This book is only for those who believe in resistance, who live with a hope and have learned the perils of being reasonable. This book is only for those who understand enough to be afraid and yet retain their fury on devastation by so-called peacemakers. It starts with these lines:
“An Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire consists of 14 well-constructed, developed, passionate articles written between June 2002 and November 2004 — in which Roy deconstructs the concepts of empire, brutality, Imperialism, neoliberal capitalism, corporate globalization, racism and state terrorism with a degree of both passion and erudition that is truly astounding.”
Arundhati Roy completely portrays the image of new imperialism and constructs a blue print of Iraq’s invasion by America. Her book starts with the 1st chapter titled “Ahimsa” (Non-Violence) in which Roy raises her voice against brutality. “Ahimsa” deals with the struggle of the Narmada Bachao Andolan to make its voice heard in Indian decision making bodies. Roy raised her voice for those Adhivasis and Dalits who were killed, when they were trying to protect their land from encroachments — dams, mines, steel plants and other so-called development projects.
She believes that people are forced to commit crimes in order to fetch breaking news and headlines for so-called free Media. She believes corporate media has owned the market in order to make people watch what they want to watch. She also fears for the death of “Ahimsa”. Roy further fears that anger and frustration might be cultivated in people, which may lead to violence. She blames corporate globalisation for constructing connection between religious fundamentalism, nuclear nationalism and the pauperization of whole populations.
Roy in “Come September” says writers imagine that they cull stories from the world but in fact the truth is stories cull writers from the world. She says nationalism was the main cause for genocide of people and bifurcation in 20th century, saying that “flags are bots of coloured cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people’s mind and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead”. Continuing in the same vein she writes that she fears the time when independent, thinking people begin to rally under flags, when writers, musicians, artists filmmakers suspend their verdict and blindly yoke their art of service to the nation. She adds the innumerable crimes committed by the United States government against humanity, right from Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, the penchant for engineering coups and regime changes throughout South America, the wars in Korea and Vietnam, and finally the staunch support for Israel in order to prevent an equitable solution to the Palestine issue – all under the excuse of "championing the cause of freedom". Roy also believes that the gulf wars were just set up in order to bifurcate people according to their caste, creed and colour, and points out that the reason behind the Iraq war was just to grab oil rich resources.
Roy portrays the image of good and bad from the point of America’s policy. Like they used to say that if you are not with them, you are against them; similarly they also used to say that if you hate white people then you love black people. Erstwhile they also used to say that if you do not support good then you are evil and if you hate America then you are a terrorist. She also raises her voice for those minorities who are living in Pakistan and Bangladesh. She asks if they, too, should be bombarded like America did with Afghanistan. She draws her kind attention on sufferers of Palestine who are illegally controlled by Zionists.
The “Loneliness of Noam Chomsky” starts off with two superior lines: “I will never apologise for the United States of America – I don’t care what the facts are”. Noam Chomsky showed us that nothing is what it seems to be in the free world. He showed us how phrases like "free speech", the "free market" and the "free world" have little, if anything, to do with freedom. The sheer amount of research and analysis Chomsky did on the American invasion of Indo-China [Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia] in his book For Reasons of State is astounding. Arundhati praises Chomsky for revealing the “pitiless heart of the American war machine, completely isolated from the realities of war, blinded by ideology and willing to annihilate millions of human beings, civilians, soldiers, women, children, villages, whole cities, whole ecosystems – with scientifically honed methods of brutality”. The unsaid inference is that the United States has learnt nothing from its misadventure in Vietnam – and continues to make mistakes in Iraq, at the cost of millions of innocent Iraqi lives. For one reason or another I always found myself saying “Chomsky Zindabad”
In “Confronting Empire” Roy says that to build an empire we need to identify what empire means to us. Neither does it mean building satellites and creating governments, nor the World Bank, not also the World Trade Organisation. Roy believes in many countries building empire is likely to make dangerous products which bifurcate people on basis of nationalism, religious bigotry, fascism and the most targeted one, “terrorism”. All this is because of corporate globalisation. She also says that the RSS, a right wing, ultra nationalist Hindu guild has openly admired Hitler and his methods. The main example for it is the Gujarat genocide by Bajrang Dal activists.
“Thus, empire is nothing but a ‘loyal confederation, this obscene accumulation of power, this greatly increased distance between those who make the decisions and those who have to suffer them’”. She believes that the corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling – their ideas, their version of history, their weapons, their nation of inevitability.
She concludes it with, “remember this: we be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them.”
In another chapter “Peace is War”, which deals with the importance of the "free media" in the corporate globalization project, Roy describes how neoliberal capitalists have managed to subvert democracy – by infiltrating the judiciary, the press and the parliament, and moulding them to their purpose. As she says, “Free elections, a free press, and an independent judiciary mean little when the free market has reduced them to commodities available on sale to the highest bidder”. She states that to control a democracy, it is becoming more and more vital to control media.
In “An Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire”, Roy tells us a few important things about the invasion and occupation of Iraq by American troopers. Agreed, Saddam Hussein was a dictator, but the fact is that the American and British governments supported him during his military excesses, against Iran and during the extermination of Kurds. It was only when he invaded Kuwait that he turned into a liability – a dog who wouldn’t obey his master anymore. And so, he deserved to be killed. Bombing civilians is an example of barbarism by America on Iraqi innocent people. Roy believes the American double standard policies create chaos and confusion. She states that the illegal occupation of Iraq by America was only to grab its oil resources.
In the chapter “Do Turkeys Enjoy Thanksgiving” Roy explains the concept of "New Imperialism". She believes that the new imperialism has nothing to do with Old imperialism. It only deals in brutality, illegal occupation, genocides, etc. If countries are not willing to give their resources to the corporates, either civil unrest will be fomented, or war will be waged. Roy also explains the concept of New Racism. Another instrument of New Imperialism is New Genocide which is facilitated by economic sanctions – the most notable cases being Iraq, Kashmir and Afghanistan.
In another chapter from the book, “How Deep Shall We Dig?” Arundhati Roy draws some much needed attention to terrorism in Kashmir and the Northeast, the rise of religious fundamentalism, POTA, targeting of minorities, and incidents of starving or malnutrition. It is increasingly difficult for people to confront their own government. The migration of pundits, killing of innocents in Kashmir is terrorism owned by peace makers. Roy informs us about the construction of imperialism by so-called racists. She informs us about the massacre of Muslims in Bombay, Gujarat genocide, Sikhs’ massacre, and last but not the least important, about killing, rape and disappearances in Kashmir. Roy believes that new imperialism is a seditious act on Muslims living in the largest democracy in the world.
In a nutshell I will conclude this entire review by saying that Arundhati Roy in her “An Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire” has successfully portrayed the image of government terrorism, which it uses for the bifurcation in people. Governments divide people in order to provide benefits to corporate companies. It was Roy’s attempt at exposing a very bitter truth, even if it went against a certain heavyweights of world politics.
