So,
as Lenin used to ask: What Is To Be Done?
Well...
We might as well accept the fact that there is no conventional military
force that can successfully challenge the American war machine. Terrorist
strikes only give the U.S. government an opportunity that it is eagerly
awaiting to further tighten its stranglehold. Within days of an attack
you can bet that Patriot II would be passed. To argue against U.S. military
aggression by saying that it will increase the possibilities of terrorist
strikes is futile. It's like threatening Brer Rabbit that you'll throw
him into the bramble bush. Anybody who has read the document called “The
Project for the New American Century” can attest to that. The government's
suppression of the congressional joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community
Activities before and after the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001,
which found that there was intelligence warning of the strikes that was
ignored, also attests to the fact that, for all their posturing, the terrorists
and the Bush regime might as well be working as a team. They both hold
people responsible for the actions of their governments. They both believe
in the doctrine of collective guilt and collective punishment. Their actions
benefit each other greatly.
The U.S. government has already displayed in no uncertain terms the range
and extent of its capability for paranoid aggression. In human psychology,
paranoid aggression is usually an indicator of nervous insecurity. It
could be argued that it's no different in the case of the psychology of
nations. Empire is paranoid because it has a soft underbelly.
Its homeland may be defended by border patrols and nuclear weapons, but
its economy is strung out across the globe. Its economic outposts are
exposed and vulnerable.
Yet it would be naive to imagine that we can directly confront Empire.
Our strategy must be to isolate Empire's working parts and disable them
one by one. No target is too small. No victory too insignificant. We could
reverse the idea of the economic sanctions imposed on poor countries by
Empire and its Allies. We could impose a regime of Peoples' Sanctions
on every corporate house that has been awarded a contract in post-war
Iraq, just as activists in this country and around the world targeted
institutions of apartheid. Each one of them should be named, exposed,
and boycotted. Forced out of business. That could be our response to the
Shock and Awe campaign. It would be a great beginning.
Another urgent challenge is to expose the corporate media for the boardroom
bulletin that it really is. We need to create a universe of alternative
information. We need to support independent media like Democracy Now,
Alternative Radio, South End Press.
The battle to reclaim democracy is going to be a difficult one. Our freedoms
were not granted to us by any governments. They were wrested from them
by us. And once we surrender them, the battle to retrieve them is called
a revolution. It is a battle that must range across continents and countries.
It must not acknowledge national boundaries, but if it is to succeed,
it has to begin here. In America. The only institution more powerful than
the U.S. government is American civil society. The rest of us are subjects
of slave nations. We are by no means powerless, but you have the power
of proximity. You have access to the Imperial Palace and the Emperor's
chambers. Empire's conquests are being carried out in your name, and you
have the right to refuse. You could refuse to fight. Refuse to move those
missiles from the warehouse to the dock. Refuse to wave that flag. Refuse
the victory parade.
You have a rich tradition of resistance. You need only read Howard Zinn's
A People's History of the United States to remind yourself of this.
Hundreds of thousands of you have survived the relentless propaganda you
have been subjected to, and are actively fighting your own government.
In the ultra-patriotic climate that prevails in the United States, that's
as brave as any Iraqi or Afghan or Palestinian fighting for his or her
homeland.
If you join the battle, not in your hundreds of thousands, but in your
millions, you will be greeted joyously by the rest of the world. And you
will see how beautiful it is to be gentle instead of brutal, safe instead
of scared. Befriended instead of isolated. Loved instead of hated.
I hate to disagree with your president. Yours is by no means a great nation.
But you could be a great people.
History is giving you the chance.
Seize the time.
This
lecture was taken from the book An Ordinary Person’s Guide to
Empire, South End Press, 2004 by Arundhati Roy |