Fuck Yeah Arundhati Roy!

This blog is dedicated to Arundhati Roy and her political views. I created this blog to learn more about Roy because throughout my life, I have heard only negative comments on her. I was interested enough to learn more about her and her stances, particularly in India because many people, from my intellectual capacity have despised her. From the neighborhood I grew up, Roy wasn’t much of a famed name in my household, but however, was seen as a threat or more so a witch, as my father refers her to. Much of her views do summarize mine as well and I had the chance to actually gather up my interest on her because of her similar views with Chomsky. Thank you, Liza (arielnietzsche)

[guyuhthree]

They showed Miss Mitten how it was possible to read both “Malayalam” and “Madam I’m Adam” backwards as well as forwards. She wasn’t amused and it turned out that she didn’t even know what Malayalam was. They told her it was the language everyone spoke in Kerala. She said she had been under the impression that it was called Keralese. Estha, who had by then taken an active dislike to Miss Mitten, told her that as far as he was concerned it was a Highly Stupid Impression.

Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things. (via princessbindi)

[asmk-deactivated20141017]

Terrorism has no country. It’s transnational, as global an enterprise as Coke or Pepsi or Nike. At the first sign of trouble, terrorists can pull up stakes and move their “factories” from country to country in search of a better deal. Just like the multinationals. Terrorism as a phenomenon may never go away. But if it is to be contained, the first step is for America to at least acknowledge that it shares the planet with other nations, with other human beings, who, even if they are not on TV, have loves and griefs and stories and songs and sorrows and, for heaven’s sake, rights. The September 11 attacks were a monstrous calling card from a world gone horribly wrong. The message may have been written by Osama bin Laden (who knows?) and delivered by his couriers, but it could well have been signed by the ghosts of the victims of America’s old wars: the millions killed in Korea, Vietnam, and Cambodia, the 17,500 killed when Israel-backed by the U.S.-invaded Lebanon in 1982, the tens of thousands of Iraqis killed in Operation Desert Storm, the thousands of Palestinians who have died fighting Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. And the millions who died, in Yugoslavia, Somalia, Haiti, Chile, Nicaragua, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Panama, at the hands of all the terrorists, dictators, and genocidists whom the American government supported, trained, bankrolled, and supplied with arms.

Arundhati Roy, “The Algebra of Infinite Justice”  (via asmk)

[azspot]

This theft of language, this technique of usurping words and deploying them like weapons, of using them to mask intent and to mean exactly the opposite of what they have traditionally meant, has been one of the most brilliant strategic victories of the czars of the new dispensation. It has allowed them to marginalize their detractors, deprive them of a language to voice their critique and dismiss them as being “anti-progress,” “anti-development,” “anti-reform,” and of course “anti-national” - negativists of the worst sort. To reclaim these stolen words requires explanations that are too tedious for a world with a short attention span, and too expensive in an era when Free Speech has become unaffordable for the poor. This language heist may prove to be the keystone of our undoing.

Arundhati Roy (via azspot)

[hellanne]

She wore flowers in her hair and carried magic secrets in her eyes. She spoke to no one. She spent hours on the riverbank and had midnight swims.

Arundhati Roy (via pakizah)

[underpaidgenius]

Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.

Arundhati Roy (via underpaidgenius)

[jayaprada]

The antagonists in the forest are disparate and unequal in almost every way. On one side is a massive paramilitary force armed with the money, the firepower, the media, and the hubris of an emerging Superpower. On the other, ordinary villagers armed with traditional weapons, backed by a superbly organised, hugely motivated Maoist guerrilla fighting force with an extraordinary and violent history of armed rebellion. The Maoists and the paramilitary are old adversaries and have fought older avatars of each other several times before: Telangana in the ’50s; West Bengal, Bihar, Srikakulam in Andhra Pradesh in the late ’60s and ’70s; and then again in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Maharashtra from the ’80s all the way through to the present. They are familiar with each other’s tactics, and have studied each other’s combat manuals closely. Each time, it seemed as though the Maoists (or their previous avatars) had been not just defeated, but literally, physically exterminated. Each time, they have re-emerged, more organised, more determined and more influential than ever. Today once again the insurrection has spread through the mineral-rich forests of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa and West Bengal—homeland to millions of India’s tribal people, dreamland to the corporate world. It’s easier on the liberal conscience to believe that the war in the forests is a war between the Government of India and the Maoists, who call elections a sham, Parliament a pigsty and have openly declared their intention to overthrow the Indian State. It’s convenient to forget that tribal people in Central India have a history of resistance that predates Mao by centuries. (That’s a truism of course. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t exist.) The Ho, the Oraon, the Kols, the Santhals, the Mundas and the Gonds have all rebelled several times, against the British, against zamindars and moneylenders. The rebellions were cruelly crushed, many thousands killed, but the people were never conquered. Even after Independence, tribal people were at the heart of the first uprising that could be described as Maoist, in Naxalbari village in West Bengal (where the word Naxalite—now used interchangeably with ‘Maoist’—originates). Since then, Naxalite politics has been inextricably entwined with tribal uprisings, which says as much about the tribals as it does about the Naxalites.

Arundhati Roy (via jayaprada)

[larmoyante]

To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget.

Arundhati Roy (via larmoyante)

[marxwasblack]

Arundhati Roy on the term 'Anti-American'

Once someone is branded anti-American, the chances are that he or she will be judged before they’re heard and the argument will be lost in the welter of bruised national pride. What does the term mean? That you’re anti-jazz? Or that you’re opposed to free speech? That you don’t delight in Toni Morrison or John Updike? That you have a quarrel with giant sequoias? Does it mean you don’t admire the hundreds of thousands of American citizens who marched against nuclear weapons, or the thousands of war resisters who forced their government to withdraw from Vietnam? Does it mean that you hate all Americans? This sly conflation of America’s music, literature, the breathtaking physical beauty of the land, the ordinary pleasures of ordinary people with criticism of the US government’s foreign policy is a deliberate and extremely effective strategy. It’s like a retreating army taking cover in a heavily populated city, hoping that the prospect of hitting civilian targets will deter enemy fire.

[gole-yas-deactivated20130109]

Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness – and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe. The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling – their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability. Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them. Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.

Arundhati Roy, War Talk (h/t Eman)

This is everything. This is everything this is everything this is everything we mean when we say friendship is political and storytelling and listening and teaching are political. Reclaiming space little by little through small acts of creativity and love in order to spark resistance

(via gole-yas)

[peaceandphilosophy-blog]

Imperial colonialism is fast being replaced by corporate colonialism and Kashmiris would have to make a choice whether or not they wanted the Indian oppression to be replaced by a future corporate oppression of the local masses. Your struggle has increased the consciousness in India about the oppression you face, but you must decide what type of society you have in mind once you are allowed to decide your future.

Arudhanti Roy, Indian author, activist, anti-colonialist, and storyteller (via queerencia)

[jayaprada]

Who is he really, this new saint, this Voice of the People? Oddly enough we’ve heard him say nothing about things of urgent concern. Nothing about the farmer’s suicides in his neighbourhood, or about Operation Green Hunt further away. Nothing about Singur, Nandigram, Lalgarh, nothing about Posco, about farmer’s agitations or the blight of SEZs. He doesn’t seem to have a view about the Government’s plans to deploy the Indian Army in the forests of Central India.

“He does however support Raj Thackeray’s Marathi Manoos xenophobia and has praised the ‘development model’ of Gujarat’s Chief Minister who oversaw the 2002 pogrom against Muslims. (Anna withdrew that statement after a public outcry, but presumably not his admiration.)

“Despite the din, sober journalists have gone about doing what journalists do. We now have the back-story about Anna’s old relationship with the RSS. We have heard from Mukul Sharma who has studied Anna’s village community in Ralegan Siddhi, where there have been no Gram Panchayat or Co-operative society elections in the last 25 years. We know about Anna’s attitude to ‘harijans’ [Gandhian term for untouchables]: ‘It was Mahatma Gandhi’s vision that every village should have one chamar, one sunar, one kumhar and so on. They should all do their work according to their role and occupation, and in this way, a village will be self-dependent. This is what we are practicing in Ralegan Siddhi.’ Is it surprising that members of Team Anna have also been associated with Youth for Equality, the anti-reservation (pro-‘merit’) movement [that opposes affirmative action on the basis of caste]? The campaign is being handled by people who run a clutch of generously funded NGOs whose donors include Coca-Cola and Lehman Brothers. Kabir, run by Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia, key figures in Team Anna, has received $400,000 from the Ford Foundation in the last three years. Among contributors to the India Against Corruption campaign there are Indian companies and foundations that own aluminum plants, build ports and SEZs, and run Real Estate businesses and are closely connected to politicians who run financial empires that run into thousands of crores of rupees. Some of them are currently being investigated for corruption and other crimes. Why are they all so enthusiastic? […]

“At a time when the State is withdrawing from its traditional duties and Corporations and NGOs are taking over government functions (water supply, electricity, transport, telecommunication, mining, health, education); at a time when the terrifying power and reach of the corporate owned media is trying to control the public imagination, one would think that these institutions — the corporations, the media, and NGOs — would be included in the jurisdiction of a Lokpal bill. Instead, the proposed bill leaves them out completely.

“Now, by shouting louder than everyone else, by pushing a campaign that is hammering away at the theme of evil politicians and government corruption, they have very cleverly let themselves off the hook. Worse, by demonising only the Government they have built themselves a pulpit from which to call for the further withdrawal of the State from the public sphere and for a second round of reforms — more privatisation, more access to public infrastructure and India’s natural resources. It may not be long before Corporate Corruption is made legal and renamed a Lobbying Fee.”

— I’d rather not be Anna by Arundhati Roy (The Hindu)

[jahanzebjz-deactivated20200414]

It’s important to understand that the corporate media doesn’t just support the neo-liberal project. It is the neo-liberal project. This is not a moral position it has chosen to take, it’s structural. It’s intrinsic to the economics of how the mass media works.

Arundhati Roy (via jahanzebjz)

[abustaif-deactivated20140701]

‘We’ - Arundhati Roy

We is a fast-paced 64 minute documentary that covers the world politics of power, war, corporations, deception and exploitation.  It visualizes the words of Arundhati Roy, specifically her famous Come September speech, where she spoke on such things as the war on terror, corporate globalization, justice and the growing civil unrest.

It’s witty, moving, alarming and quite a lesson in modern history.  We is almost in the style of a continuous music video. The music used sets the pace and serves as wonderful background for the words of Ms. Roy and images of humanity in the world we live all in today.

Highly recommend this documentary. Very moving and poetic speech by Arundhati Roy.

[likeafieldmouse-deactivated2015]

[ayiman-deactivated20141010]

If you’re an adivasi living in a forest village and 800 CRP come and surround your village and start burning it, what are you supposed to do? Are you supposed to go on hunger strike? Can the hungry go on a hunger strike? Non-violence is a piece of theatre. You need an audience. What can you do when you have no audience? People have the right to resist annihilation.

Arundhati Roy, in The Guardian (via ayiman)

I am going to go off on a bit of a tangent via indigenous resistance and unpopular ideologies like Maoism… You can completely denounce Mao and his horrors while having some understanding for why many political parties have emerged under his name— political parties which are made up of EXTREMELY marginalized people, namely indigenous folks.

For example the adiyasi and the Naxilites, they are ultra-violent at times and have adopted Maoism due to a variety of reasons including Mao’s emphasis on the peasant class/agrarian workers as a vanguardist class. But instead of just being like HURR THIRD WORLD NATIONALISM THAT IS INFLUENCED BY MURDEROUS DICTATORS, you need to understand why are these people resorting to such extreme means to cultivate political agency?

If you aren’t asking this question, if you aren’t asking how peasant classes that exist in a pre-capitalist epistomology can rebel once modernity is dumped onto their lab via a government bureaucrat holding a property deed and saying ‘THIS IS OUR LAND NOW, ’ then you should shut the fuck up about how oppressive people are for supporting Naxilities and those inspired by MAO.

(via le-kif-kif)

[ayiman-deactivated20141010]

If you’re an adivasi living in a forest village and 800 CRP come and surround your village and start burning it, what are you supposed to do? Are you supposed to go on hunger strike? Can the hungry go on a hunger strike? Non-violence is a piece of theatre. You need an audience. What can you do when you have no audience? People have the right to resist annihilation.

Arundhati Roy, in The Guardian (via ayiman)

[jayaprada]

US operations in Yemen, six month comparison: January to June 2011 and 2012 [X]

Yemen Investigates Civilians Killed by US Drone on AntiWar.com

Yemen has sent tribal representative to investigate the civilians killed by an apparent US drone strike launched over the weekend, according to AFP.

“Three women and a child were among 14 people killed in Sunday’s strike near the town of Radaa,” reports AFP. The supposed target of the bombing was Abdelrauf al-Dahab, a known al-Qaeda member who escaped unharmed.

As a force of habit from longstanding US-Yemeni policy, the Yemeni government initially tried to take responsibility for what is now widely considered to be a US strike. Officials said the targeting mistake was the result of “faulty intelligence.”

Initial reports said the male dead were al-Qaeda militants, but other sources said they were fellow tribesmen of Dahab unnconnected to the jihadist network. As is usual, the Obama administration doesn’t consider it an obligation to explain who it bombs and why.

Indeed, the fact that most of those killed were male may be good enough for Obama, considering his policy of counting “all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants,” as reported by the New York Times.

Not only is the Obama administration sending unprecedented amounts of aid and security assistance to the horrible Yemeni regime which systematically acts as al-Qaeda’s lifeline in order to milk more US support, but they are continuously bombing the “allied” country with drones, generating anti-American hatred and greater al-Qaeda recruitment.

Up to 14 Yemenis, including women and children, were killed by a US drone on Sunday