Decolonize
the Consumerist Wasteland: Re-imagining a World Beyond Capitalism and Communism
ปลดแอกแดนเสื่อมโทรมแห่งบริโภคนิยม:
จินตนาการใหม่ถึงโลกที่พ้นจากระบบทุนนิยมและบริโภคนิยม
โดย อรุณธาติ รอย
ดรุณี ตันติวิรมานนท์ แปล
Here in India, even in the
midst of all the violence and greed, there is still hope. If anyone can do it,
we can. We still have a population that has not yet been completely colonized
by that consumerist dream.
ที่นี่ในอินเดีย, แม้แต่ในท่ามกลางความรุนแรงและตะกละตะกรามทั้งหมด,
ยังมีความหวัง. หากคนใดทำได้,
พวกเราก็ทำได้เหมือนกัน.
เรายังมีประชากรที่ยังไม่ได้ตกเป็นทาสอาณานิคมของความฝันแบบนักบริโภคนิยม.
(Photo: Reuters/Chaiwat
Subprasom)
We have a living tradition of
those who have struggled for Gandhi's vision of sustainability and
self-reliance, for socialist
ideas of egalitarianism and social justice. We have Ambedkar's vision, which
challenges the Gandhians as well as the socialists in serious ways. We have the
most spectacular coalition of resistance movements, with their experience,
understanding and vision.
Most important of all, India
has a surviving adivasi (aboriginal) population of almost 100 million. They are
the ones who still know the secrets of sustainable living. If they disappear,
they will take those secrets with them. Wars like Operation Green Hunt will
make them disappear. So victory for the prosecutors of these wars will contain
within itself the seeds of destruction, not just for adivasis but, eventually,
for the human race. That's why we need a real and urgent conversation between
all those political formations that are resisting this war.
เรามีขนบที่ยังมีชีวิตของผู้ที่ดิ้นรนเพื่อให้บรรลุวิสัยทัศน์ของคานธีเรื่องความยั่งยืนและการพึ่งตนเอง,
เพื่อความคิดสังคมนิยมเรื่องความเท่าเทียมและสังคมเป็นธรรม. เรามีวิสัยทัศน์ของอัมเบดการ์,
ผู้ท้าทายลัทธิคานธีและสังคมนิยมอย่างจริงจัง.
เรามีการผนึกกำลังกันที่น่าตื่นตาตื่นใจที่สุดของการเคลื่อนไหวต่อต้าน (จักรวรรดินิยม),
ด้วยประสบการณ์, ความเข้าใจ และวิสัยทัศน์ ของพวกเขา. ที่สำคัญที่สุด,
อินเดียยังมีประชากรชนพื้นเมืองดั้งเดิม อดิวาสี เกือบ 100
ล้านชีวิต. พวกเขาเป็นหนึ่งในบรรดาคนที่ยังรู้ถึงความลับในการดำรงชีพอย่างยั่งยืน. หากพวกเขาสูญหายไป,
พวกเขาจะนำความลับเหล่านั้นติดตัวไปด้วย.
สงคราม เช่น ปฏิบัติการล่าสีเขียว จะทำให้พวกเขาสาบสูญไป. ดังนั้น
ชัยชนะสำหรับผู้ดำเนินสงครามเหล่านี้ จะพกเมล็ดพันธุ์แห่งการทำลายล้างไว้ในตัว,
ไม่เพียงสำหรับ อดิวาสี แต่, ในที่สุด, สำหรับสายพันธุ์มนุษย์ด้วย. นี่คือเหตุผลว่า
ทำไมเราจำเป็นต้องมีการสนทนาที่แท้จริงและเร่งด่วนระหว่างการก่อตัวทางการเมือง
ที่ต่อต้านสงครามนี้.
The day capitalism is forced
to tolerate non-capitalist societies in its midst and to acknowledge limits in
its quest for domination, the day it is forced to recognize that its supply of
raw material will not be endless, is the day when change will come.
วันที่ทุนนิยมจะต้องถูกบังคับให้อดทนต่อสังคมที่ไม่ใช่ทุนนิยม
ที่อยู่รอบๆ และยอมรับข้อจำกัดของการแสวงหาความเป็นใหญ่ของมัน, วันที่มันจะถูกบังคับให้ยอมรับว่า
แหล่งวัตถุดิบใช่ว่าจะไม่มีวันสิ้นสุด, คือวันที่การเปลี่ยนแปลงมาถึง.
If there is any hope for the
world at all, it does not live in climate-change conference rooms or in cities
with tall buildings. It lives low down on the ground, with its arms around the
people who go to battle every day to protect their forests, their mountains and
their rivers because they know that the forests, the mountains and the rivers
protect them.
หากมีความหวังใดในโลกบ้าง,
มันไม่ได้อาศัยอยู่ในห้องประชุมวิชาการเรื่องภูมิอากาศแปรปรวน
หรือในเมืองตึกระฟ้า. มันมีชีวิตอยู่ในที่ต่ำต้อยติดดิน,
มีแขนที่โอบรอบคนที่ออกรบทุกวันเพื่อปกป้องผืนป่า, ภูเขา และแม่น้ำ ของพวกเขา
เพราะพวกเขารู้ว่า ป่า, เขา และ แม่น้ำ ปกป้องพวกเขา.
The first step toward
re-imagining a world gone terribly wrong would be to stop the annihilation of
those who have a different imagination – an imagination that is outside of
capitalism as well as communism. An imagination which has an altogether
different understanding of what constitutes happiness and fulfillment.
ก้าวแรกสู่จินตนาการใหม่ถึงโลกที่ได้เดินผิดทางที่แย่มาก
คือ หยุดเข่นฆ่าผู้ที่มีจินตนาการต่างออกไป—จินตนาการที่อยู่นอกลัทธิทุนนิยม
รวมทั้ง คอมมิวนิสต์.
จินตนาการที่มีความเข้าใจต่างออกไปถึงปัจจัยที่สร้างความสุขและความสมบูรณ์
น่าพึงพอใจ.
To gain this philosophical
space, it is necessary to concede some physical space for the survival of those
who may look like the keepers of our past but who may really be the guides to
our future. To do this, we have to ask our rulers: Can you leave the waters in
the rivers, the trees in the forest? Can you leave the bauxite in the mountain?
If they say they cannot, then perhaps they should stop preaching morality to
the victims of their wars.
เพื่อให้ได้มาซึ่งพื้นที่ปรัชญานี้,
จำเป็นต้องยอมรับพื้นที่ทางกายภาพสำหรับการอยู่รอดของพวกที่ดูเหมือนเป็นผู้รักษาอดีตของพวกเรา
แต่เป็นผู้ที่อาจนำทางพวกเราสู่อนาคตได้อย่างแท้จริง. ในการทำเช่นนั้น, เราจะต้องถามนักปกครองของเรา: ท่านจะปล่อยให้น้ำในแม่น้ำ, ต้นไม้ในป่า
(มีอิสรภาพ) ได้ไหม? ท่านจะปล่อยให้แร่บอกไซต์อยู่ในภูเขา
(อยู่ตามธรรมชาติ) ได้ไหม?
หากพวกเขาบอกว่า พวกเขาทำไม่ได้,
พวกเขาก็ไม่ควรหยุดเทศนาศีลธรรมต่อเหยื่อในสงครามของพวกเขา.
This article is excerpted from her recent
book, Walking with the Comrades, in which Arundhati reflects on her time
spent with Maoist guerrilla insurgents in India.
บทความนี้
ยกมาจากหนังสือเร็วๆ นี้ของเธอ, เดินไปกับสหาย, ซึ่งอรุณธาติ
สะท้อนช่วงเวลาที่เธออยู่กับกองโจรฝักใฝ่ลัทธิเหมาในอินเดีย
©
2013 Arundhati Roy
Arundhati Roy was born in
1959 in Shillong, India. She studied architecture in New Delhi, where she now
lives, and has worked as a film designer, actor, and screenplay writer in
India. Her latest book, Listening to Grasshoppers: Fields Notes on Democracy, is a collection of recent
essays. A tenth anniversary edition of her novel, The God of Small Things (Random House), for which she received the
1997 Booker Prize, was recently released. She is also the author of numerous
nonfiction titles, including An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire.
อรุณธาติ รอย เกิดในปี 1959 ที่ชิลลอง, อินเดีย. เธอศึกษาสถาปัตยกรรมในนิวเดลฮี,
ที่เธออาศัยอยู่ปัจจุบัน, และได้ทำงานเป็นนักออกแบบภาพยนตร์, นักแสดง, และ
นักเขียนบทในอินเดีย.
หนังสือล่าสุดของเธอ, ฟังเสียงตั๊กแตน: บันทึกภาคสนามเรื่องประชาธิปไตย,
เป็นการรวบรวมบทความที่เธอเขียนเมื่อไม่นานมานี้.
นิยายฉบับครบรอบสิบปีของเธอ, พระเจ้าของสิ่งน้อยๆ, ซึ่งเธอได้รับรางวัล 1997 Booker Prize, ได้วางตลาดเมื่อไม่นานนี้เอง.
เธอยังเป็นผู้ประพันธ์หนังสือที่ไม่ใช่นิยายมากมาย, รวมทั้ง คู่มือสำหรับสามัญชนสู่จักรวรรดิ.
This is such a superb piece of writing that I could quote any
sentence at random and its profound insight would resonate all by itself. All
the same, I will quote two.
First: "The day
capitalism is forced to tolerate non-capitalist societies in its midst and
to acknowledge limits in its quest for domination..."
This hits the nail of
our current wars squarely on the head. The recent and ongoing destruction of
Muslim societies is very much about this. Most of these societies, throughout
the modern era, have clung to traditional forms of economy and culture, at
least at the most basic levels. We may not like some of their traditions, but
that is none of our business and it is especially no excuse to destroy them. We
(and I use the "we" rhetorically to mean the West) lately have been
using the excuses of the "way they treat women," their "lack of
democracy," and, most importantly, their "embrace of terrorism"
to justify our depredations, but the real reason is that they resist Western
consumerist capitalization. Somehow the way that the Saudis and Yemenis and the
other oil sheikdoms treat women is not a problem for our paladins bent on
rescuing all those damsels in distress. The powers that be think they have
succeeded in bringing Mother India into their corrupt fold (even as women
problems persist in the subcontinent), but Roy shows us that this is by no
means a fait accompli yet, and i think she is right, though time is running
out.
Another little gem by
Roy is this:
"If there is any
hope for the world at all, it does not live in climate-change conference
rooms or in cities with tall buildings. It lives low down on the ground,
with its arms around the people who go to battle every day to protect
their forests, their mountains and their rivers because they know that the
forests, the mountains and the rivers protect them."
In my last book, and in a recent "Letter to the
Editor" of the local newspaper, I quoted Arundhati on flag-waving
"patriots":
"Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people's minds and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead."
My letter was met with much disdain and hate, advising me that I would do well to leave the country...
"Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people's minds and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead."
My letter was met with much disdain and hate, advising me that I would do well to leave the country...
i read this wonderful
article and the few comments only moments after your post. i so like the
"to shrink-wrap people's mind" imagery which brings to mind george
carlin's remarks on "symbol minded" folk. i wanted to award an
up_vote, but my security system picked this morning to update, download and
reboot. however, i feared a vote up without comment might be interpreted as 'yes!
leave my great country' and that is far from the case. the world needs
people, like you, who understand the vital, life-sustaining importance of a
diverse ecosystem that protects and nurtures ALL life. i wrote my own silent
pledge while in 5th grade. i stood quietly with my classmates, but did not join
in the recital. my pledge began, "i pledge allegiance to the Universe and
the Oneness of ALL for which it stands..."
i compare the hypnotic, unblinking loyalty to a symbolic piece
of cloth to a pavlovian-type automatic response mechanism.
my children and I wrote that pledge too, and they quietly and
knowingly recited those words when they found themselves in the unfortunate
situation of having to stand before the flag of blind patriotism. (They
occasionally were adamant about attending public school, though I always gave
them options.)
Good for you for writing what you did. In a letter I wrote to
local papers I said "America lower your flags and raise your conscience"
. I got a bit of hate mail.
Unfortunately too many people think of being patriotic as my
country doesn't do anything wrong. There can never be any questioning of what
we do. Daring to question becomes hating the country.
Their 'Patriotism' is
rabid and narrow minded, they can't accept that someone can be a patriot who
questions what a country does or condemns certain actions.
wife doesn't like the use of the word patriot because of what it has come to mean today. Myself I tend to think of it like the founding fathers used it which allowed for disagreement.
wife doesn't like the use of the word patriot because of what it has come to mean today. Myself I tend to think of it like the founding fathers used it which allowed for disagreement.
That's a nice bit of
poetry to quote. Sadly it proves all too true.
Skip M. You state that: "Unfortunately
too many people think of being patriotic as my country doesn't do anything
wrong."
Very well said. A very clear example of what you have pointed
out can be seen in some of the reviews and comments on Amazon of Nick Turse's
extremely well written and most relevant book Kill Anything That Moves which
chronicles the plethora of atrocities that the United States military committed
against the Vietnamese those many years ago. Many of those reviews and comments
are written by flag waving, patriotic military veterans who simply cannot
conceive that American soldiers and marines could ever engage in such heinous
actions. But as Turse's book persuasively demonstrates, that is indeed what the
U.S. military did to those wretched people.
I argue with a number of people online about what we do. There
are those in complete denial of our history and refuse in anyway to accept what
I tell them is the history of this country.
The others say so what, if we didn't do those things, Hitler, the soviet union, etc would still be in power and thus anything we do is perfectly ok. Much like the pro-torture people.
Those same people though will deny that we support dictators, that we are all about freedom, that only america brings freedom to others.
Unfortunately what we did in vietnam, we have done in other wars such as afghan and Iraq. We committed atrocities in WWII and some of them were prosecuted. But others like the fire bombings of cities were applauded by the people in this country and most will defend them to this day.
The US has a history of atrocities in building this country that most do not like to hear about. They want us to be the good guys, the cowboy in the white hat who never does anything wrong. They don't like the black hats we often wear.
I wish that we were really the white hats, sadly we are not.
The others say so what, if we didn't do those things, Hitler, the soviet union, etc would still be in power and thus anything we do is perfectly ok. Much like the pro-torture people.
Those same people though will deny that we support dictators, that we are all about freedom, that only america brings freedom to others.
Unfortunately what we did in vietnam, we have done in other wars such as afghan and Iraq. We committed atrocities in WWII and some of them were prosecuted. But others like the fire bombings of cities were applauded by the people in this country and most will defend them to this day.
The US has a history of atrocities in building this country that most do not like to hear about. They want us to be the good guys, the cowboy in the white hat who never does anything wrong. They don't like the black hats we often wear.
I wish that we were really the white hats, sadly we are not.
I REALLY wish you guys would qualify this SLOPPY use of the word
WE. You both WERE soldiers, so the WE may apply to you, but it does not apply
to most women, persons who have hated war since the day they could speak, and
lots of minorities who understand that they'd just be fighting the White Man's
war... only to return to crumbs at home.
The WE that creates a pretext for war may be the WE that is
connected to the MIC, but it is not the WE of ALL the people. If that were in
fact not the case, our media would not need to be awash in all sorts of overt
and covert propaganda in order to massage the public's collective consciousness
into a grudging acceptance of war. And that still means PART of the public.
You said
":Unfortunately what we did in vietnam, we have done in
other wars such as afghan and Iraq. We committed atrocities in WWII and some of
them were prosecuted."
THAT "WE" = soldiers. When what soldiers or the MIC
does is conflated with "The People," the nation is conceived of more
and more as a seamless military-run entity. One way to fight that is by NOT
passively accepting this false framing.
Since people of both sexes supported the war, and a large
majority of the population along with minorities, the We is applicable. Very
few people are anti-war, only a small percentage. And those supporters allow
the soldiers to do what they do. W/o complaint.
Most of the people in this country don't complain and support the drone war and all the atrocities. They don't care as long as we are portrayed as winning the war.
If you support the war, you support the atrocities committed in your name. It is how the US has gotten by for it's life. The fact that SR and I and a few others object doesn't make a bit of difference. We don't count. Never have. We are considered the unpatriotic people.
A few of us who object are not the We of the people. We is the majority and they are quite glad that we are killing over there and not here. Even though the US most likely would not be fighting here even if we didn't kill them over there.
Check out how many people supported the war in 2003. Check out how many objected and not just in physical protests. There is a large difference between the two. I am sorry that you don't wish to accept it, but We don't have a voice. The We who do is the large group of people who do.
When the very small minority can stop a war then I'll grant you a We status.
Most of the people in this country don't complain and support the drone war and all the atrocities. They don't care as long as we are portrayed as winning the war.
If you support the war, you support the atrocities committed in your name. It is how the US has gotten by for it's life. The fact that SR and I and a few others object doesn't make a bit of difference. We don't count. Never have. We are considered the unpatriotic people.
A few of us who object are not the We of the people. We is the majority and they are quite glad that we are killing over there and not here. Even though the US most likely would not be fighting here even if we didn't kill them over there.
Check out how many people supported the war in 2003. Check out how many objected and not just in physical protests. There is a large difference between the two. I am sorry that you don't wish to accept it, but We don't have a voice. The We who do is the large group of people who do.
When the very small minority can stop a war then I'll grant you a We status.
"The day capitalism is forced to tolerate non-capitalist
societies in its midst and to acknowledge limits in its quest for domination,
the day it is forced to recognize that its supply of raw material will not
be endless, is the day when change will come."
Unfortunately, the capitalists will not acknowledge any limits
to growth until these limits threaten the system with imminent collapse...
Fortunately, that time is on the horizon. My hope is that the change Roy writes
of will have its day when the military-corporate systems that hold the
capitalist Death Star together start to fail and crumble -- this is a moment to
plan, prepare, and push for. Because until then, to expect reform or sanity is
like being the codependent spouse of an abusive junkie or alcoholic, forever
hoping, forever getting black eyes...
So right you are. See Michael T. Klare: "The Race for
What's Left: the Global Scramble for the World's Last Resources"
Ms. Roy notes that: "We have a living tradition of those
who have struggled for Gandhi's vision of sustainability and
self-reliance, for socialist ideas of egalitarianism and social
justice."
One does not have to think very hard to recall the number of
socialist candidates who participated in the last televised presidential
debates or any presidential debates that have taken place in this country
within the past sixty years or so as that number would be zero. The reason for
this, of course, is that the Democrats and the Republicans and the corporate
media are absolutely terrified if anyone would dare challenge the economic
system which is, to put it mildly, less than egalitarian in what is often
claimed by the two major parties to be the greatest country in the world. The
last thing that they want is for a [gasp!] socialist to reveal to the American
people that the emperor has no clothes and that the capitalist system, despite
what they have been told by people like Obama and Romney, is not all that it is
cracked up to be [though the system itself is certainly cracked and pretty much
beyond repair].
True enough. Socialism has been turned into a dirty word in the
U.S. and twisted/distorted to the point where the average person has no idea
what it means. And yes, if the people knew the truth, I think they would choose
socialism.
This chick is my freakn' hero. She's right about being closer to
the ground-earth-food. Moonshiners cook sugar and grains in a boiler and let it
cool through a coiled pipe into a mason jar. After prohibition, these same
folks; did that to oil and got us gasoline, plastics modern medicine world
telecommunications. They also gave us guns, nukes, drones. Our base side
destroyed earth. Our strength will save some of us. As men, we should all go
down fighting like women. Everything happens in the space of 1 human lifetime.
We are at peak civilization. Each of us has a front row seat at the largest
human event in history. We all count. We all matter.
P.S. - All the really bad stuff started with the birth of the
modern banking system 100 years ago this year.
All the really bad
stuff started with the birth of the modern banking system 100 years ago this
year.
That's completely wrong. Enclosures, imperial occupation,
working class exploitation, all were there before the "modern banking
system". Read the "Condition of the Working Class in England" by
Engels or "Making of the English Working Class" by E. P. Thompson.
My Masters thesis owed a lot to those two works. Engels sums up
capitalism right here:
"True, these
English bourgeois are good husbands and family men, and have all sorts of other
private virtues, and appear, in ordinary intercourse, as decent and respectable
as all other bourgeois; even in business they are better to deal with than the
Germans; they do not higgle and haggle so much as our own pettifogging
merchants; but how does this help matters? Ultimately it is self-interest, and
especially money gain, which alone determines them.
I once went into
Manchester with such a bourgeois, and spoke to him of the bad, unwholesome
method of building, the frightful condition of the working-peoples quarters,
and asserted that I had never seen so ill-built a city. The man listened
quietly to the end, and said at the corner where we parted: "And yet there
is a great deal of money made here, good morning, sir."
Yeah, awesome quote. My favourite (and very often recommended)
is Capital's chapter 8, on the "length of the working day" (although
that's not easily quoted hehe). And Thompson is just too awesome. Can't get enough
of Poverty of Theory, so witty and incredibly funny.
I wonder how opinions here would differ if Roy and Mad Albright
switched bodies. A lot of the comments are about what each of them looks like.
Anxiety-moderating drugs that reach waterways via wastewater
create fearless and asocial fish that eat more quickly than normal. These
behavioral changes can have serious ecological consequences. So think what
these highly recommended drugs pushed by the corporate beast are doing for the
beasts consumption of our resources, degrading or depleting while terrorizing
our family, friends, Nabors, or what could be all our cooperative associates in
the world.
The corporate beast will stop at nothing to increase power or
control over all. The beast’s
drive is for consumption and knows no moderation. Try to moderate and the beast will overcome by consuming the moderates. The beast is mad with lust for power and control its existence is assured by power and control and unnaturally immortal.
drive is for consumption and knows no moderation. Try to moderate and the beast will overcome by consuming the moderates. The beast is mad with lust for power and control its existence is assured by power and control and unnaturally immortal.
Beast masters may come and go but the beasts remain and grow. We
must tame the beast to cooperate with all by limiting access or control of
world resources human, natural, technological, and social.
Beast owners must be held accountable for management and control
of the beasts. Owners will not be allowed to unleash the beast on the public
then hide in beast havens. Beast packs work together to control all while
owners hide behind walls watch and wait till they can gather all the victims’
possessions and the victims themselves. The beast is cold blooded killer when
off their leash.
The beasts are out of control they want to consume everything
now without thought of tomorrow or others. The beast can’t think it devoirs for
greed of more. The beast desires control and power to dominate over all other
beasts and humans alike. Beasts must be leashed or drugged into moderation not
man drugged for consumption.
The world citizens have no power to control beasts but numbers.
Only when world citizens decide no longer will they be sheep herded by the
beasts for their consumption can beasts be tamed to serve not only beast owners
but all.
Every human is a bull but thinks they are a sheep because they
have been raised as sheep. Awake the bull within and follow your own wisdom not
that of this world be a bull not a sheep.
I am a bull not a sheep in this china shop of things and I must
get out. Bulls need space, silence, and room for growth. All bulls will protect
all from ravaging beasts. Bulls stand in defense of the weak, sick, disabled,
and all life or freedom of the herd. Bulls know not fear but courage in the
face of adversity.
Bulls STAND head to head against the beasts who want to harm the hard live or die the bull’s duty will be done
Bulls STAND head to head against the beasts who want to harm the hard live or die the bull’s duty will be done
Or back further to 1694 when William Paterson received the
charter for the Bank of England.
William Paterson on obtaining the charter of the Bank of England
in 1694, to use the moneys he had won in privateering, said, "The Bank
hath benefit of interest on all moneys which it creates out of nothing." Tragedy and Hope, pp. 48-49, Carroll Quigley
Yes, all the really bad stuff started with the modern banking
system and computer powered churning or markets and consumer control. Then all
went mad when Ragan, and Clinton unleashed the banking jackals of greed. Not to
mentions Nixon's deal with china powers. Better to rule by capital control than
force or government control. World populations are controlled by greed, capital,
and the illusion representation in government, law, markets, etc. where in fact
they have no representation. While those who rule churn, churn, churn,.
Go back to the late 19th century and you will find the same then
as you do today. It is not the modern banking system, it is the unbridled greed
of capitalism. Whenever the rich can rein w/o rules, you will have what you
find today. The past shows this many times.
Thanks for the link. SRI (System Root/Rice Intensification)
makes allot of sense. It imay be the way we will all be forced to use as fossil
fuels become more dear and foolish.
I wonder how this SRI and biodynamic gardening can fit.
From what I just read the two approaches are similar in terms of
building up the soil
organisms and using local
distribution. I wonder though if the astrological part .... seeding according
to the phase of the moon might not better be replaced with a current model of
the jet stream as it relates to climate variation and season modification.
I'm always surprised to see Roy in print anymore in the
"indy" press here, given her dramatic reconsideration of the politics
of social change and resistance in just the last half dozen years. Her time
with the Maoists was, to say the least, instructive.
Would that many of our own liberals and leftists spend a year in those forests and maintain their ludicrous positions about how best to confront capital and its terrors.
Would that many of our own liberals and leftists spend a year in those forests and maintain their ludicrous positions about how best to confront capital and its terrors.
Hopefully Roy can stick around this time. She has a lot to say.
I wish that news of the western movement IdleNoMore! could be
spread to the 100 million aboriginal people in India, with an invitation to
join!
For those wondering...aboriginal people hold the secrets of
sustainability because they have survived against alarming odds and persecution
and in their daily lives do without all that capitalism has promised, quite
well, while often holding in their hearts all that capitalism would strip away.
Capitalism needs an enema.
or a stake through its heart
"The day capitalism is forced to tolerate non-capitalist
societies in its midst and to acknowledge limits in its quest for domination,
the day it is forced to recognize that its supply of raw material will not be
endless, is the day when change will come."
That's the day the people will rule, not plutocrats or
commissars. The day science overcomes fear and superstition. The day humanism
overcomes bestiality.
Just read through what seems to be a short old 2010 pamphlet PDF
version of the book. Incredible reading. And I do not understand this at all
after having read it:
To gain this
philosophical space, it is necessary to concede some physical space for the
survival of those who may look like the keepers of our past but who may really
be the guides to our future. To do this, we have to ask our rulers: Can you
leave the waters in the rivers, the trees in the forest? Can you leave the
bauxite in the mountain? If they say they cannot, then perhaps they should stop
preaching morality to the victims of their wars.
Isn't she writing about people who were being killed before even
being allowed to ask this? Is there any real world example of capital giving up
its inherent totalitarian spirit?
She's obliquely saying that if our rulers cannot be reasoned
with or persuaded to give up that space, then it obviously must be taken. And
yes, by force if absolutely necessary.
The reference to morality is a broadside at the moralizing of
forceful resistance to an injustice that otherwise will not relent. That is
what she learned in the jungle.
Guess it looks a bit too, errr, soft, to me, after stuff like
this:
Lohandiguda, a
five-hour drive from Dantewara, never used to be a Naxalite area. But it is
now. Comrade Joori who sat next to me while I ate the ant chutney works in the
area. She said they decided to move in after graffiti had begun to appear on
the walls of village houses, saying Naxali Ao, Hamein Bachao (Naxals come and
save us!) A few months ago Vimal Meshram, President of the village panchayat
was shot dead in the market. "He was Tata’s Man," Joori says,
"He was forcing people to give up their land and accept compensation. It’s
good that he’s been finished. We lost a comrade too. They shot him. D’you want
more chapoli?" She’s only twenty. "We won’t let the Tata come there.
People don’t want them." Joori is not PLGA. She’s in the Chetna Natya
Manch (CNM), the cultural wing of the Party. She sings. She writes songs. She’s
from Abhujmad. (She’s married to Comrade Madhav. She fell in love with his
singing when he visited her village with a CNM troupe.)
I feel I ought to say something at this point. About the
futility of violence, about the unacceptability of summary executions. But what
should I suggest they do? Go to court? Do a dharna in Jantar Mantar, New Delhi?
A rally? A relay hunger strike? It sounds ridiculous. The promoters of the New
Economic Policy —who find it so easy to say "There Is No Alternative"
—should be asked to suggest an alternative Resistance Policy. A specific one,
to these specific people, in this specific forest. Here. Now. Which party
should they vote for? Which democratic institution in this country should they
approach? Which door did the Narmada Bachao Andolan not knock on during the
years and years it fought against Big Dams on the Narmada?
(Well, maybe this is how she can get to see her in the American
"indy" press. I don't blame her for it at all.)
Damn, I should definitely get the book. The pamphlet was
incredible.
I remember when she started questioning the almost cult-like
devotion to the methods of nonviolent resistance in all situations. She was
everywhere, then. Darling speaker and essayist. And then, 'poof!'--gone. Same
as Derrick Jensen. They disappear ya fast if you show any sign of straying from
the path to slaughter.
Happy reading!
Yeah that's what I thought. I've read a few essays of her and
they were not very encouraging, although there always seemed to be a sense of,
errr, inconsistency or disconnect. And tbh, this above excerpt seems to be
quite similar. But the pamphlet I read now is really, really different in an
awesome way.
[“To do this, we have to
ask our rulers: Can you leave the waters in the rivers, the trees in the
forest? Can you leave the bauxite in the mountain? If they say they cannot,
then perhaps they should stop preaching morality to the victims of their
wars.”]
“Truth often finds its way to the mind close muffled in robes of
sleep, and then speaks with uncompromising directness of matters in regard to
which we practice an unconscious self-deception during our waking moments.” (N.
Hawthorne)
There is power in the acoustic voice. But it takes a good
meditative cleanse to soon realize your reference point was falsely altered. I can
still hear the words from my late uncle: the human voice is the best instrument
under the sun; or, another way of saying, there is beauty in that which is
greater than the sum of its parts which is difficult to imitate.
But this is an article on decolonizing consumerism which in
essence should have you bringing your [RETAIL] AMPLIFIER to the service shop
for repairs? Or if it cannot be repaired, buy another that doesn’t mess with
the signal – slave labor in is slave labor out, amplified many time over,
bringing your shopping experience closer to the original just as if you were
inside the sweat-shop: screams demanding fairer wages and working conditions so
loud that you wish you had ear-plugs when contemplating a product you wish to
purchase.
And in my “walking moments”, “I’ll demand that THREE FOR $$ should
be 1 X MANY MORE THE SELLING PRICE.
Arundhati Roy, Thank you!
Most important of all,
India has a surviving adivasi (aboriginal) population of almost 100 million.
They are the ones who still know the secrets of sustainable living. If they
disappear, they will take those secrets with them.
I think even more important is the basic disposition of peasants
(not "farmers") towards an organic egalitarian collectivism or even
"communism". This is imo the same as what was displayed in Europe in
the big peasant revolts in the 14th to 16th century and basically destroyed by
capitalist "primitive accumulation" and later developments that
basically *completely* destroyed and recreated the underlying economic, social
and cultural structures (and which are btw the exact same processes that the
"Maoists" are actively fighting.) The alienation from the
"natural" economy that happened on all levels destroyed the natural
sense of community (and on a larger scale, society) which was slowly replaced
by conscious, centrally managed, bureaucratic and later technological systems.
Basically, people didn't feel dependent on and connected with a
"nature" shaped by their own work (often done in community) - they
only depended on some human-created but ultimately incomprehensible system of
control and power, where everyone's doing their own little thing in their own
little world and all structure is imposed from the top down, where connections
of all directions between people and processes and the world are invisible and
cannot be experienced directly, only on a very abstract "conscious"
level and are managed by a narrow and specialised "controller" class.
When one's understanding of their own place in the world is not
created in relation to other people and nature and their work shaping them, but
to abstract, opaque, centrally structured and top-down controlled power systems
which are reflected to the "lower classes" in "jobs",
"wages", "careers" and "management" etc., they're
going to also be dependent on such structures mentally. In this
"individualistic" (read: isolated, abstract and artificial)
structure, it'll be difficult to acquire or even understand (and not fear) a
"communistic" or collectivist outlook when you don't really know how
people work and live together beyond the distorted experience of capitalism.
(Also, this is ultimately an idealist system lacking any connection to material
reality and can only reflect and recycle itself and its own reflections - so it
necessarily degenerates even intellectually into the self-referential
autofellating relativist idiocy of vomitous, never new but always novel
"postmodernism".)
Thing is, I don't know what can replace it if this culture is
gone, and it is definitely *completely* gone in most of the developed North. (I
don't think it even existed in (white colonised) North America btw.)
Marxism/Leninism/Trotskyism etc are all attempts at solving this question by
helping to create a similar but more "advanced" and scientific
consciousness among workers. Thing is, capital itself seems to be extremely
conscious of this issue and imo one of the most important - even if indirect -
reasons for creating a global, flexible labour market of deskilled and
non-unionised throwaway workers is to make the evolution of a worker
consciousness based on this new form of production impossible. Hence the
cooptation of trade unions and "socialist" and "communist"
parties (the "pseudo-left" hehe), along with the cooptation of what
were originally instruments of "green" consciousness. If this makes
any sense.
And to be honest, I don't think that some nostalgic "back
to the roots" strategy is going to help. Science, industry, engineering
(in all senses) are powerful instruments and they cannot be ignored. The
abstract knowledge manifested in a corporate manager's outlook and methods and
the corporation's technology and tools are real power and something powerful
and so something new and "modern" is needed to counter them imo. I
personally think that Marxism is (along with deep environmentalism - but these
two things do connect fundamentally as the right sees very very well) the best
"intellectual" basis for such a consciousness, but people may disagree.
(I'd like to see alternatives, but frankly, all I can see (including CD) are
versions (some clothed in "spirituality", some in
"anarchism", some in "scientism") of a fundamentally
bourgeois and reactionary mindset.) It'd be convenient to be able to combine this
with an already existing fundamentally collectivist world view, if that's even
possible, but in most of the North, that's not possible. Or all this means is
that the South's going to lead from now on, and tbh, I'm more than OK with
that.
If you've read what Vandana Shiva says about the peasant
farmers' movement, and the way it preserves soil and gets a greater yield for
its farming techniques, you might rethink the way you champion the arrogant,
hubristic fields of science and engineering above all else.
It WILL be indigenous
wisdom and those who know how to live close to the earth who will lead those
who manage to survive during the coming earth changes (along with a likely
ensuing breakdown to "civilization" as we know it).
All things come full
circle. The lands were stolen from the Indigenous and it will be "the meek
who (re) inherit the Earth" again.
If you've read what
Vandana Shiva says about the peasant farmers' movement, and the way it
preserves soil and gets a greater yield for its farming techniques, you might
rethink the way you champion the arrogant, hubristic fields of science and
engineering above all else.
I am absolutely not "championing" them, just pointing
out their power, which, despite being completely obvious, people like to
ignore.
Anyway. I know I
shouldn't, but I kind of use the word "science" to denote both
"actually existing" science, as a concrete part of the social order,
with its institutions, organisations, training structures, ideologies (which
btw I actually critique all the time in pretty harsh words to say the least)
and the scientific method and approach and "culture" itself. I have
huge issues with how science exists in society, the undemocratic, servile and
often even secretive way it is directed and used and especially with the
traditional ideology of scientific "neutrality". But I think science
as a method of understanding the world is, in terms of creating actual
"deep" understanding, possibility (and to a large extent, necessity)
of democratic access to knowledge and especially in terms of *power* is
superior to basically everything else there is. And concentrations of power in
society take advantage of this inherent power of science while trying to
suppress the other aspects that are not so advantageous for it.
I don't think that
Vandana Shiva would have a problem with actually "scientifically"
understanding what, say, "soil preservation" means and using this
type of understanding for improvements. In fact, the approach of Navdanya seems
pretty scientific to me and they have publications that seem to do exactly
that. They seem to build on traditional knowledge but use science to correct
and expand it. They are, very importantly, against the monopolisation of this
knowledge and to spread democratically both the knowledge-collection and
distribution aspects. Finally, they seem to test knowledge with the
"scientific" approach and explain it through science's terms. That
is, in my mind, the ideal of "science".
All things come full
circle. The lands were stolen from the Indigenous and it will be "the meek
who (re) inherit the Earth" again.
They do not. You (and accidentally I also) wish they would, but
history says they don't. There is no karma and no "full circle"
especially of justice just because one believes there should be. Most
indigenous people were completely wiped out by the West and will stay wiped
out. Almost all traditional "peasant" knowledge in Eastern Europe,
including my own very agricultural country, has been wiped out. We can recover
and rediscover the most important and still relevant pieces of knowledge from
this culture, but the cultures and societies themselves are mostly gone (and
it's not like you yourself, being a feminist, would be completely satisfied
with them anyway).
As for the catastrophism part...please beware, I'll be
offensive. There are too many people here who have given up on the world and
waiting for some big cleansing. I think it has to do, in a large part, with
being relatively old on average and with forgetting what it was to be young. I
even see people here declaring that they're "happy" that they're in
the last third of their lives and won't have to see the sky falling (not you
though afaik). Even though I like a lot of these people, this feels distasteful
"after me, the deluge" type egoist thinking to me, considering how
most of them are middle class and thus beneficiaries of the system that seems
to be causing the collapse. There is a much better chance for change for the
better *now*, while we still have relative abundance, than there will be after
a collapse.
The catastrophy that may indeed come and which a lot of people
here seem to actually put hope into will only make things worse - and it'll be
worse for the powerless than for the powerful, thus increasing injustice. While
parts of instruments of power may be destroyed, a lot of them will stay, and
even if keeping them up will make things worse, as long as they're effective,
they'll be maintained.
Nice exposition, Atomsk. Well said. Marx, by the way, is reputed
to have said: I am not a Marxist! At core, he was a communist, but of the
philosophical type who envisaged the total "withering" of the state.
You rightly wondered what could replace capitalism, other than
"back to the roots" as you say. Frankly, you must know there are many
insurmountable barriers now - beginning with an entrenched socioeconomic system
that supports billions, and not to mention a global financial system that is
controlled by a relatively few powerful people and entities.
Any useful change will take generations to achieve.
Now, if everybody had a life span of two hundred years, things
would change more rapidly, I feel.
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