An Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire is Arundhati Roy’s latest collection of essays, most of which are the text of speeches given at various speaking engagements around the world. Roy continues to be one of the more eloquent voices on the “left” continually exposing injustice and encouraging resistance in a manner that moves far beyond the typically dry nature of most political commentary. In An Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire, Roy is able to weave together a variety of struggles and demonstrate how they are a consequence of the same “neo-liberal project,” that is being led by the United States. For Roy, there are signs of resistance around the world, and recognizing that the United States is the center of the Empire, argues that it is essential for the resistance to empire to begin in the United States. Throughout the book Roy comes back to the fact that civil society in the United States is more powerful than the government and highlights the, albeit symbolic, opposition to the invasion of Iraq; retaining a sense of optimism that few opponents of empire in the United States can maintain amidst the ongoing difficulties in organizing effective opposition to the war and providing inspiration to continue in the struggle against empire.
Much of the book focuses on unmasking the way in which empire is maintained and “sold” to the public, as Roy skillfully deconstructs and demythologizes the rhetoric of empire that pervades the political discussion in the United States. The corporate media, which as most people in the United States should know, exists primarily as a vehicle to sell products and the official policies of the United States government, is skillfully singled out by Roy as being complicit in the development of empire. According to Roy, “it is a mistake to think that the corporate media supports the neo-liberal project, it is the neo-liberal project…the chosen medium of those who have power and money,” identifying the fact that the corporate media is a direct beneficiary of the current system and will always function in a way that maintains the status quo. In empire, just like in the corporate media, facts really do not matter, and the distortions about the Iraq war—that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, that Iraq was linked to 9/11, and that the United States must fight “the terrorists” in Iraq or in the streets of the United States, all of which are adopted by those in power and sold to the public by the corporate media. Empire is maintained by describing all opposition as “terrorist” and maintaining that resistance to the United States project of “democracy,” which Roy effectively describes as simply a euphemism for neo-liberal capitalism, is an “act of terrorism,” the United States has been able to maintain its empire.
An Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire is what its name implies--a well-written book that both captures the essence of the new United States empire and highlights the hope of resistance that may eventually be able to defeat the empire. At only a 118 pages, it is a quick and enjoyable read and is highly recommended for anyone living in the United States and seeking a major change in both the United States and in its role in the world.
Arundhati Roy, An Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire, (South End Press, 2004).
