t.co/7nlQZMOtre

Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/Outlookindia/status/754526241588260864

.. the militaristic suppression of a people’s struggle for freedom. Kashmiris are not fighting for the establishment of the rule of law or an end to human rights violations. They are fighting for azadi.

[..]

If we really want address that crisis, if we really want to stop the endless cycle of killing and dying, if we really want to stem the haemorrhaging, the first step has to be a small concession to honesty. We have to have an honest conversation.…the subject of that conversation has to be azadi: What exactly does azadi mean to Kashmiris? Why can’t it be discussed?  … Is the presumed “consensus” in India on the subject of Kashmir real or manufactured? Does it matter? In truth, it shouldn’t. What matters is what Kashmiris want, and how to arrive at that consensus in the most peaceful, democratic and informed way possible.

consensus..?

If there is to be a solution to this terrible, seemingly endless tragedy, we have to be able to think clearly, speak freely and listen fearlessly to things we may not want to hear. We have to find a new imagination. This applies to everybody, on all sides of the dispute.

Something beautiful could come of it. Why not? Why ever not?

a nother way

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WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) tweeted at 8:57 AM on Mon, Aug 01, 2016:
“I know why you’ve come – to radicalise me”, Snowden said. Arundhati Roy’s new book explores her meeting in Moscow.
https://t.co/bvXQPTaLdq
(https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/760127439322419200?s=03)

Roy talks about the need to hold on to our seditious (inciting or causing people to rebel against the authority of a state or monarch) hearts:

[..]

It was interesting precisely because we didn’t start out intending to do anything with it—some of it was recorded, some wasn’t. No-one was performing, posturing, or trying to outsmart the other. It was just beautiful and funny and human and un-hierarchical.

[..]

the idea that the same old propaganda contunues to work—after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the wars in Korea and Vietnam, coups that toppled democratic governments in Iran, Chile, all of Latin America—the war in Afghanistan… I mean how does history keep reinventing itself? How does the propaganda continue to work?

[..]

also about what drove these wars? Ellsberg talked about how Americans are so indoctrinated from the time they’re children. Every school child has to take an oath to the flag—there was a wonderful riff about how the man who suggested the flag should be in every American classroom was the man who was actually making flags!

[..]

The conversation about how human society should organize itself cannot come from a war zone. It’s a contentious question and needs to be debated by free people—who do not have to fear being shot by those who disagree with their views.

[..]

in the long run, the way the human psyche has been affected by this overload of information, the vanishing of the contemplative moment, the increasing need to make everything that used to be private, public–—these are very interesting and sometimes disturbing things.

[..]

I don’t think any side in these wars has any idea anymore of what they are doing – they are not in control anymore. The military-industrial complex doesn’t mind—permanent war helps them.

[..]

It used to be said that a journalist’s job is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable – now, it’s just the opposite. So many of them suck up to the comfortable and afflict the afflicted. ……

We must hold on to our seditious hearts.

Haymarket Books (@haymarketbooks) tweeted at 7:59 AM – 3 Oct 2016 :

“There’s really no such thing as the ‘voiceless’. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.” –Arundhati Roy https://t.co/aIkImwoUxo (http://twitter.com/haymarketbooks/status/782943049454280704?s=17)

Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) tweeted at 6:00 AM – 4 Oct 2016 :

India’s most-famous author Arundhati Roy to publish second novel in nearly 20 years.
https://t.co/MsxJkbb6mr  https://t.co/AtlnJrTFKm (http://twitter.com/WSJ/status/783275569324711937?s=17)

In this @intercepted full interview, Arundhati Roy shatters some commonly held myths about Gandhi https://t.co/lQQmZKXNdQ https://t.co/NDQRwNuvfg

Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/jeremyscahill/status/986242761597898752

the question the book asks is: Is it possible to live outside of language?

And people completely have no idea about what Gandhi’s attitudes to caste and race were. That falsification of that story is mind-blowing

most people know the struggle of Indian independence through Richard Attenborough’s film, unfortunately, called “Gandhi.” That film is a piece of fiction.

The first battle Gandhi fought in South Africa was to have a separate entrance to the Durban post office because he believed that Indians, who he said were descendants of the Aryans, should not share the same entrance with blacks, who he consistently referred to as “kafirs” and “savages.” He fasted in prison to have separate prisons, separate food. And the satyagraha that he started was not for racial equality, it was to allow Indian tradesmen into the Transvaal to trade.

And so the whole story has been completely distorted, which is not to say that Gandhi was not a brilliant politician. I don’t want to take anything away from him. But I do want to say that the amount of deceit and intellectual dishonesty that has gone into the construction of this narrative is shameful.

It has benefitted the elite of all countries. I mean, honestly, Jeremy, if you go traveling to India through the poorest places of India, you will not find a picture of Mahatma Gandhi in any poor person’s house. You will find a picture of Ambedkar. Gandhi will be in the government local collector’s house, or in the government office, or whatever. But you will not find it in a poor person’s house.

there can’t be peace on earth when just to keep these economies going, you need to be at war..t

We have been at least educated in institutions that still resemble schools and colleges, but now, the history books are being written by complete cretans, so what’s going to happen to the next generation? They will be unable to think unless they find non-formal ways of going to school and college, you know?

 It doesn’t help for you to go to Syria. It helps for you to be where you are, and to prevent that from happening in whatever way you can. I never take a missionary position on this. For me, I need to know the place where I stand and why I stand there.

Legendary author Arundhati Roy says she refuses to be used as a political tool in India—or to let her latest novel, which addresses the caste system and India’s occupation of Kashmir, be depoliticized. http://ow.ly/tzvD30jOZVf

40 min – the idea that there is a community that is more entitled than another (to get water)..

42 min – this is fascism.. it’s not just concentration camps..

43 min – under banner of market friendly democracy.. nobody is going to talk about it

Arundhati Roy’s Latest Novel Takes on Fascism, Rising Hindu Nationalism in India & Abuses in Kashmir https://t.co/NnD0WbkWxs https://t.co/2eCCFcgce3

Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/democracynow/status/992081391117619200

46 min – to edit out because market might not want it.. i don’t care about that..

49 min – the nerve center of the book..  no one knew what to do w this abandoned baby

9

and she had learned from experience that need was a warehouse that could accommodate a considerable amount of cruelty..t

11

everything was either masculine or feminine, man or woman. everything except her baby… was it possible to live out side language..

17

god’s carotid burst open on the new border between india and pakistan and a million people died of hatred

37

and so , in theses ways, in order to please zainab, anjum began to rewrite a simpler, happier life for herself. the rewriting in turn began to make anjum a simpler, happier person

96

in what language does rain fall over tormented cities? – pablo neruda

105

iron ore scams, house scams, insurance scams, stamp paper scams, phone license scams, land scams, irrigation scams, arms and ammunition scams..et-al scams in which politicians, businessmen, businessmen politicians and politician businessmen had made off w unimaginable quantities of public money

106

his dream of a society free of corruption was like a happy meadow in which everybody, including the most corrupt, could graze for a while. . t.. people who would normally have nothing to do w each other (the left/right, the wingless) all flocked to him

109

phd students from foreign unis working on social movement (an extremely sought after subject) conducted long interviews w the farmers, grateful that their field work had come to the city instead of their having to trek all the way out to the countryside where there were no toilets and filtered water was hard to find

113

they were making a documentary film about protest and resistance, they explained and one of the recurring themes of the film was to have protesters say, ‘another world is possible’ in whatever language they spoke

116

you’ve snatched poor folks’ daily bread.. and slapped a fee on their shit instead

118

banner: ‘the story of kashmir: dead = 68 000; disappeared = 10 000; is this democracy or demon crazy?’.. no tv camera pointed at that banners, not even by mistake..

120

the mothers of the disappeared did not know what to do w a baby that had appeared.. esp not a black one.. esp not a black girl.. esp not one that was swaddled in litter..

121

someone said she was  beggar. someone else said she was a rapevictim (which was a word in every language)

122

sometimes a single person’s clarity can unnerve a muddled crowd

125

ironically both of them were on the pavement that night to escape their past and all that had circumscribed their lives so far. and yet, in order to arm themselves for battle, they retreated right back into what they sought to escape, into what they were used to..  into what they really were. he, a revolutionary trapped in an accountants’ mind. she, a woman trapped in a man’s body..

126

he, who believed he was always right. she, who knew she was all wrong, always wrong. he, reduced by his certainties. she, augmented by her ambiguity. he, who wanted a law. she, who wanted a baby.. t

135

i am against the institution of marriage, it was invented to subjugate women..

151

i feel a rush of anger at those grumbling intellectuals and professional dissenters who constantly carp about this great country. frankly, they can only to it because they are allowed to. and they are allowed to because, for all our imperfections, we are a genuine democracy. i would not be crass enough to say this too often in public, but the truth is that it gives me great pride to be a servant of the govt of india..

154

normality in our part of the world is a bit like a boiled egg: its humdrum surface conceals at its heart a yolk of egregious violence. it is our constant, anxiety about that violence, our memory of its past labors and our dread of its future manifestations that lays down the rules for how a people as complex and as diverse as we are continue to coexist – continue to live together, tolerate each other and, from time to time, murder one another. as long as the center holds, as long as the yolk doesn’t run, we’ll be fine. in moments of crisis it helps to take the long view..

157

the complete absence of a desire to please, or to put someone at their ease, could, in a less vulnerable person, have been construed as arrogance. in her it came across as a kind of reckless aloneness… t..

she gave the impression that she had somehow slipped off her leash. as though she was taking herself for a walk while the rest of us were being walked – like pets. as though she was watching considerately, somewhat absent-mindedly, from a distance, while we minced along, grateful to our owners, happy to perpetuate our bondage..t  via book

192

there’s so much data, but no one really wants to know anything, don’t you think?

197

those eyes that stared at us for one and a half hours – they were forgiving eyes, understanding eyes. we kashmiris do not need to speak to each other any more in order to understand each other. we do terrible things to each other, we wound and betray and kill each other, but we understand each other

220

he couldn’t tell whether her restlessness, her compulsive and increasingly unsafe wandering thru the city, marked the onset of an unsoundness of mind or an acute, perilous kind of sanity. or were they both the same thing..

221

naga married tilo because he was never really able to reach her. and because he couldn’t reach her he couldn’t let her go

222

her close friends had learned over time that with tilo the absence of a greeting was actually a brusque declaration of intimacy

233

naga held tilo’s hand. tilo held his hand back. he was acutely aware of the circumstances in which that tentative exchange of tenderness was taking place. he could feel the tremor, the motor under her skin. still, of all the women in the world, to have this woman’s hand in his made him indescribably happy..

235

ironically, when the drift began, she was fonder of naga than she had ever been. it was herself she was exhausted by. she had lost the ability to keep her discrete worlds discrete – a skill that many consider to be the cornerstone of sanity. the traffic insider her head seemed to have stopped believing in traffic signs..

236

naga fell to wondering about the nature and frequency of tight slaps that had kept mrs rc in place

244

she needed to distance herself from her baby if only in order to be able to claim her, own her and love her

246

in fact, the more havoc she created, the more they seemed to love her

247

it was as though she thought she could outsmart death by remaining constantly vigilant. so she talked continuously, sometimes belligerent, sometimes pleasant and amusing..

248

she said she had found a simple, workable solution. she sat on a chair by her mother’s bed w a notebook and her mother dictated endless nots to her. sometimes they were letters..mostly they were pure gibberish. somehow the idea of dictating things, tilo said, seemed to maker her mother feel that she was still the captain of the ship, still in charge of something, and that calmed her down considerably..

257

he could not have known that he was trying to comfort a building that had been struck by lightning. there wasn’t much left of it to comfort..

by the time they arrived her mother had slipped into a coma. she was beyond hearing/history/prejudice/apology. tilo curled up on the bed and put her face on her mother’s feet until they went cold. the broken chair watched over them like a melancholy angle. tilo wondered how her mother had known what the chair would do. how could she have known”.. forget about the broken chairs, they’re always hanging around..

259

who can know from the word goodbye what kind of parting is in store for us

262

she wondered how to un know certain things, certain specific things that she knew but did not wish to know. how to un know, for ie, that when people died of stone dust, there lungs refused to be created..

272

i don’t know where to stop, or how to go on,. i stop when i shouldn’t. i go on when i should stop. there is weariness. but there is also defiance. together they define me these days. together they steal my sleep, and together they restore my soul. there are plenty of problems w no solutions in sight. friends turn into foes. if not vocal ones, then silent, reticent ones. but i’ve yet to see a foe turning into a friend. there seems to be no hope. but pretending to be hopeful is the only grace we have..

…. in battle must told tilo, enemies can’t break your spirit, only friends can

273

thee days her brain felt like a ‘recovery’ – encased in mud. it wasn’t just her brain, she herself, all of her, felt like a recovery – an accumulation of muddy recovered, randomly assembled

274

tilo had been a weird, part time stenographer to a full time military occupation

she knew that friendly souls that appeared as if from nowhere, to hang about w her, to travel w her, to invite her to their homes, were musa’s people. they welcomed her an told her things they would hardly tell themselves, only because they loved musa  or at least their idea of him, the man whom they knew was a shadow among shadows. musa didn’t know what she was searching for, neither did she

309

for the first time in her life, tilo felt that her body had enough room to accommodate all its organs..t

‘We should be hysterical’ – Arundhati Roy https://t.co/AH41UNUyrk via @City_Press

Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/alnoorladha/status/1037053221263429633

Today you are seeing people say: ‘Let us just hold on to what little we have.’ So, even our own imaginations have shrunk and we have been pushed against the wall, you know.

Put up your hands, any woman who hasn’t been called hysterical. It’s just a defence mechanism on their part. .t.. And one should be hysterical about what’s going on at this point, don’t you think? Isn’t that a sane reaction?

it’s an insane form of creating your own friends; they are more real to me than many real people. So, even if they were to throw me in jail, we’d all be together.

Haymarket Books (@haymarketbooks) tweeted at 2:41 PM on Wed, May 15, 2019:
Arundhati Roy on Kashmir, the Danger of U.S. Attacking Iran & Her New Book “My Seditious Heart”
https://t.co/JYBpabc54l
(https://twitter.com/haymarketbooks/status/1128762438323703808?s=03)

I think if there is a theme running through it, it’s really questioning the idea of the nation. Not just in terms of security, but also in terms of–you know, like the essay on the big dam in the Narmada, it says, “Who owns the rivers, the forests, the fish?” These are huge debates. And also because I’m constantly being accused of sedition, of anti-nationalism and so on.

Whatever it is, coronavirus has made the mighty kneel and brought the world to a halt like nothing else could. Our minds are still racing back and forth, longing for a return to “normality”, trying to stitch our future to our past and refusing to acknowledge the rupture. But the rupture exists. And in the midst of this terrible despair, it offers us a chance to rethink the doomsday machine we have built for ourselves. Nothing could be worse than a return to normality.

Arundhati Roy (on what the virus is doing to India): ‘The pandemic is a portal’ | Financial Timeshttps://t.co/fTB9tmwbYw

Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/mbauwens/status/1246762792260165634

Nothing could be worse than a return to normality.
We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.

roy another world law

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the pandemic is a portal – 90 min video – [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmQLTnK4QTA]

25 min – we already know how cruel the wars have been.. how is this very formation dealing w pandemic and trying to save people.. that same power structure is prepared to race towards creating a climate crisis.. which would make the corona virus look benign.. so what are we supposed to think of that intelligence.. if you’re suffering now.. you’ve got to walk thru this portal w power.. it’s not going to be given to us.. the suffering is going to be manifold.. that’s actually a very immediate moment that we do have to seize.. because the plans to do otherwise are on

28 min – if we were sleepwalking into a surveillance state .. now we are panic running into it.. because this fear is cultivated in us

30 min – in india now.. fasted downloaded app via govt ask.. so surveilled.. when things open up.. if people join an office and find they have virus.. will be criminally prosecuted..

34 min – on traveling light – ability to leave behind old ideas

51 min – in india the lockdown has not meant social distancing but social compression.. ie: 200 people to a toilet (we say physically rather than socially)

53 min – confusing time because a lockdown they don’t resent so much  – but still stunned by what has been done to them

54 min – imani – physical compression is like what we’re doing in prisons

55 min – us prisons and who is in them.. unbelievable.. how do we protest.. 1\ understand what is being done to us  2\ a lot of people think democracy = elections.. this is the stupidest thing that has happened to us.. difficult to know how to protest now.. but this is not going to last forever..

1:26 – people turning into these little surveillance machines themselves.. snitching on each other.. everyone divided .. other places.. there are beauty, solidarity.. but in places where things are already so fraught.. people have to be careful

1:21 – i don’t think joy should be cultivated or sustained.. good to have skill to see what really gives you joy.. but it’s ephemeral.. comes and goes.. i value every feeling.. sometimes modern world has been sold this idea that we’re entitled to happiness.. to be unafraid of feeling is a powerful thing.. sometimes grief can tear you apart.. but perhaps there’s a way in which i do something (that exit that ability to write it) that helps me thru it

________

article by arundhati roy sept 2021 [https://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1srqdkn – don’t click on link.. has a ton of ads.. oi] – last line says:

‘while we’re busy talking, the Earth is busy dying.’ Arundhati Roy

that

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