NGOs have a complicated space in neoliberal politics. They are supposed to mop up the anger. Even when they are doing good work, they are supposed to maintain the status quo. They are the missionaries of the corporate world. Arundhati Roy More Quotes by Arundhati Roy More Quotes From Arundhati Roy Your enemies are always manufactured to suit your purpose, right? How can you have a good enemy? You have to have an utterly evil enemy - and then the evilness has to progress. Arundhati Roy progress evil enemy Little events, ordinary things, smashed and reconstituted. Suddenly, they become the bleached bones of a story. Arundhati Roy events stories ordinary What's a country? It's just an administrative unit, a glorified municipality. Why do we imbue it with esoteric meaning and protect it with nuclear bombs? I can't bow down to a municipality... it's just not intelligent. The bastards will do what they have to do, and we'll do what we have to do. Even if they annihilate us, we'll go down on the other side. Arundhati Roy bombs intelligent country Whatever else their faults may be, they were not radical Islamist states - Iraq was not, Syria is not, Libya was not. The most radical fundamentalist Islamist state is, of course, your America's Saudi Arabia. Arundhati Roy arabia iraq america So here we have it. The equivocating distinction between civilisation and savagery, between the "massacre of innocent people" or, if you like, "a clash of civilisations" and "collateral damage". The sophistry and fastidious algebra of infinite justice. Arundhati Roy damage justice people After Iraq, there's been Libya, there's Syria, and the rhetoric of, you know, democracy versus radical Islam. When you look at the countries that were attacked, none of them were Wahhabi Islamic fundamentalist countries. Those ones are supported, financed by the U.S., so there is a real collusion between radical Islam and capitalism. What is going on is really a different kind of battle. Arundhati Roy islamic real country It is such a supreme folly to believe that nuclear weapons are deadly only if they're used. Arundhati Roy nuclear weapons believe The only dream worth having, I told her, is to dream that you will live while you're alive and die only when you're dead. Arundhati Roy alive dream life It's odd how those who dismiss the peace movement as utopian, don't hesitate to proffer the most absurdly dreamy reasons for going to war: to stamp out terrorism, install democracy, eliminate fascism, and most entertainingly, to "rid the world of evil-doers. Arundhati Roy ubuntu war peace Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people’s brains and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead. When independent-thinking people (and here I do not include the corporate media) begin to rally under flags, when writers, painters, musicians, film makers suspend their judgment and blindly yoke their art to the service of the “Nation,” it’s time for all of us to sit up and worry. Arundhati Roy independent art thinking What is happening to our world is almost too colossal for human comprehension to contain...To contemplate its girth and its circumference, to attempt to define it, to try and fight it all at once, is impossible. The only way to combat it is by fighting specific wars in specific ways. Arundhati Roy our-world fighting war Ammu said that human beings were creatures of habit, and it was amazing the kind of things one could get used to. Arundhati Roy habit used kind The mullahs of the Islamic world and the mullahs of the Hindu world and the mullahs of the Christian world are all on the same side. And we are against them all. Arundhati Roy islamic christian motivational How carelessly imperial power vivisected ancient civilizations. Palestine and Kashmir are imperial Britain's festering, blood-drenched gifts to the modem world. Both are fault lines in the raging international con�icts of today. Arundhati Roy ancient-civilizations kashmir blood It is after all so easy to shatter a story. To break a chain of thought. To ruin a fragment of a dream being carried around carefully like a piece of porcelain. To let it be, to travel with it, as Velutha did, is much the harder thing to do. Arundhati Roy stories dream life As Estha stirred the thick jam he thought Two Thoughts and the Two Thoughts he thought were these: a) Anything can happen to anyone. and b) It is best to be prepared. Arundhati Roy be-prepared jam two This was the trouble with families. Like invidious doctors, they knew just where it hurt. Arundhati Roy doctors family hurt But what was there to say? Only that there were tears. Only that Quietness and Emptiness fitted together like stacked spoons. Only that there was a snuffling in the hollows at the base of a lovely throat. Only that a hard honey-colored shoulder had a semicircle of teethmarks on it. Only that they held each other close, long after it was over. Only that what they shared that night was not happiness, but hideous grief. Only that once again they broke the Love Laws. That lay down who should be loved. And how. And how much. Arundhati Roy grief law night It is true that success is the most boring thing, it is tinny and brittle, failure runs deeper. Success is dangerous. I have a very complicated relationship with that word. Arundhati Roy complicated-relationship boring running There is a war that makes us adore our conquerors and despise ourselves. Arundhati Roy despise adore war
