[North-NV-Greens] Fwd: Roy - 'Capitulation to a Corporate Coup'

[Paul Etxeberri]

>This is a must read. The age of Civil Disobedience has arrived even to the US.

"Resistance to Tyranny is obedience to God."   ---   Thomas Jefferson

>
>Sydney Morning Herald
>November 4, 2004
>
>What we call peace is little better than capitulation
>to a corporate coup
>
>The Iraq war is a sign that the world has lost the will
>to fight for true justice, writes Arundhati Roy.
>
>Sometimes there's truth in old cliches. There can be no
>real peace without justice. And without resistance
>there will be no justice. Today, it is not merely
>justice itself, but the idea of justice that is under
>attack.
>
>The assault on vulnerable, fragile sections of society
>is so complete, so cruel and so clever that its sheer
>audacity has eroded our definition of justice. It has
>forced us to lower our sights, and curtail our
>expectations. Even among the well-intentioned, the
>magnificent concept of justice is gradually being
>substituted with the reduced, far more fragile
>discourse of "human rights".
>
>This is an alarming shift. The difference is that
>notions of equality, of parity, have been pried loose
>and eased out of the equation. It's a process of
>attrition. Almost unconsciously, we begin to think of
>justice for the rich and human rights for the poor.
>Justice for the corporate world, human rights for its
>victims. Justice for Americans, human rights for
>Afghans and Iraqis. Justice for the Indian upper
>castes, human rights for Dalits and Adivasis (if that.)
>Justice for white Australians, human rights for
>Aborigines and immigrants (most times, not even that.)
>AdvertisementAdvertisement
>
>It is becoming more than clear that violating human
>rights is an inherent and necessary part of the process
>of implementing a coercive and unjust political and
>economic structure on the world. Increasingly, human
>rights violations are being portrayed as the
>unfortunate, almost accidental, fallout of an otherwise
>acceptable political and economic system. As though
>they are a small problem that can be mopped up with a
>little extra attention from some non-government
>organisation.
>
>This is why in areas of heightened conflict - in
>Kashmir and in Iraq for example - human rights
>professionals are regarded with a degree of suspicion.
>Many resistance movements in poor countries which are
>fighting huge injustice and questioning the underlying
>principles of what constitutes "liberation" and
>"development" view human rights non-government
>organisations as modern-day missionaries who have come
>to take the ugly edge off imperialism - to defuse
>political anger and to maintain the status quo.
>
>It has been only a few weeks since Australia re-elected
>John Howard, who, among other things, led the nation to
>participate in the illegal invasion and occupation of
>Iraq.
>
>That invasion will surely go down in history as one of
>the most cowardly wars ever. It was a war in which a
>band of rich nations, armed with enough nuclear weapons
>to destroy the world several times over, rounded on a
>poor nation, falsely accused it of having nuclear
>weapons, used the United Nations to force it to disarm,
>then invaded it, occupied it and are now in the process
>of selling it.
>
>I speak of Iraq, not because everybody is talking about
>it, but because it is a sign of things to come. Iraq
>marks the beginning of a new cycle. It offers us an
>opportunity to watch the corporate-military cabal that
>has come to be known as "empire" at work. In the new
>Iraq, the gloves are off.
>
>As the battle to control the world's resources
>intensifies, economic colonialism through formal
>military aggression is staging a comeback. Iraq is the
>logical culmination of the process of corporate
>globalisation in which neo-colonialism and neo-
>liberalism have fused. If we can find it in ourselves
>to peep behind the curtain of blood, we would glimpse
>the pitiless transactions taking place backstage.
>
>Invaded and occupied Iraq has been made to pay out
>$US200 million ($270 million) in "reparations" for lost
>profits to corporations such as Halliburton, Shell,
>Mobil, Nestle, Pepsi, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Toys R
>Us. That's apart from its $US125 billion sovereign debt
>forcing it to turn to the IMF, waiting in the wings
>like the angel of death, with its structural adjustment
>program. (Though in Iraq there don't seem to be many
>structures left to adjust.)
>
>So what does peace mean in this savage, corporatised,
>militarised world? What does peace mean to people in
>occupied Iraq, Palestine, Kashmir, Tibet and Chechnya?
>Or to the Aboriginal people of Australia? Or the Kurds
>in Turkey? Or the Dalits and Adivasis of India? What
>does peace mean to non-Muslims in Islamic countries, or
>to women in Iran, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan? What
>does it mean to the millions who are being uprooted
>from their lands by dams and development projects? What
>does peace mean to the poor who are being actively
>robbed of their resources? For them, peace is war.
>
>We know very well who benefits from war in the age of
>empire. But we must also ask ourselves honestly who
>benefits from peace in the age of empire? War mongering
>is criminal. But talking of peace without talking of
>justice could easily become advocacy for a kind of
>capitulation. And talking of justice without unmasking
>the institutions and the systems that perpetrate
>injustice is beyond hypocritical.
>
>It's easy to blame the poor for being poor. It's easy
>to believe that the world is being caught up in an
>escalating spiral of terrorism and war. That's what
>allows George Bush to say, "You're either with us or
>with the terrorists." But that's a spurious choice.
>Terrorism is only the privatisation of war. Terrorists
>are the free marketeers of war. They believe that the
>legitimate use of violence is not the sole prerogative
>of the state.
>
>It is mendacious to make moral distinction between the
>unspeakable brutality of terrorism and the
>indiscriminate carnage of war and occupation. Both
>kinds of violence are unacceptable. We cannot support
>one and condemn the other.
>
>This is an edited extract from the 2004 Sydney Peace
>Prize lecture delivered by Arundhati Roy at the Seymour
>Centre last night.
>
>Full speech:
>
>http://www.smh.com.au/news/Opinion/Roys-full-speech/2004/11/04/1099362264349.html#
>
>http://www.smh.com.au/news/Opinion/What-we-call-peace-is-little-better-than-capitulation-to-a-corporate-coup/2004/11/03/1099362219754.html?oneclick=true#
>
>_______________________________________________________
>

-- 
Paul Etxeberri

"Forests precede civilizations and deserts follow"   ---Chateaubriand