Title: FW: [globalnews] Arundhati Roy at Porto Alegre World Social Forum
[from a talk at the World Social Forum in Brazil recently - for the whole
talk go to http://www.zmag.org]
(...) 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
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