Ruminations

What makes a terrorist?

Returning to Arundhati Roy's The Algebra of Infinite Justice once again, the Foreword written by John Berger is pretty entertaining. He waxes lyrical about Roy's essays but makes one or two observations of his own. On the issue of terrorism he contends that what makes a terrorist is despair; a level of despair that few in the First World can imagine. This despair Berger describes as 'the sense that your life and the lives of those close to you count for nothing. And this is felt on several different levels so that it becomes total'. He cites living for decades on a refugee camp as an example.

'The search each morning
to find scraps
with which to survive another day

The knowledge on waking
that in this legal wilderness
no rights exist

The experience over the years
of nothing getting better
only worse

The humiliation of being able
to change almost nothing
and of seizing upon the almost
which then leads to another impasse

The listening to a thousand promises
which pass inexorably
beside you and yours

The example of those who resist
being bombarded to dust

The weight of your own killed
a weight which closes
innocence for ever
because there are so many.

These are the seven levels of despair -- one for each day of the week -- which lead, for some of the more courageous, to the revelation that to offer one's own life in contesting forces which have pushed the world to where it is, is the only way of invoking an all, which is larger than that of the despair'.

John Berger (in Roy 2002, pp. xxi-xxiii)

Economy-class humanitarianism

I recently finished reading Arundhati Roy's book, The Algebra of Infinite Justice, which covers a number of themes including US imperialism and the 'war on terrorism', the political economy of mega-dams (an Indian government 'speciality'), and communal violence in India. It was a good read, and her skills as a novelist came to the fore on a number of occasions evoking images that the majority of 'academic' writers would struggle to produce (or not want to produce!). A particular favourite of mine was the passage describing the 'humanitarian' food drop in Afghanistan by the US air force in 2001. At the time, cynics saw this as little more than a public relations exercise after the intense bombing by US forces was drawing criticism for the 'collateral damage' it was causing. The food drop, amounted to one meal for 37,000 of the several million in dire need of food, and each packet was decorated with the US flag. Inside was rice, peanut butter, bean salad, strawberry jam, crackers,

As Roy puts it, after three years of unremitting drought, 'an air-dropped airline meal' beggars belief for its 'cultural ineptitude' and lack of sensitivity to what months of relentless hunger and grinding poverty really mean. She presents us with a counter-scenario to illustrate the point:

"Imagine if the Taliban government was to bomb New York City, saying all the while that its real target was the US government and its policies. And suppose, during breaks between bombing, the Taliban dropped a few thousand packets containing nan and kababs impaled on an Afghan flag. Would the good people of New York ever find it in themselves to forgive the Afghan government?"
(Roy 2002, p. 251).

The Earth Centre closes its doors

The Guardian has a Special Report on climate change this week. The interactive guide on the Antarctic ice shelf collapse is worth a look, and so is Mark Townsend's article, Flood, sweat and tears. The Townsend piece is a tad on the depressing side, and provides some pretty graphic examples (not of all of which are strictly to do with climate change) as to why time is running out for people in seats of power to start taking sustainable development seriously. The stimulus for his story is the closure of the Earth Centre near Conisborough in South Yorkshire, seemingly unable to withstand the pressures of the market economy.