Saturday, November 13, 2004

A Real View of the US Election Results


I had contemplated putting up some of the many pages bemoaning the GOP victory in the US presidential victory. A front page from a UK paper totally in black with a small caption. "Are that many Americans so stupid"? Another black-page simulation of a Time Magazine cover with the caption "W'hy". Or one of the many commentaries of uplifting consolation to the US people. This interview with the Indian writer Arundhati Roy just before the election best puts things in perspective.



I think one of the dangers that we face is that politics becomes a discussion only about personalities, and we forget that the system is in place, and it doesn’t matter all that much who is piloting the machine. So as I said in my talk at the American Sociological Association in San Francisco, this whole fierce debate about the Democrats and the Republicans and whether Bush or Kerry is better is like being asked to choose a detergent. Whether you choose Tide or Ivory Snow, they’re both owned by Procter & Gamble

THERE IS an alternative to terrorism. What is it?

JUSTICE.

Arundhati Roy