You can watch either the full video or read the provided transcript. Formatting: 12 point Times New Roman, 1″ margins, single-spaced, name and course in header (one line), ONE FULL PAGE
Arundhati Roy gave this speech on 9/18/2002 at the Lannan Foundation in Santa Fe, NM and in it, she focuses on the U.S. and its “War on Terrorism”, globalism, the misuse of nationalism, and a few other topics.
Background:
In her “Come September” lecture, she stated:
“Donald Rumsfeld said that his mission in the War Against Terror was to persuade the world that Americans must be allowed to continue their way of life. When the maddened king stamps his foot, slaves tremble in their quarters. So, standing here today, it’s hard for me to say this, but “The American Way of Life” is simply not sustainable. Because it doesn’t acknowledge that there is a world beyond America.
But fortunately, power has a shelf life. When the time comes, maybe this mighty empire will, like others before
it, overreach itself and implode from within. It looks as though structural cracks have already appeared. As the
War Against Terror casts its net wider and wider, America’s corporate heart is hemorrhaging. For all the endless, empty chatter about democracy, today the world is run by three of the most secretive institutions in the world: The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization, all three of which, in turn, are dominated by the U.S. Their decisions are made in secret. The people who head them are appointed behind closed doors. Nobody really knows anything about them, their politics, their beliefs, their intentions. Nobody elected them. Nobody said they could make decisions on our behalf. A world run by a handful of greedy bankers and C.E.O.’s whom nobody elected can’t possibly last.
Soviet-style communism failed, not because it was intrinsically evil but because it was flawed. It allowed too few
people to usurp too much power. Twenty-first century market-capitalism, American style, will fail for the same
reasons. Both are edifices constructed by the human intelligence, undone by human nature.”
Questions:
What does she mean by this? Has anything changed in the last 18 years since this speech, or was it only the beginning and are we in the same position?
Roy discusses nationalism, globalism, and terrorism, but what does that mean through the American lens?
Who gets labeled a “terrorist” and why?
Based on your assigned readings, who poses the greatest threat to the U.S.(as far as terrorist attacks)?
Does globalism nurture or inhibit the U.S. overall?
Who in the U.S. benefits from globalism the most, and who (both within and outside of the U.S.) is most harmed? Explain.
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