It’s not easy to get your head around all that’s happening in the world today, but Indian novelist and activist Arundhati Roy does a very effective job of rounding it up without sacrificing the truth. I think she has a fearless, fair, and balanced view of what’s happening in the world, but it might hurt a little. As she says at the outset of this video, she has a critique of nationalism, and it is also indeed a critique of American foreign policy, particularly toward Israel, but it’s not anti-national, or anti-American, while still remaining sympathetic to the Palestinians. She has her detractors, as dutifully listed in her Wiki, but every revolutionary does, and besides, having a ballyhooed economist call your critique of globalization “shallow” is sort of self-reinforcing, isn’t it? I think she’s got a great message with lots of good food for thought.

Her most recent book is An Ordinary Person’s Guide To Empire. Among her many other books are two that she co-authored with our champion of justice, Noam Chomsky!

I found this video in another blog, While the Earth Burns by Jeremy Kirouac, a hip Canadian cat with a blog that feels like one of GRL’s Canadian brethren. Check it out, there’s a lot of interesting video material there. He says:

This is a ‘must see’ 64 minute documentary film.

In 1997 Arundhati Roy won the Booker Prize for her novel The God of Small Things. In 2004 she was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize.

The film examines the widely unregarded worlds of Anthropology and Geopolitics in a very dynamic manner, and is probably stylistically quite unlike any documentary that you have previously seen.

It covers the world politics of power, war, corporations, deception and exploitation. It is particularly hard hitting when it comes to the United States and western powers in general.

Its unconventional style has proven to be very successful in engaging younger viewers – many of whom find more traditional content dealing with these subjects quite dry and uninteresting. It is almost in the style of a music video, featuring contemporary music (lush, curve, love & rockets, boards of canada, nine inch nails, dead can dance, amon tobin, massive attack, totoise, telepop, placebo and faith less) overlaid with the words of Arundhati Roy, and images of humanity and the world we live in today

–CArundhati
Roy – We (Video)

Home page for this video: http://www.weroy.org/index.shtml

About The Film

“We” is a free documentary produced by an anonymous student in New Zealand. He (or She) goes by the name “anon”. It was released for free on the Internet and first appeared at an Australian web site called resist.com.au. ”

“This is an unusual kind of underground production. An anonymous sympathiser has edited a video recording of Roy’s speech over 64 minutes, interspersing an impressive array of archival footage to illustrate themes and specific historical events. Contemporary music overlaid throughout the piece shifts the mood and quickens the pace. The result is a visual essay rather than a traditional documentary, perfectly suited to its creator’s intentions, which is to spread the anti-imperialist, social justice politics of Arundhati Roy everywhere.”