The end of capitalism is coming. Of these, the Indian writer Arundhati Roy is convinced. And the rich get themselves off from the poor - by force of arms.
The writer Arundhati Roy
Arundhati Roy: Of course, the situation is precarious. The poor of Europe has seized the rage, and the actions of their governments can no longer move. Like wildfire the crisis from one country to the other seems to spill over. It seems to me here, as if the powers that be in Europe - including the big media specifically - too scared to face the crisis seriously. They still believe that bailouts and police actions to solve the problems. Thus they possibly win breathers.
Roy: At this charm was never reliable. While Europe developed once for his ideas of freedom and equality, it colonized other countries, committed genocide and slavery practiced - in unimaginable dimensions. Whole nations have been destroyed. The Belgians in the Congo brought by ten million people. The Germans exterminated the Hereros in West Africa.
TIME: But what does that have unnerved even to do with the Europe of today?
Roy: slow, wait. The genocides were the procurement of raw materials for an industrial revolution that established the Western capitalism and with it produced the surplus material, on whose basis the ideas of modern democracy. This, however, capitalism has created our current crisis that is both economical and environmental.
TIME: Can Europe help for today only if it same abolish capitalism? Is not it easier?
Roy: It would be nice. But swimming in our oceans will soon no longer fish. Everywhere in the world falling water tables. The rain forests are being destroyed in order to breed cattle. All this shows just how short-sighted and narrow-minded was the west-European definition of freedom and equality yet. She was always at the expense of others.
TIME: Go for Indians and Chinese are now better deal with nature?
Roy: Yes. I will not say. Indian culture can be just as despotic, see the caste system. I want also to European ideas do not deny their value - but their implementation in practice under the conditions of capitalist profit accumulation and Europe has led us all to the point where we are today: not far away from collapse.
TIME: But nevertheless, there has been a European model: the EU as an association of nations that have renounced the war. This model still shines beyond Europe?
Roy: This model was originally founded on two world wars and the Holocaust. But today it seems to me, as if the European Union held together by material values, the promise of a good life for all. But this promise is now overshadowed by tensions and divisions are therefore virtually certain. Also, India is a union of many peoples, perhaps even more diverse than the whole of Europe. But keeps us together, especially at the edges in Kashmir and the North East, the Indian Army. But as the world moves today, I find it hard enough, in-country or even to think Union's borders.
TIME: Are Europe and India are not too big to be governable yet?
Roy: The Mighty think today is neither European nor Indian, but globally. Our governments are still far from controlling banks and multinational companies. It seems to me sometimes as if the elites of all our countries in space, a nation founded. From there, they look down upon the world as to servants' quarters. Are there any protest, they send armies, police and supervisory personnel, with their soldiers and police work together and exchange all their secret knowledge to control the servants. But despite all the servants are getting restless. On the horizon glow uprisings. In the U.S., where I was just longer, the language has changed on the road. This was previously unimaginable.
TIME: Set around a new protest movement in the West?
Roy: Who would have thought that American students, which has been made to believe that to believe in socialism is more dangerous than AIDS, suddenly go with slogans against the "class war" on the road?
TIME: Do you believe that, the crisis in Europe and the United States a new chance for the poor of this world?
Roy: This crisis affects not just the poor, it is also a crisis of the rich. Things can not continue. The old way no longer works. In the U.S., 400 people have as much as half the U.S. population. In India, over 100 people have property worth 25 percent of the gross national product. Without major changes, this system will collapse.
TIME: Are then all poorer? Or will spread the wealth more fairly?
Roy: It will either be a complete collapse, or there are militarized zones where only the rich can live under guard, in order to ward off any kind of resistance - from peaceful to militant on terrorism. These battles are fought today in India already. The question is whether the imagination, which made many of these problems only arise at some point may contribute to their solution. But I do not think so.
TIME: So you think that is no longer in crisis management, but to revolution?
Roy: We need new imagination, a new definition of the meaning of progress, a new definition of freedom, equality, civilization and happiness on earth. The period of unrestricted individualism is over. And I plead not for a moral renewal or appeal to the good side of people. I just say: Make it look like things will happen. Europe is only the beginning.
* The article has been automatically translated online from German to English. Any errors are purely due to it
Source:
http://www.zeit.de/2011/51/Interview-Roy/komplettansicht
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