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Public Power in the Age of Empire
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In her major address to the 99th annual meeting of the American Sociological Association on August 16, 2004, "Public Power in the Age of Empire," broadcast nationally on C-Span Book TV and on Democracy Now! and Alternative Radio, writer Arundhati Roy brilliantly examines the limits to democracy in the world today. Bringing the same care to her prose that she brought to her Booker Prize-winning novel The God of Small Things, Roy discusses the need for social movements to contest the occupation of Iraq and the reduction of "democracy" to elections with no meaningful alternatives allowed. She explores the dangers of the "NGO-ization of resistance," shows how governments that block nonviolent dissent in fact encourage terrorism, and examines the role of the corporate media in marginalizing oppositional voices.
64 pages, Paperback
First published November 1,2004
This edition
- Format
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64 pages, Paperback
- Published
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November 2, 2004 by Seven Stories Press
- ISBN
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9781583226827
- ASIN
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1583226826
- Language
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English
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Rating(4.5 / 5.0, 24 votes)
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This book is the text of a speech that Roy gave to the American Sociological Association. It's brief and to the point, and deals with the nature of public power when 'power' is really more violence used by government and property held by multinational corporations.
You don't actually need to get the book. The full speech is available free online at http://www.democracynow.org/static/Ar...
I think perhaps some of the most provocative lines for me were these:
"No government's condemnation of terrorism is credible if it cannot show itself to be open to change by to nonviolent dissent.
Meanwhile, governments and the corporate media, and let's not forget the film industry, lavish their time, attention, technology, research, and admiration on war and terrorism. Violence has been deified.
The message this sends is disturbing and dangerous: If you seek to air a public grievance, violence is more effective than nonviolence. "
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"Terrorism is vicious, ugly, and dehumanizing for its perpetrators, as well as its victims. But so is war. You could say that terrorism is the privatization of war. Terrorists are the free marketers of war. They are people who don't believe that the state has a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence."
You don't actually need to get the book. The full speech is available free online at http://www.democracynow.org/static/Ar...
I think perhaps some of the most provocative lines for me were these:
"No government's condemnation of terrorism is credible if it cannot show itself to be open to change by to nonviolent dissent.
Meanwhile, governments and the corporate media, and let's not forget the film industry, lavish their time, attention, technology, research, and admiration on war and terrorism. Violence has been deified.
The message this sends is disturbing and dangerous: If you seek to air a public grievance, violence is more effective than nonviolence. "
-and-
"Terrorism is vicious, ugly, and dehumanizing for its perpetrators, as well as its victims. But so is war. You could say that terrorism is the privatization of war. Terrorists are the free marketers of war. They are people who don't believe that the state has a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence."
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This was a really quick and digestible text that really engages the reader in conversation. It brings up a few really great overarching questions but do not present answers as the questions are more open and complex than could be answered here - if at all. Topics include resistance, news reporting, democracy, civil society, and what Roy calls "NGO-ization".
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This book shows the 2015 Feb 10 Delhi makeover in different perspective.
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Points for later
- cannot merely support 'pristine' movements, because then what form of resistance would be worth supporting?
- NGOs as a buffer/"reasonable man" in the unreasonable fight between empire/not - interfere with the possibility of the people's resistance via employing of possible activists into systems that exacerbate the idea of a 9-5/complying to the system as resistance (it is not.)
- "when every avenue of nonviolent dissent is closed down , and everyone who protests against the violation of their human rights is called a terrorist, should we really be surprised if vast parts of the country are overrun by those who believe in armed struggle..."
- 'terrorism for those who don't believe in the state monopolizing legitimate use of violence'
- cannot merely support 'pristine' movements, because then what form of resistance would be worth supporting?
- NGOs as a buffer/"reasonable man" in the unreasonable fight between empire/not - interfere with the possibility of the people's resistance via employing of possible activists into systems that exacerbate the idea of a 9-5/complying to the system as resistance (it is not.)
- "when every avenue of nonviolent dissent is closed down , and everyone who protests against the violation of their human rights is called a terrorist, should we really be surprised if vast parts of the country are overrun by those who believe in armed struggle..."
- 'terrorism for those who don't believe in the state monopolizing legitimate use of violence'
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Only about 60 pages but nonetheless amazing. I feel refreshed in my understanding of our world and look forward to reading a lot more of Arundhati Roy in the future.
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very important read
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I'm not sure if one can really consider this a "book", it's more of a political pamphlet, but it was still a relatively quick (one-and-a-half days is quick for me) and enjoyable read! Arundhati Roy is an incredibly powerful writer! One of the things that I wished for when I was reading this pamphlet were footnotes - I wished Roy could have provided the reader with the adequate reading material that she used to base her opinions and writing on. However, if anyone is curious, this book is a slimmer version of her anthology of essays, Listening to Grasshoppers: Field Notes on Democracy. As Listening to Grasshoppers was the next book by Roy that I did read, I could see that Public Power in the Age of Empire had borrowed much of the language used in Listening to Grasshoppers. None of my little complaints however took away from Roy's message that nothing short of organized and engaged political action by people will ever be able to change our world.
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