The Checkbook and the Cruise Missile: Conversations with Arundhati Roy

Originally titled "The Globalization of Dissent", "The Checkbook and the Cruise Missile" is a series of four interviews with author Arundhati Roy. The interviews, guided conversations, really, are conducted by radio producer David Barsaman. Roy is perhaps best known as the author of the Booker Prize winning novel "The God of Small Things", but she has also written three collections of essays dealing with such various subjects as the corruption of the Indian government, American Imperialism, and nuclear arms proliferation. This book touches on many of these same themes, but also deals with Roy's personal life in a level her essays have not. The first interview "Knowledge and Power" was conducted in February 2001. As the title suggests, the focus of this interview is on knowledge and power and what both mean to Arundhati Roy. Roy discusses, as she does in her essays, the abuse of power by the Indian government and the arrogance of controlling knowledge. Roy mentions how knowledge can (and has) caused arrogance and corruption in the intellectual elites. Specific instances mentioned include the government letting Enron control and own so much of India's power structure, and the irresponsible destruction caused by the Big Dam projects. This interview paints, in broad strokes, a picture of the overall worldview of Arundhati Roy. This is fantastic stuff. In Roy we discover an intelligent, accomplished, passionate woman who has taken the very human responsibility of trying to make a difference in the world. The second interview, taken in September 2002, is a much shorter essay. Titled "Terror and the Maddened King", the essay begins with David Barsaman questioning Roy about the charges brought against her because of the novel "The God of Small Things". This interview deals more with Roy's reaction to, and experience with, government bullying. This interview feels as if it is setting up a future discussion, that there is a reason why Roy and others must speak up to the injustices caused by governments and Empires of the world. In the longest interview, "Privitization and Polarization", Arundhati Roy makes some bold, inflammatory statements. She writes "terrorism is the privitization of war. Terrorists are the free marketers of war - people who believe that it isn't only the state that can wage war, but private parties as well." (92) She then goes on to say that "Osama Bin Laden and George Bush are both terrorists". To the American reader this is a shocking and even inconceivable. Taken from a different perspective and reading how Roy explains her viewpoint, it is not as unbelievable as it seems. From the viewpoint of one who is against globalization and the bullying of the government of the American Empire, the connections in Roy's logic are understandable. She does make a point, however, to distinguish the American people with the political power machine. This interview was conducted in November 2002. The final interview was

Here is everything you've come to know and love of Arundhati Roy - and David Barsamian. Roy's political observations are of an exceptionally acute and pithy intelligence. Her wisdom has a way of turning a phrase completely unique to Roy, yet without losing the common touch. It lashes out in fury at injustice everywhere, yet with compassion as vital and common as sodden sand squishing through barefoot toes on a riverbank. Despite her success, Roy is quite content to live away from celebrity, in India, which she says maintains a measure of the wildness that has long been put under the bulldozer of Western "progress": "In India we are fighting to retain a wilderness that we have. Whereas in the West, it's gone. Every person that's walking down the street is a walking bar code. You can tell where their clothes are from, how much they cost, which designer made which shoe, which shop you bought each item from. Everything is civilized and tagged and valued and numbered and put in its place. Whereas in India, the wilderness still exists - the unindocrinated wilderness of the mind, full of untold secrets and wild imaginings. It's threatened, but we're fighting to retain it. We don't have to reconjure it. It's there. It's with us. It's not got signposts all the way. There is that space that hasn't been completely mapped and taken over and tagged and trademarked. I think that's important. And it's important that in India, we understand that it's there and we value it. Roy expresses a remarkably matter-of-fact courage and an unbiased reason in the face of the rabid nationalism and religious fundamentalism and fanaticism that engenders, among other dark clouds, the nuclear brinkmanship between India and Pakistan. There is something almost otherwordly about the honesty and modesty of Roy's political discourse, something in her expression so humane and plain-spoken you had despaired ever hearing it again. It is othwordly precisely because it's so obvious, so expected, and yet almost always lacking. After the smash success of her first novel The God of Small Things, Roy says rather than any of the large publishing houses from which she could have had her pick she chose South End Press to publish her next two books of essays: "People really imagine that most people are in search of fame or fortune or success. But I don't think that's true. I think there are lots of people who are more imaginative than that. When people describe me as famous and rich and successful, it makes me feel queasy. Each of those words falls on my soul like an insult. They seem tinny and boring and shiny and uninteresting to me. It makes me feel unsuccessful because I never set out to be those things. And they make me uneasy. To be famous, rich, and successful in this world is not an admirable thing. I'm suspicious of it all." Quintessential Roy, and such a beautiful thought. In its own right, but especially in contrast to the seething, insatiable app

David Barsamian asks good questions (he's had years of practice) but it's Arundhati Roy's answers that make this book so rewarding. She combines an impressive knowledge of facts with real commitment and passion. She doesn't let the interview format get the best of her, turning her responses into lectures. Instead, she is a smart-alec sometimes and just plain smart at other times. Her dedication to making the world a better place is personal, with roots in her childhood in India. As she describes US imperialism, corporate power, and corruption in the Indian government, she ties it all to her own political development. This is an important book, easy to read but very informative and inspiring.

This book is wonderful for those who are already familiar with Roy's work, providing an opportunity for her to reflect on prior work and speak her mind openly. Along with discussion of contemporary issues, such as 9-11, US imperial hegemony, and the Narmada Dam project in India, The Checkbook and the Cruise Missle fleshes out the context of Roy's upbringing in Kerala, India, as well as the deeper motivations behind The God of Small Things, Power Politics and War Talk. David Barsamian, veteran underground media guru, asks fresh, penetrating questions that will keep you interested throughout. A wonderful addition to Roy literature.

"The Checkbook and the Cruise Missile" is an absolute must read. Roy has seen firsthand the terrible injustices suffered upon three quarters of the world's population by the powerful elite of each and every human society. And to her credit, she has not averted her eyes from the wretched consequences of this inexcusable universal disgrace. Instead, she has chosen to speak out. But then Arundhati Roy is a writer - and a brilliant, courageous and insightful one at that - not a politician looking for votes by telling people what they want to hear.