Arundhati Roy: “Fascism, Fiction, and Freedom in the Time of the Virus”

Not unrelated to my earlier post this morning on the fight over academic freedom, treat yourself to the renowned Arundati Roy who spoke recently at the University of Texas at Austin on her latest piece titled, “Religious Nationalism, Dissent, and the Battle Between Myth and History" as per this notice by the Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center at UT:

"The seventh annual Frances Tarlton “Sissy” Farenthold Endowed Lecture in Peace, Social Justice and Human Rights, presented at the LBJ Auditorium on The University of Texas at Austin campus. The Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center hosted the lecture in partnership with the Rothko Chapel and it was co-sponsored by the South Asia Institute at the University of Texas at Austin on April 20, 2022. For more information on the event, visit https://law.utexas.edu/humanrights/ev.... Arundhati Roy used the occasion to deliver a new piece, “Religious Nationalism, Dissent, and the Battle Between Myth and History,” which has now been published on Literary Hub (https://lithub.com/arundhati-roy-on-r...). After the lecture, Roy engaged in conversation with LBJ School of Public Affairs Professor Raj Patel, in which she read passages from a number of her works and answered audience questions. 

Engineered myths like "Modi the Messiah" and lies alongside Hindu, anti-Muslin, religious nationalism, she states, are tearing at the very fiber of the country's well-being. To my ears, much of what she shares resonates with the current political context here in the U.S.

-Angela Valenzuela

For more information on the lecture series and recordings of previous lectures, visit https://law.utexas.edu/farenthold/abo...."

"The Virus is a Portal," by Arundhati Roy

Powerful, soulful, and cutting reflection by the renowned novelist and human rights and ecological movement activist, Arundhati Roy, in the Financial Times.  She addresses the current political and economic situation in India as they battle the Coronavirus.

We see a number of similarities to the U.S. This includes the slow response by government officials, fraught with misplaced priorities, focused on other things, like discriminating against Muslims; spending $7.8 billion on purchasing fighter jets from France; and hosting opulent meetings and receptions with forest-decimating, climate-denier, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, as well as the similarly evil, narcissistic Donald Trump who announced in late February 2020, with India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi at his side, a new deal involving the purchase of $3 billion of military equipment from the U.S. 

A staggering $10.8 billion are implicated in these deals, and India, like every other country in the world, including the U.S., ironically finds finds itself wholly defenseless before the Coronavirus. 

Such is the dreadful price of hubris, as we collectively realize that we are not above, or independent from, nature, but rather a part of it. Even if we language it this way, nature is not "at war" with us at all. If anything, the opposite is true as we have been at war with her for a very long time. 

Upon the recommendation of a colleague, I learned from this 2013 publication authored by Stephen Harrod Buhner titled, Herbal Antivirals: Natural Remedies for Emerging and Resistant Viral Infections, that viruses, like bacterias, are intimately interwoven into the natural world, not only experiencing life on the planet for millions of years, but underpinning her very existence. Yet because of numerous factors, including ecosystem disturbance, climate change, the destruction of their habitats, nature is out of balance. 

Ironically, the bold, 20th century proclamations that we have largely eliminated the world of infectious diseases, while comforting, is delusional.  Why? Because it's based on a flawed, outmoded, Western, scientific paradigm that views humans as separate from, rather than as a part of, the natural world. 

Roy agonizingly notes that this crisis is of truly epic proportions for everyone, particularly so for her own beloved "poor-rich" India that is populous, ill-prepared, and morally adrift as the virus itself brings to light. 

Pivoting in a positive direction, however, she aptly notes how the virus "has made the mighty kneel and brought the world to a halt like nothing else could." Even as a return to normalcy is desired, she then questions—against this backdrop of a flawed political and economic model, why the "normality" of the past is anything to desire. 

This is a question we must all ask ourselves, wherever we find ourselves in this very moment in the world.

Roy asks how we can make the world anew?  The answer is in the virus itself, if we will only allow it to be a portal to a better world. 

-Angela Valenzuela

"The Virus is a Portal" 

by Arundahti Roy

The novelist on how coronavirus threatens India—and what the country, and the world, should do next.

Click here to go to article.