Arundhati Roy, the Indian activist and novelist, has been a special voice in our world since September 11th. I’ve missed her these last few months, but here’s a new piece of hers from the ZNET website and, among other things, it’s a splendid reminder that a growing US antiwar movement against the last empire, the final superpower, the most hyper of hyperpowers, a movement arising in the heartland of power, even when not yet a majority, offers hope to others around the world. If it can happen here, after all, it can happen anywhere.
I add as well a piece on that ur-movement of our moment, the anti-globalization movement, by the Guardian‘s fine columnist George Monbiot, like Roy now attending the anti-Davos in Porto Alegre, Brazil (along with 100,000 activists). He offers an account of a movement that, though written off in the media many times over, is proving to be like that cat of folk-song fame that always came back. He suggests the growing power of what still is sometimes referred to as the anti-globalization movement, though if it succeeds in the long run, it will certainly prove a far truer path to “globalization” than what passes for that phenomenon now.
To grasp the title of this dispatch, a line stolen from Roy, you have to read her piece. Tom
Confronting Empire
By Arundhati Roy
ZNET
January 27, 2003I’ve been asked to speak about “How to confront Empire?” It’s a huge question, and I have no easy answers.
When we speak of confronting “Empire,” we need to identify what “Empire” means. Does it mean the U.S. Government (and its European satellites), the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, and multinational corporations? Or is it something more than that?
In many countries, Empire has sprouted other subsidiary heads, some dangerous byproducts – nationalism, religious bigotry, fascism and, of course terrorism. All these march arm in arm with the project of corporate globalization.
I’ve been asked to speak about “How to confront Empire?” It’s a huge question, and I have no easy answers.
When we speak of confronting “Empire,” we need to identify what “Empire” means. Does it mean the U.S. Government (and its European satellites), the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, and multinational corporations? Or is it something more than that?
In many countries, Empire has sprouted other subsidiary heads, some dangerous byproducts – nationalism, religious bigotry, fascism and, of course terrorism. All these march arm in arm with the project of corporate globalization.
Let me illustrate what I mean. India – the world’s biggest democracy – is currently at the forefront of the corporate globalization project. Its “market” of one billion people is being prized open by the WTO. Corporatization and Privatization are being welcomed by the Government and the Indian elite.
-Arundhati Roy
Porto Alegre, Brazil
January 27, 2003
To read more Roy click here
Stronger than ever
Far from fizzling out, the global justice movement is growing in numbers and maturity
By George Monbiot
January 28, 2003
The GuardianMr Bush and Mr Blair might have a tougher fight than they anticipated. Not from Saddam Hussein perhaps – although it is still not obvious that they can capture and hold Iraq’s cities without major losses – but from an anti-war movement that is beginning to look like nothing the world has seen before.
It’s not just that people have begun to gather in great numbers even before a shot has been fired. It’s not just that they are doing so without the inducement of conscription or any other direct threat to their welfare. It’s not just that there have already been meetings or demonstrations in almost every nation on Earth. It’s also that the campaign is being coordinated globally with an unprecedented precision. And the people partly responsible for this are the members of a movement which, even within the past few weeks, the mainstream media has pronounced extinct.