katarzyna36
07.03.03, 21:47
Confronting Empire by Arundhati Roy
[from the March 10,2003 issue]
Following is an excerpt from Arundhati Roy's talk at the closing rally of the
World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, on January 27. The full text will
appear in her book War Talk, to be published in April by South End Press. --
The Editors
So how do we resist "Empire"? The good news is that we're not doing too
badly. There have been major victories. Here in Latin America you have had so
many--in Bolivia, you have Cochabamba. In Peru, there was the uprising in
Arequipa. In Venezuela, President Hugo Chávez is holding on, despite the US
government's best efforts. And the world's gaze is on the people of
Argentina, who are trying to refashion a country from the ashes of the havoc
wrought by the IMF.
In India the movement against corporate globalization is gathering momentum
and is poised to become the only real political force to counter religious
fascism. As for corporate globalization's glittering ambassadors--Enron,
Bechtel, WorldCom, Arthur Andersen--where were they last year, and where are
they now? And of course here in Brazil we must ask, Who was the president
last year, and Who is it now?
Still, many of us have dark moments of hopelessness and despair. We know that
under the spreading canopy of the War Against Terrorism, the men in suits are
hard at work. While bombs rain down on us, and cruise missiles skid across
the skies, we know that contracts are being signed, patents are being
registered, oil pipelines are being laid, natural resources are being
plundered, water is being privatized and George Bush is planning to go to war
against Iraq.
If we look at this conflict as a straightforward eyeball to eyeball
confrontation between Empire and those of us who are resisting it, it might
seem that we are losing. But there is another way of looking at it. We, all
of us gathered here, have, each in our own way, laid siege to Empire. We may
not have stopped it in its tracks--yet--but we have stripped it down. We have
made it drop its mask. We have forced it into the open. It now stands before
us on the world's stage in all its brutish, iniquitous nakedness.
Empire may well go to war, but it's out in the open now--too ugly to behold
its own reflection. Too ugly even to rally its own people. It won't be long
before the majority of American people become our allies. In Washington this
January, a quarter of a million people marched against the war on Iraq. Each
month the protest is gathering momentum.
Before September 11, 2001, America had a secret history. Secret especially
from its own people. But now America's secrets are history, and its history
is public knowledge. It's street talk. Today, we know that every argument
that is being used to escalate the war against Iraq is a lie--the most
ludicrous of them being the US government's deep commitment to bring
democracy to Iraq. Killing people to save them from dictatorship or
ideological corruption is, of course, an old US government sport. Here in
Latin America, you know that better than most.
Nobody doubts that Saddam Hussein is a ruthless dictator, a murderer (whose
worst excesses were supported by the governments of the United States and
Britain). There's no doubt that Iraqis would be better off without him. But
then, the whole world would be better off without a certain Mr. Bush. In
fact, he is far more dangerous than Saddam Hussein. So, should we bomb Bush
out of the White House?
It's more than clear that Bush is determined to go to war against Iraq,
regardless of the facts--and regardless of international public opinion. In
its recruitment drive for allies, the United States is prepared to invent
facts. The charade with weapons inspectors is the US government's offensive,
insulting concession to some twisted form of international etiquette. It's
like leaving the "doggie door" open for last-minute "allies" or maybe the
United Nations to crawl through. But for all intents and purposes, the New
War against Iraq has begun.
What can we do? We can hone our memory, we can learn from our history. We can
continue to build public opinion until it becomes a deafening roar. We can
turn the war on Iraq into a fishbowl of the US government's excesses. We can
expose George Bush and Tony Blair--and their allies--for the cowardly baby
killers, water poisoners and pusillanimous long-distance bombers that they
are. We can reinvent civil disobedience in a million different ways. In other
words, we can come up with a million ways of becoming a collective pain in
the ass. When George Bush says "Either you are with us, or you are with the
terrorists," we can say "No thank you." We can let him know that the people
of the world do not need to choose between a Malevolent Mickey Mouse and the
Mad Mullahs.
Our strategy should be not only to confront empire but to lay siege to it. To
deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our
literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer
relentlessness--and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are
different from the ones we're being brainwashed to believe. The corporate
revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling--their
ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of
inevitability.
Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need
them. www.thenation.com/
