Arundhati Roy on Genocide
Outlook has published an abridged version of a lecture delivered by Arundhati Roy in Istanbul on January 18, 2008, to commemorate the first anniversary of the assassination of Hrant Dink, editor of the Turkish-Armenian paper, Agos.
The battle with the cap-wearers of Istanbul, of Turkey, is not my battle, it’s yours. I have my own battles to fight against other kinds of cap-wearers and torchbearers in my country. In a way, the battles are not all that different. There is one crucial difference, though. While in Turkey there is silence, in India there’s celebration, and I really don’t know which is worse.
I find the speech perplexing. What would be the point of making such an India-centric speech to an audience that may be only vaguely familiar with three-quarters of the names and movements Roy cites? The audience wanted to commemorate Dink; instead of acknowledging the Turkish story - of Dink, of the attempts to silence Orhan Pamuk and Elif Shafak - Roy gets into very legitimate Indian issues. I guess her intent is to show that she understands the Armenian grief because she has experienced something similar; but upon reading the text in full, it seems as though she is almost belittling other genocides, by disproportionately talking about India. The link she tries to establish with global economics - and multinational corporations - too fails to register, because she herself acknowledges the genocides of Stalin, Pol Pot and in Rwanda, where no MNC stood to gain from the butchery. And because of those distractions, her very valid criticism of and anger towards Modi and of the Congress in 1984, as well as of the CPI (M) over Nandigram, are getting lost. And those who came to remember and mourn Dink, are left puzzled.
Comment by Salil Tripathi — January 26, 2008 @ 8:27 pm
Salil Tripathi seems to be missing the point, which seems pretty obvious: Dink was killed because he wrote about the Armenian Genocide. Mourning his death is not just the killing of a writer, but about what he wrote.
What are genocides? Historically, they have been about lebensraum. Often, of course, this is living space, but not always. Basically, it is a large scale way of making room — for reforms (Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot), reordering (Brazilian street children, Indian Partition, Rwanda, Darfur), or economic reforms. In all cases, a large number of minds are comfortable with the idea that killing sizeable numbers is ok in “the larger interest”. I feel she makes not only an understandable point, but a central one.
Comment by Niranjan Ramakrishnan — January 27, 2008 @ 3:47 am
Niranjan, I agree with some of what you say, but not all. Even if genocide is all of what you say, and what Arundhati Roy herself puts it - eliminating the inconvenient group by dehumanizing it - the point in Turkey today is that it cannot be talked about. It is that silence that’s central in Turkey. By saying that it happens everywhere else too, in a very real sense, the grief is diluted; the well-meaning Turks are made to feel - your agony is all very well, it happens elsewhere too, all the time.
The Turkish state does not want to acknowledge that something really terrible happened early last century. Those who resurrect that discussion, are silenced. Even debates in the US Congress is being stifled in this regard. At such a time, what needs reinforcing is to keep repeating the truth to power. Instead, Arundhati Roy seems to suggest: worse things have happened elsewhere.
We have only read the Outlook account, which, as it says in the magazine, is an extract from her speech. Maybe she did, indeed, address the Turkish agony, and then drew universal parallels. But if she used Dink’s killing as an opportunity to return to her pet themes, I’d see that as a missed opportunity.
Comment by Salil Tripathi — January 27, 2008 @ 1:33 pm
Salil, “Worse has happened elsewhere” is not the theme that registered with me as I read her speech. It was the subtle point that both Genocide Denial and Genocide Commission spring from the common roots. That speaking out against atrocities is belittled by well-known ‘liberal’ figures, and criticized in trenchant terms by other luminaries (Arun Shourie is not mentioned in the speech, but surely comes to mind) is common enough in various parts of the world. Arundhati Roy has drawn on something she is well-acquainted with. To fob this off as ‘pet themes’ is rather insulting. After all, why is anyone called upon to speak on such occasions? Because they bring with them their own experience. For them to relate what has happened to their view is only reasonable.
As to Turkish agony, what I have read from Arundhati Roy’s writings is the agony of widespread apathy, and indeed, the eagerness to shed the weak and defenseless in the hurry for a promised land.
For me, anyhow, the speech seemed replete with so many insights and truths which set out the idiocies, contradictions, and tragedies of our time with a stunning clarity.
Comment by Niranjan Ramakrishnan — January 28, 2008 @ 4:23 pm