| Title | : | The Algebra of Infinite Justice |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0007149492 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780007149490 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 251 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 2001 |
| Awards | : | Sahitya Akademi Award English (2005) |
The Algebra of Infinite Justice Reviews
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For a few years now, I have heard everyone - from sections of media to people in my social stream call Arundhati Roy everything from a Naxalite lover to a development hater to a deranged person, the last instance during the happenings in Kashmir. In fact, these days whenever there’s an issue of national interest with a scope for polarised opinions, I find many people asking about her take, just so they can heap more ridicule. And though I have never really been a fan of her award winning work of fiction, I have admitted to myself, and to a few of my friends, that I have found it difficult to objectively fault her arguments. After reading this book, I have realised why it is easy to hate her – she holds up a mirror in front of us, the kind of mirror that tells us how our apathy and desire to follow the path of least resistance is responsible for the larger problems we see around us.
And she does this not just in some moral high ground, philosophising sort of way. She does so with historical perspectives and economical contexts and most importantly, hard data. And therefore, it is not easy to ignore her when she talks about the Narmada Bachao Andolan, the costs of what we call progress and the greater common good, the background games played behind the ‘developmental’ activities we see around us, America’s war against terror, the beginnings of fascism in India and how all of these are linked. The writer in her is in full flow, using sarcasm and wit to telling effect, to (ironically) show the seriousness of the issue. There is something very vulnerable about her when she talks about her dislike for the ‘writer-activist’ label.
So the next time, I hear something said against her, I am going to ask the person if he/she has read this book. They may not agree with her, but at least this will give them perspective and basis their interest, they can look for counter arguments. What I seek from them is exactly what I seek from myself – an acknowledgment of one’s own role in the issues of today and developing the strength to not look away. -
"The sophistry and fastidious algebra of Infinite Justice. How many dead Iraqis will it take to make the world a better place? How many dead Afghans for every dead American? How many dead children for every dead man? How many dead mujahideen for each dead investment banker?
Witness the Infinite Justice of new century. Civilians starving to death while they are waiting to be killed.
Infinite Justice for some means Infinite Injustice for others. And Enduring Freedom for some means Enduring Subjugation for others.
Genocides can become the subject of opinion polls and massacres can have marketing campaigns.
There is no terrorism like state terrorism."
Roy happens to be one of the very few living writers of today's world with the capacity to call a spade a spade with astonishing clarity and fastidious character. If our world were to have more people like her and less people like the political and business "gods" who rule us, our earth could have been a much better and safer and even saner home for us all! -
Roy’s lexis dazzle through each penned composition voicing a valiant and scathing critique of falsified political institutions and the materialization of Indian fascism.
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good at writing fiction does not mean good at writing politics
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This volume compiles Roy’s published nonfiction up to early 2002 (2nd edition)...
Highlights:
--The main new article is “Democracy: Who is She When She’s at Home?”, chronicling India’s failures with “democracy”. This traces the rise of fascistic Hindu nationalism to colonialism’s divide-and-conquer, highlighted by the 1947 British partition of India (by then, haste to retreat and keep colonial hands clean).
--This was followed by the Congress party’s toying with violence for political gain, which escalated into a nuclear standoff with Pakistan; India moved away from international disarmament (Non-Aligned Movement) and into nuclear weapons (1998 Pokhran nuclear tests). The fabulous
Vijay Prashad details the context:
https://youtu.be/R6PnB7bnLFY?t=226
--Thus, the Congress party sowed the seeds for the open promotion of genocidal violence by the BJP.
--I’ve reviewed the rest of the articles elsewhere:
-on India’s nuclear weapons:
The Cost of Living
-on India’s mega dams:
The Greater Common Good
-on India’s jobless growth + era of War On Terror:
Power Politics
The Missing:
--How can Fascism and the history of grievances be resolved? Roy briefly suggests that banning alone will not reach the effectiveness of voluntary abandonment (after recognition of the never-ending depravity). Public institutions’ unaccountability and media sensationalism must be challenged. In the end, there must be space for alternative voices and imaginations (here, the Indian State is repressing peaceful protests against mass displacements:
The Greater Common Good and
Walking with the Comrades).
--Roy has elsewhere detailed the stifling of social imagination by global capitalism’s jobless growth (especially in
Capitalism: A Ghost Story). The abstractions of global capitalism’s disruptions and humiliations open space for reactionary scapegoating (think Nazism, Global Trumpism) towards visible, vulnerable groups; more from Vijay Prashad:
https://youtu.be/z11ohWnuwa0
https://youtu.be/ZhkA3LVpbxg
--Details on the abstract capitalist crises and unresponsive liberal elites (opening the door to the "populist" Right) in post-2008 Europe:
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And the Weak Suffer What They Must? Europe's Crisis and America's Economic Future
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Adults in the Room: My Battle with Europe's Deep Establishment
--Fascism as a phase to protect capitalist private accumulation during crises:
Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism
--Fascism’s techniques borrowed from colonial administration:
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Discourse on Colonialism
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Exterminate All the Brutes: One Man's Odyssey into the Heart of Darkness and the Origins of European Genocide -
This woman seems to have too much pop corn in her head. Looks like she can present really good left-libral arguments, but she is more of a showman.
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I am not a left-winger. I have chopped off my right wing as well few years back. Standing at the center and tilting either way as the situation demands is hypocrisy, in my opinion.
So I just stand away from the line and observe.
In short, I don't have a stand. And that gives me an opportunity to view all in sort of an unbiased way.
But, Arundhati Roy has a stand. Left of most. And she throws brickbats at anyone who stands right of her.I needed to understand why she is hurling these bludgeons. So I picked up one of her collection of essays. Though dated (almost a decade old), it introduces a good amount of her thoughts.
I don't agree with some of her opinions, and need to verify some of the mindboggling data she provides, but I must admit that I admire her skill and power of penning those uncomfortable questions in poetic manner that have the potential to unsettle the firm. I loved the way she writes.
The biggest complaint I have with all these essays are that though she questions the intent and rationale of the acts of the authority and elaborates on the misgivings and catastrophic aftermaths, she never provides a solution. That in my opinion, makes the essays just an uncomfortable confrontation, but never a intellectual exposition.
In "The end of Imagination" Mrs. Roy expounds the evils of even holding a nuclear bomb even if there is no sight of a war. Deterrence Theory is just a nonsensical excuse.
"The greater common good" describes, substantiated with gory figures, the little benefit that a big dam brings and the bigger issues it creates like uprooting the local inhabitants from their bases and throwing them into misery and ultimately inhuman death.
In "Power Politics" she is against the commoditization of the basic necessities like water and electricity and attacks vehemently the politics around it.
"The Ladies have feelings, so..." (the best written one of the lot) justifies why and how she turned from a Booker winning fiction writer to a radical social activist.
"The algebra of infinite justice" and "War is Peace" make a mockery of the American war against terror exposing the hypocrisy behind it.
In "Democracy" Roy rips apart the farcical democratic governance system by citing the state run pogrom during the post Godhra incident.
Finally, in "War Talk" she summarizes her haphazard emotional outbursts against all the things that is going wrong in the present world - war, state-run-terrorism, corruption, dams, etc etc.
OK. As I stated earlier, some of her points are just cries of agony that can create a stir in mind, but shouldn't be taken on face value (how can one be judgemental by listening just one side of the story), but I want to reiterate that I started respecting her as a writer. -
I don't disagree with anything Arundhati says here. It's not that. It's just that these essays mourn too much, grieve too much, complain too much, provide no solutions, and very little new information.
They are stuck in a limbo between sentimentalizing loss (while completely failing to make it feel tangible - because the author does all the grieving for you) and trying to do reportage (while providing little to no new information, perhaps due to how dated these essays are). I guess the goal was to make your heart ache so much you leave everything and take the next train to the Narmada Valley. If it was, it feels like one big hit-and-miss operation. -
I read God of small things a few years ago. I was impressed by the style of it. A story where everything is revealed as and when it is required. A chronological run of things was turned into something more beautiful, a master tale by a non-chronological telling of events. It was beautiful.
It has been years since when wanting to know more about Ambedkar and a not so mainstream view of Gandhi that I picked up The Saint and The Doctor. It brought into view, in first few pages, the political heart of Miss Roy. I had tasted blood and I was hungry for more. I ordered almost all the collections of her political essays. This is a collective review, more of a reaction, that these essays inspired in me.
Reading her on issues like the nuclear tests, the 9/11 attacks and the war on terror, the war on Iraq, the Gujarat pogrom, the India shining, the new Economic policy, the Big Dams, the Maoists being the single biggest internal security threat, on capitalism, on water in rivers, trees in forests, minerals in mountains etc., I cannot help but feeling that this was the analysis that I had been wanting to read all those years ago while I was growing up, while these were still current affairs.
Miss Roy says somewhere in these books that her writing from the start has always been about power - about the confrontation of the powerful and the powerless. Reading her, only ones indoctrinated deep into the Ivy league and their proxies’ system cannot be sympathetic to the people she writes about. What happens in India in the name of development is nothing short of colonisation by other means.
And almost every institution available to the resisting masses has been shut right at their faces. The legislature and executive cannot work without the money from corporates - the MOUs that state and central governments sign to privatise India’s rivers, minerals, forests are secret so that the junta cannot even know what the terms of their disenfranchisement, their servitude are. The courts (yes including the Supreme Court) on occasion has vested interests or submits to the conscience of the masses to gives its judgements, or in the case of big dams allows the construction to go ahead just because government has already began construction and costs have been incurred. The Media is owned by the same corporate houses or itself has diversified into the companies that have stake in exploiting the natural resources and the people, so obviously it sings the same songs its master tells it. Writing about media in the era of commander-ship of Modi seems just too much to ask for anyway.
At one point Roy says that in India we have turned the idea of non-violent resistance on its head - we have made it non-violent repression. Its unlike what is done in other countries like China or Indonesia where governments mow down its people. In India, due to systemic division of society into horizontal layers with no inter-mingling, the government can turn its back on the few layers at the bottom - Adivasis and the Dalits and increasingly the Muslims and nobody notices and the wild dance of Union and Progress continues. The Indian middle class is kept in their cylos by the not-so-hidden nexus of big media and big corporates and they more often than not are sufficient to make public perception and get the politicians on to the other side.
The facts remains that India is home to more poor people than the most of the Sub-Saharan Africa combined. And the irony is that the State instead of worrying about its poverty, its education and health fights them in the broad day light and Indian middle class (me and you) are expected to clap when news of some victory comes (a Maoist killed in the jungles of Chattisgarh). The Indian police force, corrupt as it is, does its business (rape, kills, steals) with impunity in these parts of Central India. This is the story that must be told, hundred times over, over and over again.
If you want to know about India, at a particular time and about a particular place, read 15 days of newspapers, the best of them - the times, the Hindu, the Indian Express - read them inside out, their editorials and their columns and then read Roy. And still if you have not been battle hardened graduates of Ivy leagues you will find stories there - of love and loss - of hills loved as deities and of forests respected as provider of all means. So I ask you to read Roy with an open mind and allow her to challenge you. To challenge you on your notions of development and progress. What development and whose progress? To help in your quest just keep one single question in mind - has there been a model of capitalism anywhere which can provide respectable employment to all with all the new technologies and even if everyone turn into monstrous consumers?
Yes there are no answers to the question - what then is progress to the likes of Roy (and me) - but it surely is not this. The way USA came into being on the near extermination of natives or American Indians. Do we want the same for India and then for the rest of the world - the South American and African countries? Why can’t a people who have found a way of living - satisfied in their villages and forests - be left alone. Can we really say that we understand life more than they do? Most of the people I know if left for a day in the forest will come screaming back knowing not what to do and scared to the bone for their life.
There is a general consensus amongst the people who are genuinely on the left in India (Roy, Sainath) that the world is run by the consortium of world bank, IMF, WTO and some rich countries trying to take advantage because there is real money in poverty. The next step for anyone having read Roy is to read and understand about this nexus. So there I am headed next.
These series of political essays also made clear to me the kind of responsibility and the level of acumen and tact one needs to have to deal with issues of welfare of all people everywhere. This kind of burden can easily crumble one. This is almost paralysing. To get out of it, I think one can only surmise that all the responsibility cannot lie on one person; it needs to be shared by those who understands or rather who are capable of understanding but turn their backs on real issues. One must understand that if they so happen to be privileged due to historical and geographical accidents then they absolutely cannot shrug off responsibility because it will eventually catch up to them if not now then probably by next generation or one after that.
The political project of Roy (this is what I gather to be so from these essays which are now at least 10 years old) is a form of globalisation of dissent. This, she says, is the only thing worth globalising and is an appropriate response to the current idea of globalisation. I must admit that my understanding of globalisation before reading Roy was a typical middle class Indian understanding that it is about trade becoming freer, opening of free markets to companies and people from other nations and I did not think about it in that grave a light. I argued that since economy is now global so must the politics be made global that there be a global government to regulate global capital. Though I was aware that there was some kind of nexus between big corporates and local national governments but I didn’t know that it is to such an extent that national governments deliberately sell their nations wealth at discount to these corporates.
My understanding was naive. In a memorable scene from Godfather III when Vincent tells Don Lucchesi that he doesn’t understand finance and politics. Don Lucchesi explains it with an analogy to guns. Finance is the gun and politics the art to know when to pull the trigger. That the connection between finance and politics is so played out in broad daylight comes as a bit of surprise. This metaphorical gun has been hijacked by some vested interests who do not hesitate to use it against their people - how else can you explain the fact that their own governments sign contracts of their own disempowerment and servitude? This is lethal and would turn Earth into more ugly fragments than it already is.
Out of my limited understanding, I would at least want to know what we are up against. So the MOUs which are secret documents must be public - what right does a government has to sell all its nation’s mines and natural wealth over to a small consortium of companies displacing and dispossessing its own people. Its colonialism and imperialism all over again. I am not against business or capitalism. I think capitalism as far it is a pursuit of excellence must be given space to flourish. But I am whole heartedly for a more solid state that guarantees every citizen some basic amenities and rights and which are not harmed in any way by any of the excesses of corporates or governments. Let any kind of economic system - socialism, communism, capitalism, gram swaraj or whatever - be based on this solid foundation.
Right now it seems finance is the gun and the boardrooms control the triggers because the politicians do not have the backs, have vested interests, are indulged in petty image management and are afraid of the flight of the capital or investment. These boardrooms and their international facilitators - the WTO, the world bank, the IMF are where the real power is concentrated and we must demand they be unmasked and show their true face. I know they are scared and that’s why they hide. Tomes have been written about mob mentality and public anger and no one in their right mind would give in to that. But the intent of all must be made clear for it is then only the real politicians who have their backs in place can work, can negotiate compromises, can come to a solution. This is the only way forward for all those who have an incentive for avoiding more wars and more ugliness.
[I have to add that interlacing all the content is not a grave and deeply sad prose, there is wit and humour, lots of it. So reading her is quite enjoyable. Most of anything her ability to find humour in the darkest of places is most impressive.
Also, a personal aside. My first job was in an office of about 40 people and I was stiff bored. To pass time I declared myself to be the intern of only HR we had there. It was fun. I was quite an intern - I am not sure about my main role but I performed well on my internship. I mention this because if Miss Roy reads this review then let it be my formal application for internship or apprenticeship in her quarters. I don’t have her contact details so I leave the letter here. I think if I try hard enough I can find a way to contact her but I still have got tons of reading to do. So.] -
This book has hit my privilege so hard and I absolutely love it. Well researched, witty and very well written. I'm in love with Arundhati Roy. From nuclear wars to Big Dams to privatisation of resources, she has attacked it all by spitting hard facts. If you want those rose tinted glasses to be taken off, pick this book up.
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From "War Is Peace":
"Nothing can excuse or justify an act of terrorism, whether it is committed by religious fundamentalists, private militia, people's resistance movements—or whether it's dressed up as a war of retribution by a recognised government. 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. Each innocent person that is killed must be added to, not set off against, the grisly toll of civilians who died in New York and Washington."
* * * * *
"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.
Speaking at the FBI headquarters a few days later, President Bush said: "This is our calling. This is the calling of the United States of America. The most free nation in the world. A nation built on fundamental values that reject hate, reject violence, rejects murderers and rejects evil. We will not tire."
Here is a list of the countries that America has been at war with—and bombed—since World War II: China (1945-46, 1950-53); Korea (1950-53); Guatemala (1954, 1967-69); Indonesia (1958); Cuba (1959-60); the Belgian Congo (1964); Peru (1965); Laos (1964-73); Vietnam (1961-73); Cambodia (1969-70); Grenada (1983); Libya (1986); El Salvador (1980s); Nicaragua (1980s); Panama (1989), Iraq (1991-99), Bosnia (1995), Sudan (1998); Yugoslavia (1999).And now Afghanistan.
* * * * *
Certainly it does not tire—this, the Most Free nation in the world. What freedoms does it uphold? Within its borders, the freedoms of speech, religion, thought; of artistic expression, food habits, sexual preferences (well, to some extent) and many other exemplary, wonderful things. Outside its borders, the freedom to dominate, humiliate and subjugate—usually in the service of America's real religion, the 'free market'. So when the US government christens a war 'Operation Infinite Justice', or 'Operation Enduring Freedom', we in the Third World feel more than a tremor of fear. Because we know that Infinite Justice for some means Infinite Injustice for others. And Enduring Freedom for some means Enduring Subjugation for others.
The International Coalition Against Terror is largely a cabal of the richest countries in the world. Between them, they manufacture and sell almost all of the world's weapons, they possess the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction—chemical, biological and nuclear.
They have fought the most wars, account for most of the genocide, subjection, ethnic cleansing and human rights violations in modern history, and have sponsored, armed and financed untold numbers of dictators and despots. Between them, they have worshipped, almost deified, the cult of violence and war. For all its appalling sins, the Taliban just isn't in the same league.
* * * * *
With all due respect to President Bush, the people of the world do not have to choose between the Taliban and the US government. All the beauty of human civilisation—our art, our music, our literature—lies beyond these two fundamentalist, ideological poles. There is as little chance that the people of the world can all become middle-class consumers as there is that they'll all embrace any one particular religion. The issue is not about Good vs Evil or Islam vs Christianity as much as it is about space. About how to accommodate diversity, how to contain the impulse towards hegemony—every kind of hegemony, economic, military, linguistic, religious and cultural. Any ecologist will tell you how dangerous and fragile a monoculture is. A hegemonic world is like having a government without a healthy opposition. It becomes a kind of dictatorship. It's like putting a plastic bag over the world, and preventing it from breathing. Eventually, it will be torn open.
* * * * *
Consider the fact that the world has not yet found an acceptable definition of what 'terrorism' is. One country's terrorist is too often another's freedom fighter. At the heart of the matter lies the world's deep-seated ambivalence towards violence. Once violence is accepted as a legitimate political instrument, then the morality and political acceptability of terrorists (insurgents or freedom fighters) becomes contentious, bumpy terrain. The US government itself has funded, armed and sheltered plenty of rebels and insurgents around the world. The CIA and Pakistan's ISI trained and armed the mujahideen who, in the '80s, were seen as terrorists by the government in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan...
This is not to suggest that the terrorists who perpetrated the outrage on September 11 should not be hunted down and brought to book. They must be. But is war the best way to track them down? Will burning the haystack find you the needle? Or will it escalate the anger and make the world a living hell for all of us?"
* * * * *
Then there's that other branch of traditional family business—oil. Remember, President George Bush (Jr) and Vice-President Dick Cheney both made their fortunes working in the US oil industry.
Turkmenistan, which borders the northwest of Afghanistan, holds the world's third largest gas reserves and an estimated six billion barrels of oil reserves. Enough, experts say, to meet American energy needs for the next 30 years (or a developing country's energy requirements for a couple of centuries.) America has always viewed oil as a security consideration, and protected it by any means it deems necessary. Few of us doubt that its military presence in the Gulf has little to do with its concern for human rights and almost entirely to do with its strategic interest in oil...
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. Therefore, it would be foolish to expect this talk of guns and oil and defence deals to get any real play in the media...
And what of the rest of us, the numb recipients of this onslaught of what we know to be preposterous propaganda? The daily consumers of the lies and brutality smeared in peanut butter and strawberry jam being air-dropped into our minds just like those yellow food packets. Shall we look away and eat because we're hungry, or shall we stare unblinking at the grim theatre unfolding in Afghanistan until we retch collectively and say, in one voice, that we have had enough?"
* * * *
From "Algebra of Infinite Justice":
In the aftermath of the unconscionable September 11 suicide attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, an American newscaster said: "Good and Evil rarely manifest themselves as clearly as they did last Tuesday. People who we don't know, massacred people who we do. And they did so with contemptuous glee." Then he broke down and wept.
Here's the rub: America is at war against people it doesn't know (because they don't appear much on TV).
Before it has properly identified or even begun to comprehend the nature of its enemy, the US government has, in a rush of publicity and embarrassing rhetoric, cobbled together an "International Coalition Against Terror", mobilised its army, its airforce, its navy and its media, and committed them to battle.
The trouble is that once America goes off to war, it can't very well return without having fought one. If it doesn't find its enemy, for the sake of the enraged folks back home, it will have to manufacture one. Once war begins, it will develop a momentum, a logic and a justification of its own, and we'll lose sight of why it's being fought in the first place.
What we're witnessing here is the spectacle of the world's most powerful country, reaching reflexively, angrily, for an old instinct to fight a new kind of war. Suddenly, when it comes to defending itself, America's streamlined warships, its Cruise missiles and F-16 jets look like obsolete, lumbering things. As deterrence, its arsenal of nuclear bombs is no longer worth its weight in scrap. Box-cutters, penknives, and cold anger are the weapons with which the wars of the new century will be waged. Anger is the lock pick. It slips through customs unnoticed. Doesn't show up in baggage checks...
* * * * *
For strategic, military and economic reasons, it is vital for the US government to persuade the American public that America's commitment to freedom and democracy and the American Way of Life is under attack. In the current atmosphere of grief, outrage and anger, it's an easy notion to peddle. However, if that were true, it's reasonable to wonder why the symbols of America's economic and military dominance—the World Trade Center and the Pentagon—were chosen as the targets of the attacks. Why not the Statue of Liberty? Could it be that the stygian anger that led to the attacks has its taproot not in American freedom and democracy, but in the US government's record of commitment and support to exactly the opposite things—to military and economic terrorism, insurgency, military dictatorship, religious bigotry and unimaginable genocide (outside America)?
It must be hard for ordinary Americans so recently bereaved to look up at the world with their eyes full of tears and encounter what might appear to them to be indifference. It isn't indifference. It's just augury. An absence of surprise. The tired wisdom of knowing that what goes around, eventually comes around. American people ought to know that it is not them, but their government's policies that are so hated. They can't possibly doubt that they themselves, their extraordinary musicians, their writers, their actors, their spectacular sportsmen and their cinema, are universally welcomed. All of us have been moved by the courage and grace shown by firefighters, rescue workers and ordinary office-goers in the days and weeks that followed the attacks.
America's grief at what happened has been immense and immensely public. It would be grotesque to expect it to calibrate or modulate its anguish. However, it will be a pity if, instead of using this as an opportunity to try and understand why September 11 happened, Americans use it as an opportunity to usurp the whole world's sorrow to mourn and avenge only their own...
* * * * *
Before America places itself at the helm of the "international coalition against terror", before it invites (and coerces) countries to actively participate in its almost godlike mission—Operation Infinite Justice—it would help if some small clarifications are made. For example, Infinite Justice for whom? Is this America's War against Terror in America or against Terror in general? What exactly is being avenged here? Is it the tragic loss of almost 7,000 lives, the gutting of 5 million square feet of office space in Manhattan, the destruction of a section of the Pentagon, the loss of several hundreds of thousands of jobs, the bankruptcy of some airline companies and the dip in the New York Stock Exchange? Or is it more than that?
In 1996, Madeleine Albright, then US Secretary of State, was asked on national television what she felt about the fact that 500,000 Iraqi children had died as a result of US economic sanctions. She replied that it was "a very hard choice", but that all things considered, "we think the price is worth it." Madeleine Albright never lost her job for saying this. She continued to travel the world representing the views and aspirations of the US government. More pertinently, the sanctions against Iraq remain in place. Children continue to die.
So here we have it. The equivocating distinction between civilisation and savagery, between the 'massacre of innocent people' or, if you like, 'a clash of civilisations' and 'collateral damage'. The sophistry and fastidious algebra of Infinite Justice. How many dead Iraqis will it take to make the world a better place? How many dead Afghans for every dead American? How many dead women and children for every dead man? How many dead mujahideen for each dead investment banker?"
* * * * *
Afghanistan's economy is in a shambles. In fact, the problem for an invading army is that Afghanistan has no conventional coordinates or signposts to plot on a military map—no big cities, no highways, no industrial complexes, no water treatment plants. Farms have been turned into mass graves. The countryside is littered with landmines—10 million is the most recent estimate. The American army would first have to clear the mines and build roads in order to take its soldiers in.
Fearing an attack from America, one million citizens have fled from their homes and arrived at the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. As supplies run out—food and aid agencies have been asked to leave—the BBC reports that one of the worst humanitarian disasters of recent times has begun to unfold. Witness the Infinite Justice of the new century. Civilians starving to death, while they're waiting to be killed.
In America there has been rough talk of "bombing Afghanistan back to the stone age". Someone please break the news that Afghanistan is already there. And if it's any consolation, America played no small part in helping it on its way. The American people may be a little fuzzy about where exactly Afghanistan is (we hear reports that there's a run on maps of Afghanistan), but the US government and Afghanistan are old friends.
In 1979, after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the CIA and Pakistan's ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) launched the largest covert operation in the history of the CIA. Their purpose was to harness the energy of Afghan resistance to the Soviets and expand it into a holy war, an Islamic jihad, which would turn Muslim countries within the Soviet Union against the Communist regime and eventually destabilise it. When it began, it was meant to be the Soviet Union's Vietnam. It turned out to be much more than that. Over the years, the CIA funded and recruited almost 100,000 radical mujahideen from 40 Islamic countries as soldiers for America's proxy war. The rank and file of the mujahideen were unaware that their jihad was actually being fought on behalf of Uncle Sam.(The irony is that America was equally unaware that it was financing a future war against itself).
By 1989, after being bloodied by 10 years of relentless conflict, the Russians withdrew, leaving behind a civilisation reduced to rubble. Civil war in Afghanistan raged on. The jihad spread to Chechnya, Kosovo and eventually to Kashmir. The CIA continued to pour in money and military equipment, but the overheads had become immense, and more money was needed. The mujahideen ordered farmers to plant opium as 'revolutionary tax'. The ISI set up hundreds of heroin laboratories across Afghanistan. Within two years of the CIA's arrival, the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderland had become the biggest producer of heroin in the world, and the single biggest source on American streets. The annual profits, said to be between 100 and 200 billion dollars, were ploughed back into training and arming militants.
In 1995, the Taliban—then a marginal sect of dangerous, hardline fundamentalists—fought its way to power in Afghanistan. It was funded by the ISI, that old cohort of the CIA, and supported by many political parties in Pakistan. The Taliban unleashed a regime of terror. Its first victims were its own people, particularly women. It closed down girls' schools, dismissed women from government jobs, enforced Sharia laws in which women deemed to be 'immoral' are stoned to death, and widows guilty of being adulterous are buried alive. Given the Taliban government's human rights track record, it seems unlikely that it will in any way be intimidated or swerved from its purpose by the prospect of war, or the threat to the lives of its civilians.
After all that has happened, can there be anything more ironic than Russia and America joining hands to re-destroy Afghanistan? The question is, can you destroy destruction? Dropping more bombs on Afghanistan will only shuffle the rubble, scramble some old graves and disturb the dead.
The desolate landscape of Afghanistan was the burial ground of Soviet Communism and the springboard of a unipolar world dominated by America. It made the space for neo-capitalism and corporate globalisation, again dominated by America. And now Afghanistan is poised to be the graveyard for the unlikely soldiers who fought and won this war for America." -
This book has probably, some of the best collection of essays, I have ever read. I don't know why people (read humans, not right winged fools) hate her, when her observations are supported by hard facts !You don't worship a writer, you follow what you think is supported by facts and has a deduction you agree with. That she's one sided everyone knows,that she gets very emotional is also known, but that's passion, and so what ? Well lemme put it in her own words, in one of her essays 'the end of imagination'..
'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 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.' -
She's a hell of a writer #1. If after writing "The God of Small Things" she had remained "just" a novelist she would have been treasured. But winning the Mann-Booker prize gave her the platform to write political essays. "Algebra of Infinite Justice" is a collection of some of them. Although it's pretty India-centric, and a bit dated, coming soon after 9/11, her politics is clear. Whenever in doubt she sides with the exploited. The US, George Bush and cronies (including Tony Blair) come in for their fair share of criticism. I can see why politicians hate her. She calls it as it is.
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In all seriousness, Arundhati Roy is my hero. She tells it like it is and speaks truth to power like whoa. I feel so inspired and energized when I read her work.
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I have only three words to write- 'please read it'. She is a innate writer.
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Prefers invective to analyses.
I was halfway through the book admiring her rhetoric before I began looking for evidence. And found none. -
A collection of political essays highlighting and presenting a digestible account of the then situations in India and the world, well there's not much difference even now after 15 years or so. The only distinction being the then CM of Gujarat and the director of Godhra riots became the PM of India and Bush is replaced by Trump! Leaving this aside, well it is hard not to write anything political about book of political essays. She [Arundhati Roy], the author is a gem of a person. An author-activist, which she is and justifies it so brilliantly by taking a side in a world where people keep opinions only if there's a 'profit' involved. An original thinker she layer by layer peels the democratic illusions of an onion masquerading as world's largest democracy, India. No democracy is perfect, it is like a marriage and you need daily adjustments but such adjustments can be done when they're appealed at some point of time, this book is that appeal. I urge any and every individual willing to grasp the idea of a democracy, the functioning of one and perhaps the largest in the world, to learn the bittersweet truths about it. It [The book] helped me question a lot, search a lot. I watched a few videos and learnt about these developments from scratch. I guess that's the object of a book of this kind, to move a reader and urge him/her to take action. Thank you, Arundhati Roy for such an insight.
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Brilliant narrative. Bold views. Engaging topics. A complete page turner.
Arundhati Roy expresses her views on some of the essential topics we need to question in the world. What keeps the book to-the-point and interesting is the way how facts, emotions and opinions are blended with one another.
Speaking of the author's opinion, one might not agree with all the sides the author takes in this work of non-fiction. However, the book compels the reader to question the various significant events in the present world. It helps us to develop an insight and raise objections to those in power instead of believing directly what they are trying to say to hide what lies beneath the veil.
A beautiful and well-researched piece of work. A must read. -
I give it 3.5, this is not really her best works, I supposed. These writings along with other collections of essays by her are most definitely inspiring but it also can be a bit boring since it did touch upon each issue only briefly. I bought it because I study non-proliferation studies and the first essay on this book is her comments on India nuclear test in 1998. It is emotional - as one would expected. I strongly believe that if you’re in advocacy or related field, you will love this book.
I should note that if I were to rate solely on her first essay, the one on nuclear test, I will definitely give it 5 stars. So I guess there is also elements on personal interests involved. -
"Der Gott der kleinen Dinge" wollte ich schon lange einmal lesen, nun kam mir aber diese Sammlung mit Essays zuvor und vielleicht war das auch gut. Denn leider sagt mir Roys Schreibstil gar nicht zu.
Sie schreibt über sehr wichtige Themen. Über Geschehnisse, von denen ich bisher keine Ahnung hatte. Also eigentlich beste Voraussetzungen, dass ich das Buch mit Interesse lesen würde. Hätte ich auch, wäre die Autorin sachlich geblieben.
Leider tut sie das nicht. Sie wird zynisch, teilweise ironisch, lässt sich von Emotionen überfluten. Das geht für mich in Romanen, aber wenn es um Informationsvermittlung geht, ist es mir lieber, wenn sich die Verfasserin an die Fakten hält und nicht irgendwelche Bemerkungen in Anführungszeichen einbaut.
Doch so kam mir Roy einmal zu oft wie ein eingeschnappter Teenager vor. Ja, ihre Themen sind es wert, sich darüber zu echauffieren. Aber das darf sie ruhig dem Leser überlassen. Aber ein eingeschnappter Teenager verliert für mich leider jegliche Glaubwürdigkeit.
Also erstes und wohl auch letztes Buch der Autorin, das ich gelesen habe. -
Thought provoking essays
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Roy is very vocal about what she feels is right. That’s very brave. A good virtue.
But in her essays, I realised that some of her ideas were quite idealistic. Regarding nuclear weapons or management of dams, she has some extreme views.
But in any case, roy is always worth a read. Her writing style and ideas beyond the time are amazing.
She gives a perspective.
Good job! -
Though her writing may appeal primarily to left-wing intellectuals, this book is one every individual should have on his or her bookshelf. Her longest essay in this book, The Greater Common Good, focuses on large dam construction, but covers many issues of philosophical interest. Why take away from one and give to another? A utilitarian could make the argument that we should strive for the greatest good for the greatest number of people, but who is receiving the greatest good? We know that it is true that dams harm the environment in a variety of different ways -- e.g. waterlogging. Taking this into consideration along with the sheer costs and the number of people who suffer from dam building, is the utilitarian argument really valid? It seems to me, that it is in fact not even a utilitarian argument.
Arundhati Roy would agree. In this book, she explains that in most development projects throughout India, apart from the Sardar Sarovar project that has received so much attention, the displaced have no records, and they leave virtually no trace at all (Roy 104). This makes it nearly impossible for us to tell exactly or even approximately how many millions of people are suffering from the results of dam construction. Apart from this, according to Roy, the government of India has not issued a post-project evaluation on any of the 3,600 dams it has constructed (Roy 59). How, then, are we to know what good the dams are doing, if they are doing any good at all? Is it really worth it to not know, at the cost of the people?
Many other interesting topics are addressed in this book, and her unique writing style is sure to get a reaction out of you, whatever political beliefs you may hold. I guarantee that by the end of the first short essay you'll either be screaming "yes!" with passion in your voice, or banging your fists on the table in anger. Only a writer as good as Roy is capable of that.
Roy's beautiful, eloquent, and powerful writing style encourages many people in the West to consider issues they may have never considered otherwise. Roy's life has been devoted to the service of humankind, and I am forever in admiration of her strong, passionate spirit.
Read it, or miss out. -
The Algebra of Infinite Justice, Arundathi Roy, 2001 (4.5/5)
If you are WOKE, this #book can easily put you into stress about the world order. Each essay is about a most-talked political problem, written in the infamous Roy's style. There is so much anger, despair, mourning and loads of sarcasm (Always in love with her writing style!)
We have always been taught that Dams are for greater good, Atom #bombs are only to scare the terrorists, #Religion exists to instigate faith, Globalisation is to develop the Third world countries and #Government functions to help people.. which is all proven wrong in her essays.
She talks about each of them in seperate essays:
✨The End of Imagination - Why Atom bombs are not required for the world.
✨ Greater common good - How dams destroy lives and corrupts the eco system. ✨Power Politics- Why #Power is planned to be privatised and who gains from it.
✨The Ladies have feelings so - #Globalisation is for whom?
✨The Algebra of Infinite Justice - Twin Tower attack and USA's response to it.
✨War is peace - America's double standards on Terrorism.
✨Democracy- #GujaratRiots and the agenda behind it. It's my most favourite essay for its relevance today. She takes direct dig at #Modi here and wants him to be convicted.
Most of her essays resonates with my views and hence appear a lot believable. Many claims that she is biased, but she's not, as she takes a dig at both the National parties and calls a spade a spade.
The only problem I had with the book is she mourns more than what is required. For books like this, it is better to state the facts and leave the judgment to the reader. Though I disagree with her on some levels, it's a terrific book to get ideas about the institutional politics. -
Until I have read this book I had no clue that Arundhati Roy is a deadly butcher, like a seasoned assassin. That she chooses her target carefully. Equips herself with unfailing arms and ammunition by hours and hours of stern research. And then she strikes. Relentlessly. Mercilessly. She strikes to kill. Kill the target in the eyes of the reader. The targets in this book are --- the western hypocrisy, whose histories are spongy with the blood of others; cynical enterprise a where preponderance of people displaced by big dams at the altar of national progress; the unconscionable attack of America against the people it doesn't know (Afghanistan); and the democracy in the Indian context, where not just one million soldiers on the border who are living on hair-trigger alert --- it's all us. A provocative book that sent chill up my spine! (The description of the author is inspired by an anonymous reviewer on Goodreads)
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Name: The Algebra of Infinite Justice
Author: Arundhati Roy
Genre: Non-fiction, Politics
Review:
The Algebra of Infinite Justice is a collection of political essays that deals with India's nuclear tests, the dam industry as well as 9/11 attacks and the US government's war against Terror.
Arundhati Roy's writing contains an anger, a rage that speaks for those whose voice have been silenced. She seeks out to the readers to see the truth behind the 'so called' development. Her words are clear and fearless as she point out the facts and numbers to the readers.
Arundhati Roy is one of the most empowering writers who critically analyses the political, society and economic issues in her essays. -
A society is judged by the way it treats its less fortunate. This book speaks volumes about how a state basically ignores the rights and basic needs of its own people while ironically claiming to act on their behalf. As a result, people suffer. Weapons are amassed, wars are fought, tenders are won.
While it has a way of grinding its point into the reader, the book is still an interesting read, telling the story of the atomic bomb, the hydroelectric dam, the religious divide, giving it an almost academic analysis while keeping the reader aware of the fact that the author is not seeking any sympathy, merely stating a point and expecting the reader to draw their own conclusions. -
The algebra of Infinite Justice is an important book about important topics.
Arundhati Roy is at her best, bold and sharp as she should be. This book is a collection of her essays on topics which range from Nuclear wars to State orchestrated terrorism.
Having a view and opinion is not a crime and when the line between good and evil is so clear, it is wrong not to do so. Its not about supporting the left or the right (whilst Roy is mostly seen taking a leftist stand), the point is to oppose evil and stand against it. To put logic and reasoning before, radical sentiments. Nothing is to be gained by selfish and divisive mechanisms.
A good, rather important read.
