Arundhati Roy on the Rise of Corporatisation and Militarisation

Saw this video of Arundhati Roy speaking in a programme called "Fault Lines" in Mexico. Must say I haven't heard or seen such a concise expression of the situation in India all expressed with openness and fearlessness. Makes me wonder what's wrong with us all as a people. What exactly is wrong? We have all kept quiet through genocides, invasions, colonialism without saying much against the bigger powers who have subjugated us. Nowadays, the big corporations have us under their demand-driven marketing focus. We are being corporatised like never before. The papers are full of it, the television is full of it and the young people are being tutored that "greed for money" is good and one must be wealthy at all costs. We are being bombarded by man's greed for money. Is it any surprise that the activity of sports is being misused for making money as the Cricket and Commonwealth corruption fiascos have shown.

Just as an aside: I remember a time when on my visit to the American Centre library I would see that all the good books were booked by people who actually read them. There were (then) people who read, wrote letters, improved themselves and thought themselves as good human beings. Nowadays I can walk into the American Centre library and walk out with any book I want because there are no readers. Mighty tomes -- which I may call classics -- are sitting there unread. Can you believe it?

We have become narrow-minded and selfish, we have lost our will to make this world a better place. Here's my song on Freedom (if you like song and poetry, that is) which is written for a younger generation who don't realise how free they are and how free we weren't when we were children.

Hm. Enough digression. Dinner awaits.