My World of “Ought to Be”

The End of Imagination

Arundhati Roy writing in 1998 shortly after India "achieved" nuclear weapon technology: If only, if only, nuclear war was just another kind of war. If only it was about the usual things--nations and territories, gods and histories. If only those of us who dread it are just worthless moral cowards who are not prepared to die in defense of our beliefs. If only nuclear war was the kind of war in which countries battle countries and men battle men. But it isn't. If there is a nuclear war, our foe will not be China or America or even each other. Our foe will be the earth herself. The very elements--the sky, the air, the land, the wind and water--will all turn against us. Our cities and forests, our fields and villages, will burn for days. Rivers will turn to poison. The air will become fire. The wind will spread the flames. When everything there is to burn has burned and the fires die, smoke will rise and shut out the sun. The earth will be enveloped in darkness. There will be no day. Only interminable night. What shall we do then, those of us who are still alive? Burned and blind and bald and ill, carrying the cancerous carcasses of our children in our arms, where shall we go? What shall we eat? What shall we drink? What shall we breathe? The head of the Health, Environment and Safety Group of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Bombay has a plan. He declared that India could survive nuclear war. His advice is that if there is a nuclear war, we take the same safety measures as the ones that scientists have recommended in the event of accidents at nuclear plants. Take iodine pills, he suggests. And other steps such as remaining indoors, consuming only stored water and food and avoiding milk. Infants should be given powdered milk. "People in the danger zone should immediately go to the ground floor and if possible to the basement." What do you do with these levels of lunacy? What do you do if you're trapped in an asylum and the doctors are all dangerously deranged? (06/05/02)

Japan Ratifies Global Warming Pact

New York Times —TOKYO, June 4 — Japan ratified an international accord on limiting emissions of heat-trapping gasses today, ending more than six months of internal debate, and said it would lobby the United States and other large polluters to do the same. Japan's ratification of the agreement, despite the opposition of many major industries, was an important step forward for the accord, known as the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. "In order to ensure the effectiveness of measures against global warming, it is essential that all countries make efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions," Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said in a statement. Japan is the fourth-largest emitter of carbon dioxide, which is produced by the burning of fossil fuels and is believed to be the most important heat-trapping gas and the main cause of global warming. The leading polluters are the United States, the European Union and Russia. (06/05/02)

Brutality Smeared in Peanut Butter

Arundhati Roy writing in October: Nothing can excuse or justify an act of terrorism, whether it is committed by religious fundamentalists, private militia, people's resistance movements - or whether it's dressed up as a war of retribution by a recognized government. The bombing of Afghanistan is not revenge for New York and Washington. It is yet another act of terror against the people of the world. Each innocent person that is killed must be added to, not set off against, the grisly toll of civilians who died in New York and Washington. People rarely win wars, governments rarely lose them. People get killed. ... When he announced the air strikes, President George Bush said: "We're a peaceful nation." America's favorite ambassador, Tony Blair, (who also holds the portfolio of prime minister of the UK), echoed him: "We're a peaceful people." So now we know. Pigs are horses. Girls are boys. War is peace. Speaking at the FBI headquarters a few days later, President Bush said: "This is our calling. This is the calling of the United States of America. The most free nation in the world. A nation built on fundamental values that reject hate, reject violence, rejects murderers and rejects evil. We will not tire." Here is a list of the countries that America has been at war with - and bombed - since the second world war: China (1945-46, 1950-53), Korea (1950-53), Guatemala (1954, 1967-69), Indonesia (1958), Cuba (1959-60), the Belgian Congo (1964), Peru (1965), Laos (1964-73), Vietnam (1961-73), Cambodia (1969-70), Grenada (1983), Libya (1986), El Salvador (1980s), Nicaragua (1980s), Panama (1989), Iraq (1991-99), Bosnia (1995), Sudan (1998), Yugoslavia (1999). And now Afghanistan. Certainly it does not tire - this, the most free nation in the world. (06/05/02)

Nuclear Warhead Stockpiles

The five acknowledged nuclear powers possess about 31,000 nuclear warheads.

Country

1945

1955

1965

1975

1985

1995

2000

United States

2

2,280

32,400

28,100

23,500

14,000

10,500

Russia/USSR

0

200

6,300

23,500

44,000

28,000

20,000

United Kingdom

0

10

310

350

300

300

185

France

0

0

32

188

359

500

450

China

0

0

5

185

426

400

450

Totals

2

2,490

39,047

52,323

68,585

43,200

31,535

India and Pakistan have not "formally" placed their nuclear arsenal on a delivery system. (06/04/02)

Indians Scorn Worry and Love the Bomb

Nisha, 26, clutching an ice cream and her toddler son, read impassively through a leaflet calling for immediate dialogue with Pakistan to avert the horror of a nuclear war. “Why should we worry about this?” she said with a shrug. “India has more nuclear weapons than Pakistan. We will wipe them off the map and win the war. The view may sound extreme, but it is one shared by George Fernandes, the Indian Defense Minister, who coldly calculated that India could survive such a strike and deliver a fatal blow to Pakistan. Scientists have predicted that a nuclear exchange would kill 12 million people, half of them in India, but all over the country people are baying for war, nonetheless. About 82 per cent believe that Pakistan would use nuclear weapons in the event of a conflict, but 74 per cent believe that India should attack. To activists, such statistics are terrifying. “There is no conception among ordinary people about what a nuclear bomb would do,” Arundhati Roy, the Booker prize-winning author and activist leading the vigil, said. “They just think it will make a louder bang.” (06/04/02)

Under the Nuclear Shadow

Arundhati Roy writes from India: This week as diplomats' families and tourists quickly disappeared, journalists from Europe and America arrived in droves. Most of them stay at the Imperial Hotel in Delhi. Many of them call me. Why are you still here, they ask, why haven't you left the city? Isn't nuclear war a real possibility? It is, but where shall I go? If I go away and everything and every one, every friend, every tree, every home, every dog, squirrel and bird that I have known and loved is incinerated, how shall I live on? Who shall I love, and who will love me back? Which society will welcome me and allow me to be the hooligan I am, here, at home? ... We've decided we're all staying. We've huddled together, we realise how much we love each other and we think what a shame it would be to die now. Life's normal, only because the macabre has become normal. While we wait for rain, for football, for justice, on TV the old generals and the eager boy anchors talk of first strike and second strike capability, as though they're discussing a family board game. My friends and I discuss Prophecy, the film of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the dead bodies choking the river, the living stripped of their skin and hair, we remember especially the man who just melted into the steps of the building and we imagine ourselves like that, as stains on staircases. (06/04/02)

To give or not to give?

So I've had some unpleasant experiences regarding beggars. But then last year I read a book that made me realize that not giving them money isn't better than giving them money. If you give them money out of love—not pity—you at least show them that you care. It is probably even better to take them to a restaurant and have some food together with them, but that might not be so easy to do. It requires that you leave your comfort zone and really reach out to them. I guess that you have to be very mature to do something like that. (06/04/02)

What If You Were Homeless ?

Imagine that something tragically happens to you. That someone close to you dies, or leaves you. If such a thing would happen, it's not unlikely that your friends get afraid to approach you. ... If a tragic thing happens to you, and friends and family are afraid to give support, it's likely that you find it hard to summon the energy required to go to work. ... If you are of the opinion that you're safe, that this can't happen to you – think about what those things are that ensure your safety, and what kinds of things would invalidate these safeguards. Is there any event that would render them useless? The people on the streets are people like you and me. What put them on the streets are chains of events. Period. (06/04/02)

Paul Watson Charged With Attempted Murder

Sea Captain Paul Watson wrote: "I vowed then that I would never allow Sea Shepherd to evolve into a bureaucracy and we would never compromise with or apologize to those who slaughter the whales, the dolphins, the seals and lay waste to the sea. Since 1977, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society under my leadership has sunk eight whaling ships, including half of the Spanish fleet in 1980 and half the Icelandic fleet in 1986. We have saved thousands of whales and dolphins without causing or sustaining a single injury." ... One of the problems with a belief in Human Neutrality is that it causes great apathy. If I am truly independent, then I have no duty to family, community, Life or the Earth itself. Those humans who are waking up to the knowledge of their interdependence are putting away the illusion of neutrality along with its apathy and indifference. But to do so sometimes takes great courage. (06/04/02)