To annihilate indigenous populations eventually paves the way to our own annihilation. They are the only people who practice sustainable living. We think they are relics of the past, but they may be the gatekeepers to our future.
ARUNDHATI ROYExcitement always leads to tears.
More Arundhati Roy Quotes
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I feel ashamed that the new, nuclear, neo-liberal India thinks of itself as a ‘natural ally’ of Israel. Ever since India began to call itself an emerging superpower, it has become a slavish, groveling satellite state of the US.
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Little events, ordinary things, smashed and reconstituted. Suddenly, they become the bleached bones of a story.
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The people who created the crisis in the first place will not be the ones that come up with a solution.
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Flags are bits of colored cloth used first to shrinkwrap people’s brains and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead.
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There’s really no such thing as the ‘voiceless’. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.
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Privatization is presented as being the only alternative to an inefficient, corrupt state. In fact, it is not a choice at all… it is a mutually profitable business contract between the private company (preferably foreign) and the ruling elite of the Third World.
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If we were to lose the ability to be emotional, if we were to lose the ability to be angry, to be outraged, we would be robots. And I refuse that.
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Empathy may be the single most important quality that must be nurtured to give peace a fighting chance.
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The crisis of modern democracy is a profound one. 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.
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Anything’s possible in Human Nature …Love. Madness. Hope. Infinite joy.
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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.
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Sometimes there’s truth in old cliches. There can be no real peace without justice. And without resistance there will be no justice.
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The NGO-ization of politics threatens to turn resistance into a well-mannered, reasonable, salaried, 9-to-5 job. With a few perks thrown in. Real resistance has real consequences. And no salary.
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People rarely win wars, governments rarely lose them. People get killed. Governments moult and regroup, hydra-headed. They use flags first to shrink-wrap people’s minds and smother thought, and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury their willing dead.
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Is globalization about ‘the eradication of world poverty,’ or is it a mutant variety of colonialism, remote controlled and digitally operated?
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