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Confronting Empire

by Arundhati Roy; January 28, 2003
http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=2919&sectionID=51

I've been asked to speak about "How to confront Empire?" It's a huge
question, and I have no easy answers.

When we speak of confronting "Empire," we need to identify what "Empire"
means. Does it mean the U.S. Government (and its European satellites), the
World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization,
and multinational corporations? Or is it something more than that?

In many countries, Empire has sprouted other subsidiary heads, some
dangerous byproducts - nationalism, religious bigotry, fascism and, of
course terrorism. All these march arm in arm with the project of corporate
globalization.

Let me illustrate what I mean. India - the world's biggest democracy - is
currently at the forefront of the corporate globalization project. Its
"market" of one billion people is being prized open by the WTO.
Corporatization and Privatization are being welcomed by the Government and
the Indian elite.

It is not a coincidence that the Prime Minister, the Home Minister, the
Disinvestment Minister - the men who signed the deal with Enron in India,
the men who are selling the country's infrastructure to corporate
multinationals, the men who want to privatize water, electricity, oil, coal,
steel, health, education and telecommunication - are all members or admirers
of the RSS. The RSS is a right wing, ultra-nationalist Hindu guild which has
openly admired Hitler and his methods.

The dismantling of democracy is proceeding with the speed and efficiency of
a Structural Adjustment Program. While the project of corporate
globalization rips through people's lives in India, massive privatization,
and labor "reforms" are pushing people off their land and out of their jobs.
Hundreds of impoverished farmers are committing suicide by consuming
pesticide. Reports of starvation deaths are coming in from all over the
country.

While the elite journeys to its imaginary destination somewhere near the top
of the world, the dispossessed are spiraling downwards into crime and chaos.
This climate of frustration and national disillusionment is the perfect
breeding ground, history tells us, for fascism.

The two arms of the Indian Government have evolved the perfect pincer
action. While one arm is busy selling India off in chunks, the other, to
divert attention, is orchestrating a howling, baying chorus of Hindu
nationalism and religious fascism. It is conducting nuclear tests, rewriting
history books, burning churches, and demolishing mosques. Censorship,
surveillance, the suspension of civil liberties and human rights, the
definition of who is an Indian citizen and who is not, particularly with
regard to religious minorities, is becoming common practice now.

Last March, in the state of Gujarat, two thousand Muslims were butchered in
a State-sponsored pogrom. Muslim women were specially targeted. They were
stripped, and gang-raped, before being burned alive. Arsonists burned and
looted shops, homes, textiles mills, and mosques.

More than a hundred and fifty thousand Muslims have been driven from their
homes. The economic base of the Muslim community has been devastated.

While Gujarat burned, the Indian Prime Minister was on MTV promoting his new
poems. In January this year, the Government that orchestrated the killing
was voted back into office with a comfortable majority. Nobody has been
punished for the genocide. Narendra Modi, architect of the pogrom, proud
member of the RSS, has embarked on his second term as the Chief Minister of
Gujarat. If he were Saddam Hussein, of course each atrocity would have been
on CNN. But since he's not - and since the Indian "market" is open to global
investors - the massacre is not even an embarrassing inconvenience.

There are more than one hundred million Muslims in India. A time bomb is
ticking in our ancient land.

All this to say that 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 it 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. After all they have to make sure that it's only
money, goods, patents and services that are globalized. Not the free
movement of people. 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"?

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 Chavez is holding on, despite the U.S. 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 Anderson - 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 eye-ball to eye-ball
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 it's 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.

Only a few days ago in Washington, a quarter of a million people marched
against the war on Iraq. Each month, the protest is gathering momentum.

Before September 11th 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 U.S. Government'
s deep commitment to bring democracy to Iraq.

Killing people to save them from dictatorship or ideological corruption is,
of course, an old U.S. 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
Great 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 U.S. 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 U.S. 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 re-invent 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 "you're either 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.

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

-Arundhati Roy

Porto Alegre, Brazil

January 27, 2003