[This blog post was originally posted on 6 November 2006 in my now defunct blog Family Life. I’ve retried it here because I’m currently reading and will soon post about Arundhati Roy’s memoir Mother Mary Come to Me.]
Arundhati Roy’s acceptance speech for the Sydney Peace Prize makes interesting reading. The detail she gives on what’s happening in Iraq is heartbreaking. It’s not very long. Here are a couple of bits:
Invaded and occupied Iraq has been made to pay out 200 million dollars in ‘reparations’ for lost profits to corporations like Halliburton, Shell, Mobil, Nestlé, Pepsi, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Toys R Us.
And later:
The real tragedy is that most people in the world are trapped between the horror of a putative peace and the terror of war. Those are the two sheer cliffs we’re hemmed in by. The question is: How do we climb out of this crevasse?
For those who are materially well-off, but morally uncomfortable, the first question you must ask yourself is do you really want to climb out of it? How far are you prepared to go? Has the crevasse become too comfortable?
If you really want to climb out, there’s good news and bad news.
The good news is that the advance party began the climb some time ago. They’re already half way up. Thousands of activists across the world have been hard at work preparing footholds and securing the ropes to make it easier for the rest of us. There isn’t only one path up. There are hundreds of ways of doing it. There are hundreds of battles being fought around the world that need your skills, your minds, your resources. No battle is irrelevant. No victory is too small.
The bad news is that colorful demonstrations, weekend marches and annual trips to the World Social Forum are not enough. There have to be targeted acts of real civil disobedience with real consequences. Maybe we can’t flip a switch and conjure up a revolution. But there are several things we could do. For example, you could make a list of those corporations who have profited from the invasion of Iraq and have offices here in Australia. You could name them, boycott them, occupy their offices and force them out of business.
Those companies again: Shell, Mobil, Nestle, Pepsi, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Toys R Us.
Me fail? I fly! 