yes

Even though it was written and published in 2004, it feels so resonant to everything going on right now.

An excellent essay, adapted from a 2004 speaking engagement. Still as relevant and engaging as it was thirteen years ago, for better or worse.

Terrorism is vicious, ugly, and dehumanizing for its perpetrators as well as its victims. But so is war. You could says 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.




renowned author, global justice activist


This is a pretty slim book, in fact it's called a pamphlet by the publisher, Seven Stories Press. In 2004 the author presented the keynote address at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Society. The text of this pamphlet is based on that talk. It's one of the Open Media offerings by Seven Stories. Others have been written by authors such as Noam Chomsky, Angela Davis, and Howard Zinn.

The address soon after aired on C-SPAN Book TV, Democracy Now!, and Alternative Radio, and was circulated by e-mail around the world. Simply Google the name of the book, you'll see many of the ways of obtaining or listening to the address, some free.

The Library of Congress classifies it, not as Social Science, but as Political Science; category Theories of the State; subcategory Consent of the Governed. Perhaps Roy's main thesis as that as the control of government slips more and more into the hands of the mega-rich (including most notably huge international organizations) the "consent of the governed" – ostensibly exercised in democratic elections – is morphing into the direction of policy by the mega-rich entities.

Roy sometimes makes statements that are seemingly very misleading: such as how Americans identify will their government. But it’s a nuanced identity that she speaks of, primarily that of being protected by the state from the rest of the world, which we are told hate us. Paranoia. Terrorists are out to get us. We are being infiltrated, and indeed are already in danger from, "the other" – those unlike us. (And this address was delivered as GW Bush was about to be reelected – seemingly ages before our current descent into the maelstrom!)

Roy's concrete examples come, mostly, from either India or the U.S. India is bad enough, for her – but the U.S. is really the locus of the evil she sees in the Age of Empire.

Now that part of the title can be misleading also. Isn't the Age of Empire over? wasn't that the age of colonialism? When the sun never set? Not so. The new Age of Empire is now - the Age of multi-national, mega-rich corporations – and the political lackeys who do their bidding.

I've underlined on every single page of the book. I doubt that Noam Chomsky would disagree with many of those underlined passages. Roy knows Chomsky's view very well.

I'll finish this with a quote about terrorism.

As the rift between the rich and poor grows, as the need to appropriate and control the world's resources to feed the great capitalist machine becomes more urgent, the unrest will only escalate … The mandarins of the corporate world, the CEOs, the bankers, the politicians, the judges and look down on us from on high and shake their heads sternly. "There's no alternative," they say, and let slip the dogs of war.

Then, from the ruins of Afghanistan, from the rubble of Iraq and Chechnya, from the streets of occupied Palestine and the mountains of Kashmir, from the hills and plains of Columbia, and the forests of Andhra Pradesh and Assam, comes the chilling reply: "There's no alternative but terrorism."

But Roy urges, hopefully,

n  There is an alternative to terrorism. It's called justice.n

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Previous review: The Tecate Journals
Next review: August 1914 the Red Wheel
Earlier review: Sailing Alone Around the Room

Previous library review: Nations and Nationalism since 1780 Hobsbawm
Next library review: On Tyranny Snyder

Direct and concise assessment of western imperialism in the 21st century and its effect on "democracy/democracies" around the world.

A manifesto-like text that denounce violence while condemning neoliberalism. The pamphlet, as the publisher calls it, which has merely 59 pages, can be finished in merely one day. But this rather short text provides us, not surprisingly, a vivid image of how violence escalate violence, how government manipulate public/people, and how empire rules this world.
"...Empire does not always appear bin the form of cruise missiles and tanks,..It appears in their lives in very local avatars - losing their jobs, being sent unplayable electricity bills, having their water supply cut, being evicted from their homes and uprooted from their land." (p.28)
But not just pathological analysis, it goes deeper into the field where the resistance form its shape, and warmed us against the danger facing the mass movement we passionately support.
"Colorful demonstrations and weekend marches are vital but alone are not powerful enough to stop wars." (p.39)
But it is, still, an attempt not to give answer but to raise awareness. As a public address delivered to the American Sociological Association, the text leads us through the invasion of Iraq to the armed struggle in India, questions our understanding of democracy, idea of government, and perception of a globalized future.
"One does not endorse the violence of these militant groups.... But to condemn it without first denouncing the much greater violence perpetrated by the state would be to deny the people of these regions not just their basic human rights, but even the right to a fair hearing." (P.54)

Good - very Bush-era.

I really like Arundhati

The least shocking thing yet the most frightening is how relevant this twenty year old work is. Roy predicted much of what has happened.

i love arundhati roy when she isn’t writing about incest

"democracy = neoliberal capitalism"

Fascinating. So many things I've never considered about the nature of political resistance and the role of the corporation in imperialism. Also interesting to consider terrorism vs. resistance and how those lines can be blurred. Short and quick, it makes me interested in reading more of her political works.

Are 'democracies' still democratic? Are governments accountable to the people who elect them? These are some of the questions that Arundhati Roy asks in her brief but insightful speech (this little book is the transcription, and can also be found free online). We live in an Age of Empire, she argues, characterised by economic colonialism and the repression of resistance.

Using Indian and American governments as her main examples, Roy discusses the ways in which governments can manipulate the people they're supposed to serve, and how elections have the illusion of ideological choice. While people might get the governments they vote for they might not get the governments they want. Or need. In third world countries, the national agenda is often not dictated by the needs of the people, but by the demands of foreign capital and freemarket capitalism which are given the label of 'reform'. However, these 'reforms' lead to mass unemployment and poverty. Faced with the threat of being crippled by capital flight, governments continue to facilitate the economic exploitation of their countries. Consequently, Roy says, it is impossible for governments to achieve radical change. It is only the public that can do so.

In the second half she looks at some of the dangers that resistance movements face, such as their relationship with the mass media and the use of NGOs to defuse political resistance. What I found especially powerful was her argument that public power in the age of Empire can be forced to resort to terrorism (which here is loosely defined as violent resistance) as a direct consequence of governments' merciless crackdown on resistance in all forms. If governments are not open to change through non-violent resistance, then they are in fact endorsing violence as the only choice of action for an oppressed and exploited public.

Overall I found this to be a very useful, memorable book that should be easy for the most readers to understand. In a very few pages it provides an essential critical perspective with which to view contemporary global politics, particularly the depiction of humanitarian struggles by the media and political authorities. Even if you don't agree with everything Roy says, this essay does you the valuable service of dissuading you from swallowing information whole and encouraging you to learn more and think more carefully and critically about the way in which countries and global powers are treating human beings.