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 To call someone 'anti-American', indeed, to be anti-American, is not just racist, it's a failure of the imagination. Arundhati Roy anti-american racist imagination Of course, there's an alternative to terrorism: it's called justice. Arundhati Roy terrorism alternatives justice It's being made out that the whole point of the war was to topple the Taliban regime and liberate Afghan women from their burqas, we are being asked to believe that the U.S. marines are actually on a feminist mission. Arundhati Roy marine war believe The [Booker] prize was actually responsible in many ways for my political activism. I won this thing and I was suddenly the darling of the new emerging Indian middle class – they needed a princess. They had the wrong woman. I had this light shining on me at the time, and I knew that I had the stage to say something about what was happening in my country. What is exciting about what I have done since is that writing has become a weapon, some kind of ammunition. Arundhati Roy princess writing country All my books are accidental books - they come from reacting to things and thinking about things and engaging in a real way. They are not about, 'Oh, did it get a good review in the Guardian?' I don't care. Arundhati Roy real book thinking Fiction is the most joyous, beautiful, sophisticated, wonderful thing in the world. Arundhati Roy writing beautiful fiction I am a Maoist sympathiser. I'm not a Maoist ideologue, because the communist movements in history have been just as destructive as capitalism. Arundhati Roy ideologues communist movement The secret of the Great Stories is that they have no secrets. The Great Stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably... in the Great Stories you know who lives, who dies, who finds love, who doesn't. And yet you want to know again. Arundhati Roy finding-love secret stories The World Trade Organization, The World Bank, The International Monetary Fund and other financial institutions virtually write economic policy and parliamentary legislation. With a deadly combination of arrogance and ruthlessness, they take their sledgehammers to fragile, interdependent, historically complex societies and devastate them, all under the fluttering banner of 'reform'. Arundhati Roy arrogance organization writing Insanity hovered close at hand, like an eager waiter at an expensive restaurant. Arundhati Roy restaurants insanity hands Ammu loved her children (of course), but their wide-eyed vulnerability and their willingness to love people who didn't really love them exasperated her and sometimes made her want to hurt them-- just as an education, a precaution. Arundhati Roy hurt children people It's so frightening, the nationalism in the air. Arundhati Roy nationalism frightening air Because of the caste system, because of the fact that there is no social link between those who make the decisions and those who suffer the decisions, the Indian government just goes ahead and does what it wants. The people also assume that this is their lot, their karma, what was written. It's quite an efficient way of doing things. Therefore, India has a very good reputation in the world as a democracy, as a government that cares, that has just got too much on its hands, whereas, in fact, it's actually creating the problems. Arundhati Roy karma creating government The Indian government has managed to turn the concept of nonviolence on its head. Nonviolent resistance and nonviolent governance. Unlike, say, China or Turkey or Indonesia, India doesn't mow down its people. It doesn't kill people who are refusing to move. It just waits it out. It continues to do what it has to do and ignores the consequences. Arundhati Roy turkeys government moving When you think of how much violence, how much blood... how much has been destroyed to create the great nations, America, Australia, Britain, Germany, France, Belgium - even India, Pakistan. Having destroyed so much to make them, we must have nuclear weapons to protect them - and climate change to hold up their way of life... a two-pronged annihilation project. Arundhati Roy two blood thinking I need fiction like you need to eat or exercise. Arundhati Roy exercise fiction needs The great irony is that people who live in remote areas, who are illiterate and don't own TVs, are in some ways more free because they are beyond the reach of indoctrination by the modern mass media. Arundhati Roy media people way The war in Afghanistan was fought for feminist reasons, and the Marines were really on this feminist mission. But today, all the women in all these countries have been driven back into medieval situations. Women who were liberated, women who were doctors and lawyers and poets and writers and - you know, pushed back into this Shia set against Sunnis. The U.S. is supporting al-Qaeda militias all over this region and pretending that it's fighting Islam. So we are in a situation that is psychopathic. Arundhati Roy fighting war country Now we're in a situation where democracy has been taken into the workshop and fixed, remodeled to be market-friendly. So now the United States is fighting wars to instal democracies. First it was topple them, now it's instal them, right? And this whole rise of corporate-funded NGOs in the modern world, this notion of CSR, corporate social responsibility - it's all part of a New Managed Democracy. In that sense, it's all part of the same machine. Arundhati Roy taken responsibility war Mao said he was prepared to have millions of Chinese people perish in a nuclear war as long as China survived... I'm beginning to find it more and more sick that only humans make it into our calculations... Annihilate life on earth, but save the nation... what's the subject heading? Stupidity or Insanity? Arundhati Roy sick war long
