An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire by Arundhati Roy

An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire Reviews

• 
  Nandakishore Mridula

  What is “Empire”? The elucidation of this question is what is attempted in this book by Arundhati Roy.
  
  It is actually a collection of her essays, articles and speeches during the period 2002 – 2004, and not a book with a beginning, middle and end. But one theme runs through all these seemingly unconnected pieces – how the cancer of corporate power is choking our supposedly “free” world.
  
  The essay “The Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire” has been aptly chosen as the title of the book, for here Ms. Roy sets out to define empire in simple terms for the layperson.
  
  This essay, along with many others are written with background of Bush Junior’s disastrous invasion of Iraq, to oust Saddam Hussein and uncover the “weapons of mass destruction”. Arundhati calls it out for what it is – the removal of a dictator who will no longer his master’s bidding, like the putting down of a hunting dog which has served its purpose. She reminds us, time and again, that it was America and its allies who propped Saddam up against Iran – the moment he disobeyed and attacked Kuwait, however, he became evil personified.
  
  The destruction of Iraq (there is no milder word for it) has got one ulterior motive, however – give the exclusive right to “rebuild” Iraq to crony companies like Bechtel, Halliburton et al. And here is where the empire part comes in; because today’s empire is not a nation-centric but corporation-centric. These multinational corporations call all the shots and governments have to agree: because the political parties of the first world are bankrolled by them, and the poorer countries which are dependent on them must allow these economic behemoths to invade their world, otherwise they would be termed “investment unfriendly”. And we know what that would lead to – economic sanctions, ostracisation and in the worst case, invasion.
  
  One of the myths of neoliberalism is development. Any kind of engineering and construction activity is seen as positive and any opposition to the same is considered “anti-development” in the normal case and in the worst case, “anti-national”. And on this theme, based on her interaction with the Narmada Bachao Andolan activists, Ms. Roy gives us a number of poignant essays and speeches about India’s dark underbelly: about the Dalits and Adivasis, the absolute have-nots who are considered collateral damage by the government as India strides forward on her agenda to dominate South Asia. Nobody with a heart can read through these essays (especially “The Road to Harsud”) without shedding a tear. And who is benefited? Naturally, the corporations, the World Bank, the IMF... the guys who hold the purse strings.
  
  But a free country with a market economy and free press – isn’t that the ideal? We have been fed so many horror stories about communism over the years that we consider ourselves lucky to live in a free society. But who is this freedom benefitting?
  
  

  The crisis in modern democracy is a profound one. Free elections, free press, and an independent judiciary mean little when the free market has reduced them to commodities available on sale to the highest bidder.

  
  For the bottom strata, pretty much the only freedom available is to starve and die.
  
  Arundhati is also scathing in her criticism of the “free” press, echoing Noam Chomsky’s The Manufacture of Consent. The press is also controlled by mammon. So the reports we get are heavily skewed towards what the media barons want us to believe (in the post-truth world, this has now even degenerated to outright lies – though the author does not specifically mention it).
  
  How to fight against this monster?
  
  Arundhati Roy advocates continuous activism, spanning across national boundaries and political ideologies. And the fight should not only be symbolic, but should aim to hit empire where it hurts most – their profits. Boycotts, citizens’ protests, civil disobedience etc. hold the key. Ms. Roy cites the example of Gandhiji’s Dandi march time and again.
  
  ***
  
  As I said in the beginning, this book lacks a coherent structure and there is repetition ad nauseum, so there is bound to be reader frustration. And I am a bit doubtful of how far her ideas of worldwide peaceful protests would work nowadays, given the fact that society has become highly stratified and many have slipped into violent ways of protest.
  But for all that, the problems she highlighted are very valid – and she writes so lucidly and beautifully. For that alone, this book is worth a read.
• 
  Kevin

  In my journey through Roy’s nonfiction, the ‘War on Terror’ has escalated into the invasion of Iraq (2003-2004)…
  
  Highlights:
  --“Peace is War: The Collateral Damage of Breaking News”: explores the key role of the corporate media in controlling “democracy”. “Peace is War” is meant to convey that Western “peacetime” hides many wars (esp. imperialist) in the global community. Roy also considers the polarization of crisis reporting, where news consumers enter an issue backwards (starting with the current event without the context).
  --A more-detailed examination of how “free” media (market = one-dollar-one-vote) creates nuanced propaganda to curtail democracy:
  Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies.
  --The fabulous
  Vijay Prashad (
  The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World) on imperialist media’s “ideological censorship”:
  https://youtu.be/6jKcsHv3c74
  
  --“Instant-Mix Imperial Democracy (Buy One, Get One Free)”: concludes with a useful question of “what is to be done?” regarding confronting empire:
  1) There cannot be a conventional military challenge. (Especially considering the US military’s Madman strategy risking annihilation:
  The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner and
  Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance).
  2) Terror attacks legitimize the empire’s military reach (and vice versa). Preventing terror cannot be seen as a straightforward rational strategy by empire, given this symbiosis:
  The Management of Savagery: How America's National Security State Fueled the Rise of Al Qaeda, ISIS, and Donald Trump.
  3) Imperialist sanctions (i.e. economic terrorism) need to be resisted, while resistance should also create “people’s sanctions” to target the economic underbelly of empire. (This can be seen during anti-apartheid South Africa, and today’s BDS).
  4) Corporate media needs to be replaced with alternative media. Of course, we now see the mess between liberal media elites and Trumpian “fake news”; liberals reliant on corporate funding cannot be progressive, leaving a black hole for reactionaries to misdirect.
  
  --“When the Saints Go Marching Out: The Strange Fate of Martin, Mohandas, and Mandela”: Roy considers how liberal capitalism has co-opted the legacies of MLK/Gandhi/Mandela.
  --Of the three, MLK moved away from liberal reformism when he tied racism with capitalism and militarism (imperialist war on Vietnam):
  The Radical King.
  --Roy elaborates the imperialism/race/class/caste contradictions of Gandhi in:
  The Doctor and the Saint: The Ambedkar - Gandhi Debate
  --Finally, Mandela is contrasted with
  Steve Biko. Privatization and structural adjustment were favored over land redistribution, while reparations were said to discourage foreign investment and thus avoided.
  --Vijay Prashad considers the crucial global solidarity in anti-colonial/anti-racist movements (connecting US Civil Rights to global decolonization):
  https://youtu.be/IfQ-zFaAOFk?t=45
• 
  Kushal Srivastava

  
  Roy begins by detailing what is democracy and how we can make it work:
  

  The only way to make democracy real is to begin a process of constant questioning, permanent provocation, and continuous public conversation between citizens and the state.

  
  On freedom:
  

  It is important to remember that our freedoms, such as they are, were never given to us by any government, they have been wrested by us.

  
  
  Roy elaborates how governments, nationalism, patriotism, democracy and NGOs are just spokes of the giant wheel of capitalism. On Iraq:
  

  Operation Iraqi Freedom, George Bush assures us, is about returning Iraqi oil to the Iraqi people. That is, returning Iraqi oil to the Iraqi people via corporate multinationals. Like Shell, like Chevron, like Halliburton.

  
  
  She talks about terrorism and how it has been privatized. Paraphrasing her (too lazy to find the exact quote this time), because the governments cannot have a monopoly on terror.
  
  USA with their Patriot Act, India with their POTA are (were) just trying to kill any form of oppression, any form of dissent, any peaceful means of showing disagreement. Media is crisis driven, it will focus its pen and its camera where there is a crisis. Peaceful means find no form of promotion, thus people are turning to violence. We are thus left in a quandary, we can't support terror and are not with the government. So, what can we do? (Write reviews of course)
  
  Oh, and in between all this, there's a really touching scene of the town of Harsud which was destroyed by the big dam on Narmada river. I wrote a brief sketch on it
  https://www.facebook.com/notes/desult...
  
  PS: One thing which I hate about a collection of essays like this one is that the editing sucks. One can find not only similar arguments but even same paragraphs in multiple essays. So, minus one star for the editor.
  
• 
  Nam

  An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire (Paperback)
  by Arundhati Roy
  
  I picked up this book while in India last fall. The hotel I was staying at in Jaipur was selling it in their gift shop. I started it while still traveling but didn't finish it until the beginning of the new year. Consisting of a collection of essays and lectures given on the topic of empire, verbalization, trade and resistance within the context of the developing world (especially focusing on India) it is filled with Roy's usual politically charged cries to action. Although I have always been aware of the immense sectarian challenges facing modern India this book was a timely accounting of the issues, given that while I was there there were a number of bombings and "terrorist" incidents some involving and perpetrated by Hindu nationalist ideologues. At times the arguments, facts and figures became repetitive as the general thrust of her polemic was often repeated from lecture to lecture. However, the strength of her conviction and the demand for justice cannot and should not be ignored. The most innovative (read; new to me) idea which was discussed was her critique of the rise of NGO's internationally. The phrase she uses is the "NGO-ization of resistance. While she makes clear that she is not demonizing the work of NGOs she does stress that NGOs can create and facilitate a false sense of engagement, hope and political resistance without any of the real impacts and gains of actual resistance..
• 
  Erin

  Some of my favorite quotations:
  
  "Debating Imperialism is a bit like debating the pros and cons of rape. What can we say? That we really miss it?"
  
  "Calling anyone who protests against the violation of their human and constitutional rights a terrorist can end up becoming a self-fulfilling accusation. When every avenue of nonviolent dissent is closed down, should we really be surprised that the forests are filling up with extremists, insurgents, and militants?"
  
  "...for most people in the world, peace is war - a daily battle against hunger, thirst, and the violation of their dignity. Wars are often the end result of a flawed peace, a putative peace. And it is the flaws, the systemic flaws in what is normally considered to be "peace," that we ought to be writing about. We have to-at least some of us have to-become peace correspondents instead of war correspondents. We have to lose our terror of the mundane. We have to use our skills and imagination and our art, to re-create the rhythms of the endless crisis of normality, and in doing so, expose the policies and processes that make ordinary things-food, water, shelter, and dignity-such a distant dream for ordinary people."
  
  
• 
  Hubert

  At first I felt that Roy was simply rehashing other journalist musings concerning the rise of a type of neo-liberal imperialism that has taken over in the last 10 years, in particular after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. However, Roy's rhetorical skills are unsurpassable. I was not aware of her activist work, and her skill in culling evidence, displaying logic, and drawing in a listener of her speeches or reader of these speeches is insurmountable.
  
  This is an excellent collection of speeches that Roy made around 2003 and 2004, and the entire set of essays can be read in 1 or 2 settings. For Western readers the strength of the neo-liberal state in India as described in a few of these essays would be particularly informative and insightful.
• 
  E. Amato

  I so thought this would be better and more inspiring than it was. It was filled with stereotypes of Americans and Westerners (apparently none of us have read Chomsky or have a conscience). For such a poetic, insightful and nuanced writer to write essays and speeches of such limited subtlety was a huge disappointment. I know she has done great work as a humanist and activist, but this book felt like a waste of time to me as a reader.
• 
  Sondos At

  وبسرعة هائلة اصبح في المفضلة. الكتابة جائت من الخيال
  'Television tells us that Iraq has been 'liberated' and that Afganistan is well on its way to becoming a paradise for women-thanks to bush and blair, the twenty-first century's leading feminists'
• 
  hadyeh | هَدیه

  Again and again Roy asks powerful, paradigmatic questions: "Can we leave the bauxite in the mountain?" "How deep shall we dig?" She reminds us of this shared summit, this sacred peak worthy of endless struggle and ultimate sacrifice: human dignity—timeless, sacrosanct, and unmuddied by the idols of extraction/empire or corporate-nationalism. She quotes Dr. King who named the "triple, interrelated evils" of empire—racism, economic exploitation, and the problem of war—and demonstrates in case after case the continued relevance of his assessment.
  
  A few notes/essential reminders/lessons from this text, which to me feels really more like a manual to revisit and a guide to thinking through what it means to live in Empire:
  
  1. That crisis reportage polarizes, unmoors and isolates individual events from their complex history, and diverts our attention from the real crises of quiet dispossession, the creeping violation of dignity, and the "unrelenting daily grind of injustice" that, in addition to causing astronomical harm, slowly and endlessly distance oppressed and oppressor further and further from one another as "neo-liberalism drives its wedge between the rich and the poor" worldwide.
  
  2. That for most people in our world, peace is war. How easily and how often do we forget? That structural violences (institutionalized inequities) create an "endless crisis of normality." Importantly, we must "lose our terror of the mundane." We must focus on the ordinary, the everyday: on food, water, shelter, dignity, and "the policies and processes that make [them]...such a distant dream for ordinary people."
  
  3. That Empire is inherently paranoid, filled with a kind of nervous insecurity that stems from a covering-of-the-Truth and spills over into endless acts of paranoid aggression. That its obsession with defense (offense) stems from its unending (deserved) terror, its ultimate exposure, its artificially wrought sense of safety: what Roy calls the "soft underbelly" of an Empire whose "economic outposts are," of course, "exposed and vulnerable." What does true safety look like, and where is it rooted? Another indirect but crucial question that echoes through the text.
  
  Often Roy's questions sat heavy on this reader's chest—especially now, reading her in this global moment. How can one possibly live in Empire and do no harm—let alone start to right its mindbending wrongs? But in oases of clarity I felt heartened by the text's call to grounded action, to attention and prayerful devotion to the ordinary, to rivers and clinics and schools and farms. Oh, may we see things as they are; may we Remember when we forget; may we rise gracefully to the challenge of this discernment; may we serve body and soul, body and soul; may we be forgiven as we carry on in the heart of empire.
• 
  tanisha

  arundhati roy is such an excellent rhetorician!!! despite some issues i found with her analysis of the world crises she investigates, i found her thinking really clarifying. tbh ashamed about my lack of knowledge about the iraq war & all the wars we have lived through. i can't believe i once thought we were living in peace time.
• 
  V

  “I think the Iraqi people are suffering and we should liberate them.” That’s what I said early in the invasion of Iraq. I was 15.
  
  Surprisingly, many people who supported the war didn't have the excuse of being 15. There were people who were old enough to remember Baghdad as “the Paris of the Middle East,” or U.S. support for Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, or even the brutal U.N. economic sanctions following the Gulf War that caused hundreds of thousands of deaths from malnutrition and lack of medicine. Just about all I knew about Iraq prior to the invasion came from a sketch on a re-run of Saturday Night Live where president Clinton had a three way phone conversation with Saddam Hussein and Monica Lewinsky.
  
  Roy’s 2004 collection of essays covers the hypocrisy of America’s invasion of Iraq, and the deceitfulness of India’s aggression against anti-government activist. The connecting factor here is how corporate-owned media acts as the government’s mouthpiece to convince the general public that’s what’s good “economic investment” or “spreading democracy” is universally beneficial, even when creating “economic investment” means displacing millions or “spreading democracy” means destroying the infrastructure and food production of a sovereign nation.
  
  This is how we get a situation where, as in 2004, 42% of Americans believed Saddam Hussein was directly responsible for 9/11 and 55% believed he had ties to Al-Qaeda. Or, in India, why the middle class remains complacent while the government demonizes tribal peoples trying to survive as landless farmers while land is auctioned off to international investors.
  
  Roy rightly asserts that though online media can serve to dispel the press’s myths, it isn't able to change the crisis-driven nature of the news, where once the camera’s move on, people’s suffering disappears from public consciousness. (When was the last time we heard of Iraq’s reconstruction?) Still, she does still have hope for humanity, and for real democracy in civil disobedience that directly strikes at the economic order--as in Gandhi's salt marches that directly broke British trade law, not just weekend protests--which is a message so many activist need.
  
  That being said, I noticed a few major factual answers. There is no evidence that Gulf War Syndrome is caused by depleted uranium, or even that it has any physical cause; it is mostly likely a psychosomatic reaction to the horrors of war. She also claims that Kennedy orchestrated the 1963 coup in Iraq that lead the rise of the Baath party and Saddam Hussein. While the CIA knew about the coup beforehand, there is no evidence that they were directly involved in it in any way, which isn't to say there aren't plenty of other coups, in Iran for instance, armed and orchestrated by the American government. And the United States certainly did support Saddam Hussein’s war crimes, providing him with covert intelligence even knowing he was using chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq War. We know these things because we have declassified documents attesting them. Let’s stick to the facts so that our political enemies can’t use our mistakes to discredit us, unless you want to play Donald Rumsfeld, “The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.”
  
  I would love to recommend this book, but I would warn to be double check her sources.
• 
  7jane

  In this book, Roy talks about how the Empire (US) manages to control other countries for its profit, no matter what rights are trampled and lives are lost (in wars and smaller conflicts). Iraq is used as an example, and this is still fairly fresh though the book is 10 years old now. Iraq is still far from being messy even though war isn't really there now.
  
  There is also useful insight in India's hair-rising wrongs - how little of it we read in our news, but then there's plenty of other countries whose similar awful things are never heard much, no doubt about it. I really do feel bad for the oppressed there, cornered pretty much by the majority.
  
  Roy's writing style is on point, doesn't wander and have plenty of sentences to underline. Nothing too long or complicated so that one would feel accomplished for understanding what was written (something that happens to me sometimes with some writers *cough*).
  
  After reading about all the wrongs that the Empire (US) and other goverments (in this case India is used as another example), Roy still manages to write in her optimism and hopes for the future, however shaky (suggesting boycotts and refusing to serve as some actions; don't know how effective they are but at least one could say to have tried and not done anything). This makes the book less heavy and gloomy.
• 
  Renunair

  "For reasons I do not fully understand, fiction dances out of me. Non-fiction is wrenched out by the aching, broken world I wake up to every morning." the celebrated author of The God of Small Things States So.
  An Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire is a well constructed essay collection written between 2002 and 2004 — most of them from those published in newspapers.
  
  Roy reveals her passion for writing through 14 chapters. She dissects the situation at Iraq and the Middle East and about those who struggles for their daily bread and existence in their mother land. The satirical writing makes the book an interesting piece. Even then a frustrated Writer pops up through out the book.
  
  Roy illustrates the power of common man thus, motivating them to speak out and act for their human rights. “History is giving you the chance,” she writes.
  
  Come September is my favorite among 14.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• 
  Nivetha

  Evidently the "ordinary person" referred to in the title must be hit over the head repeatedly with the same tired rants against neoliberalism and far right radicalism to be properly introduced to empire. Needlessly repetitive and insufficiently nuanced for anyone with more than a passing knowledge of international politics and development. Credit where credit is due, though - Roy can rage against the machine like no one else. The energy and passion in her arguments are almost tangible; I just wish they were a little more constructive.
• 
  Tracy

  Too liberal; too preachy.
• 
  Abbas Khan

  کتاب کا اردو میں ترجمہ پڑھا، اس لئے مناسب ہے کہ اردو میں بات کی جائے۔
  اگر چہ کتاب میں براہ راست اس جناب کم ہی اشارہ کیا گیا ہے کہ ایک عام آدمی کا تصور ریاست کیا ہے تاہم عراق پر امریکہ کا حملہ، بڑے ممالک کا چھوٹے ریاست کے بارے میں روئے اور انڈین ریاست کا اپنے باشندوں سے روئے اس موضوع پر کافی روشنی پڑتی ہے۔
  آج کے دور کے کنٹرولڈ جمہوریت میں ایک آدمی کا ریاست کے فیصلوں میں اختیار کم سے کم ہوتا جا رہائے، اور یہی بات روئے نے اس کتاب میں سمجھانے کی کوشش کی ہے۔
• 
  Andy Hickman

  “An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire" by Arundhati Roy
  
  Phenomenal insight, like being hit with a ‘truth’ slap!
  
  E.g.
  "The Draft Is About White People
  Sending Black People To Fight
  Yellow People to Protect The Country
  They Stole From The Red People"
  Stokely Carmichael, at a massive anti-war demonstration in Manhattan, 15th April 1967, (page 142)
  ..
  Also by Roy:
  “Debating Imperialism is a bit like debating the pros and cons of rape. What can we say? That we really miss it?”
  
  “The US empire rests on a grisly foundation: the massacre of millions of indigenous people, the stealing of their lands and, following this, the kidnapping and enslavement of millions of black people from Africa to work that land. Thousands died on the seas while they were being shipped like caged cattle between continents.
  'Stolen from Africa, brought to America' - Bob Marley's 'Buffalo Soldier' contains a whole universe of unspeakable sadness.”
  
  “It's odd how those who dismiss the peace movement as Utopian proffer the most absurdly dreamy reasons for war.”
  
  “The war against terror is not really about terror. It's about a superpower's self-destructive impulse toward supremacy, stranglehold, global hegemony.”
  
  “Speaking for myself, I am no flag waver, no patriot, and I am fully aware that venality, brutality, and hypocrisy are imprinted on the leaden soul of every state. But when a country ceases to be merely a country and becomes an empire, then the scale of operations changes dramatically. So may I clarify that tonight I speak as a subject of the American empire? I speak as a slave who presumes to criticize her king.”
  
  “It is a myth that the free market breaks down national barriers. The free market does not threaten national sovereignty, it undermines democracy. As the disparity between the rich and the poor grows, the fight to corner resources is intensifying. To push through their 'sweetheart deals', to corporatize the crops we grow, the water we drink, the air we breathe, and the dreams we dream, corporate globalization needs an international confederation of loyal, corrupt, authoritarian governments in poorer countries to push through unpopular reforms and quell the mutinies. Corporate globalization - or shall we call by its name? Imperialism - needs a press that pretends to be free. It needs courts that pretend to dispense justice.
  Meanwhile, the countries of the north harden their borders and stockpile weapons of mass destruction. Afterall, they have to make sure that it is only money, goods, patents, and services that are globalized. Not a respect for human rights. Not international treaties on racial discrimination or chemical and nuclear weapons or greenhouse gas emissions or climate change or - God forbid - justice.
  So this - all this - is Empire. This loyal confederation, this obscene accumulation of power, this greatly increased distance between those who make the decisions and those who have to suffer them.
  Our fight, our goal, our vision of another world must be to eliminate that distance. So how do we resist Empire?”
  
  “When we speak of confronting Empire, we need to identify what Empire means. Does it mean the US government (and its European satellites), the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organisation (WTO), and multinational corporations? Or is it something more than that?”
  
  “How has the United States survived its terrible past and emerged smelling so sweet? Not by owning up to it, not by making reparations, not by apologizing to black Americans or native Americans, and certainly not by changing its ways (it exports its cruelties now). Like most other countries, the United States has rewritten its history. But what sets the United States apart from other countries, and puts it ahead in the race, is that it has enlisted the services of the most powerful, most successful publicity firm in the world: Hollywood.”
  ― Arundhati Roy, An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire
  
  “Democracy is the Free World's whore, willing to dress up, dress down, willing to satisfy a whole range of tastes.”
  
  “And now this talk of bringing the UN back into the picture.
  But that old UN girl - it turns out that she just ain't what she was cracked up to be. She's been demoted (although she retains her high salary). Now she's the world's janitor. She's the Filipino cleaning lady, the Indian jamardini, the postal bride from Thailand, the Mexican household help, the Jamaican au pair. She's employed to clean other people's shit. She's used and abused at will.”
  
  “When the sun sets on the American empire, as it will, as it must, Noam Chomsky's work will survive. It will point a cool incriminating finger at a merciless Machiavellian empire as cruel, self-righteous and hypocritical as the ones it has replaced. (The only difference is that it is armed with technology that can visit the kind of devastation on the world that history has never known, and the human race cannot begin to imagine.)”
  
  “Democracy has become Empire's euphemism for neo-liberal capitalism.”
  
  “Argentina & Iraq have been decimated by the same process with different weapons; an IMF cheque and cruise missiles.”
  
  “Why should propaganda be the exclusive preserve of the Western media? Just because they do it better?”
  
  “For the South African White minority, neo-liberalism is apartheid with a clean conscience, called Democracy.”
  
  …
  
  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.
  
  
• 
  Rizowana

  If there is one book I have made a good decision in reading, it was this. I would recommend this book for anyone who knows how to read. A collection of Arundhati Roy's speeches, essays and articles from the years 2002-2004, it struck me painfully how relevant the contents of her writings still are in 2019. The crux of the book revolves around her formulating an understanding of the global American "Empire" in the aftermath of the Iraq invasion and how corporate globalisation and a right-wing Hindu fascist government in India is doing more harm than good. Almost twenty years later, with the present-day news unfolding more horrendous moves by the government, I can only wince every time Roy closes out with an optimistic outlook.
  What with the highest number of Internet blackouts and curfews imposed for peaceful protests in any democratic country in 2019, India hasn't made much progress in terms of human rights in the last 20 years it seems. The man who was responsible for a state-sponsored massacre of Muslims in Gujarat is today the Prime Minister of the country. Assam and the rest of the North-Eastern states are worse off than ever, the rights of Dalits, Adivasis and indigenous populations continue to be threatened with the looming CAA-NRC, and finally, India has become a colonial state thanks to its forceful occupation of Kashmir. None of the scenarios Roy has mentioned have a happy ending. Moreover, it fills me with dread on the realisation that if her warnings went unheard twenty years back, what guarantee do we have that the BJP won't be back someday with a vengeance (if we do manage to root them out this time)?
  If anything, I would want people to engage with texts like this more than ever. If we are to at all live up to the ideals of the Constitution, if we are to see any semblance of peace and progression from our violence-ridden politics, we need to see our political parties for what they are, move past their divisive politics and call for a systemic change. If we have been stuck in a time loop for the last twenty years and can't seem to make any progress, it is because we allow ourselves to be embroiled in petty communal hatred. Roy says our brightest hope is in mass resistance. I agree.
  There are so many gems in this book, it was hard for me to pick them. It gets a gold star. Please read.
  
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  here!
• 
  Mahendranath Ramakrishnan

  To describe this book in two words.. Powerful work. Arundhati Roy's writing style is so sharp and compelling that, at times it'll make your blood boil reading about the atrocities perpetrated by governments and corporations against the powerless and economically-weaker sections of the society. In this book, Ms. Roy tackles the issue of destruction of innocent lives wrought by neoliberalism, neoimperialism and corporate globalization. How it has become a daily battle for the poor man to obtain the very basic necessities of a simple life -- water, food, a home and some semblance of dignity -- while the vultures called corporations plunder away the resources of the people. And Roy backs all her statements with facts from credible sources.
  
  A must read for anybody having a little empathy for the suffering of common people due to the greed of a few powerful evil men, across the world. Highly recommended.
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  Faaiz

  Arundhati Roy is truly a phenomenal writer with the ability to truly grip the reader in fascination and awe. Her writing style is crisp, brutal, raw, and relentless. She truly has a command over her writing and her narration of events. She forms her arguments and delivers strong evidence in support of them. She also has the ability to make her readers feel a multitude of contrasting emotions. Her writing is often like being on a roller-coaster. The only flaw in this book is that the essays selected contain a lot of repetition of ideas formed and presented in preceding chapters which can often feel redundant. Perhaps, those points can't be stressed enough.
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  Karan Bhatia

  I disagree with her on some opinions however this book has been eye-opening on a lot of subjects. Written in 2003, it's surprising a work of political non-fiction still proves true for the current atmosphere of Indian Democracy.
  
  It makes one uncomfortable about the inaction in the face of injustices being done in our society.
  
  Still worth a read if you have courage to have your opinions challenged.
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  Umesh Kesavan

  An important votary of anti-imperialism shares her fears and hopes in these speeches/essays . They are all peppered with Arundhati Roy's trademark irony and wit. Hope all Americans get to read this. This Arundhati Roy is our own Chomsky.
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  MsBrie

  I've read two of her books. She is FABULOUS. I sometimes wonder how there are so many american citizens who can't write/speak/think so prosaically as this native Indian (red dot indian).
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  Derek Stock

  Her speech was amazing. Look her up on YouTube to see it. This book was just ok. Read Noam Chomsky if you want to read about foreign policy.
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  Mohit Bansal

  for her, every happening is wrong...