2005-01-09 - 10:15 p.m.
entires i wrote during break:
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amazing- saddam warned the ppl of iraq that america's election is a scheme to split the country along sectarian and religious lines
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cool interview from uprising radio:
Sonali Kolhatkar: The last time I saw you, you were in Mumbai, India. You were on a very big stage and you were speaking to tens of thousands of people at the World Social Forum and you were one of the few people who made a specific suggestion about boycotting a couple of American companies that were profiting from the war in Iraq and you got a lot of applause for it because that was sort of a rare thing – there were mostly platitudes at the WSF. Has anything come of that suggestion?
Arundhati Roy: Well I don’t know that anything has come of it concretely but I think people are working on that idea. How exactly it should be done is a difficult issue. But I would just like to repeat the fact that it’s really dangerous for us to limit our protests to purely symbolic spectacle and that we have to begin to inflict real damage and we have to be able to signal to these absolutely heartless multinational companies that they cannot function like this. And if we don’t do that, then we’re going to take a very big hit. We’re just going to be a comical movement of people who like to feel good about ourselves.
Sonali Kolhatkar: But you’re also very much a believer in non-violent struggle. How does one hit the empire without using a little violence – and can boycotts be effective?
Arundhati Roy: I don’t also want to go around being the Barbie doll of non-violent struggle. To confuse non-violence with passivity is one of the things that’s dangerous. And the fact is that neither am I a person who feels that I have the right, or I am in a place where I should be dictating to people how they should conduct their movements. Personally I’m not prepared to pick up arms now. But maybe I can afford not to, at whatever place I am in now. I think violence really marginalizes and brutalizes women. It depoliticizes things. It’s undemocratic in so many ways. But at the same time, when you look at the massive amount of violence that America is perpetrating in Iraq, I don’t know that I’m in a position to tell Iraqis that you must fight a pristine, feminist, democratic, secular, non-violent war. I can’t say. I just feel that that resistance in Iraq is our battle too and we have to support it. And we can’t be looking for pristine struggles in which to invest our purity. But I feel that for those of us who are prepared to resist non-violently, the economic outposts of empire are vulnerable. These same companies that first did business with Saddam Hussein, then were on the Defense Policy Board advising America to go to war, now are getting huge contracts from the destruction of Iraq, are also the same companies that are privatizing water and privatizing power and so on, in Latin America, in Africa, in India. Therefore we do have a foothold and we can shut them down if we wanted to.
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one aspect of subjective identity is what occupies our minds most of the day
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thoughts on emancipation, love and meaning, underprivileged youth, community-based organizing, revolutionary culture, my own desires
catalyzed by the eric fromme excerpt from SAAAC's winter break reader
everyone wants love and meaning, but they have been alienated from these fundamental aspects of their true humanity by capitalism- this is the essence of capitalist alienation
people want love because we are social beings, we want meaning because meaning represents the restoration/fulfillment of our humanity
how do we find what is meaningful to us? only by trying different types of labor, creating art, playing sports, reading, making useful objects, etc. etc.
how is youth underprivileged? the rich kid can travel, take music lessons, play various sports, develop themselves as human beings. the oppressed youth are not only economically oppressed, denied their identity, etc. etc. but also denied the privilege of explorating these different types of labor/expression-
community based organizing creates social spaces, strengthens relationships between people. the strength of a community, of a family, can satisfy the needs of love, developing one's humanity, help deal with material oppressions such as poverty. the absence of such support leads to self-destruction, the externalization of perpetual violence engendered from the systems of oppression we are always subjected to (capitalism, white supremacy, imperialism, patriarchy)
thus a youth organization also creates spaces for self-development as human beings by allowing oppressed/underprivileged youth to explore video-making, music, tennis; and values their pre-existing pursuits which are constantly criminalized, such as graffiti art, skateboarding, hip hop culture etc.- examples- lolita organized a graffiti battle as part of get out the vote, people's c.o.r.e. in LA made a dvd where, in one video, youth talked about their skateboarding group, and in another, youth documented a music project where youth learned instruments then wrote and recorded their original songs
in this sense revolutionary culture is a culture formed in the process of emancipation, engendering "rev love" (revolutionary love) and spaces for expression (spoken word, different kinds of art) that names our condition and develops our potential
but the bourgeois hippie is not emancipated simply because they develop themselves and love other bourgeois hippies- they dehumanize themselves by accepting their privilege-
the fulfillment of our humanity must include an engagement with injustice- emancipation cannot be a solitary act- no matter where we go, what we do, we are surrounded by oppression and privilege- even if there were an emancipated space (there is not), to hide there would be to escape from the true fulfillment of our humanity and suppress our moral imperative for empathy- empathy is required for restoration of our humanity
i like taking pictures of people, i like traveling to different places, i like creating and listening to music, i like reading and different types of mental labor- but there is no way to compartmentalize different parts of me, nothing can be separated from each other, no act exists in a vacuum- whether the act is organizing against oppression, loving other human beings, expressing oneself, developing my own potential
thus, when i take a picture in a restaurant, i capture the juxtaposition of exploited restaurant workers vis-a-vis wealthy patrons, when i listen to music i enjoy, it invariably deals with oppression because to not deal with oppression in acts of expression would be dishonest, when i travel to different places, i investigate how different forms of oppression manifest themselves there and learn strategies people use to change their conditions because it will be useful and because it is ultimately an expression of love, when i read, i tend to read asian american fiction, marx, fanon etc.
no one initially organized me, but i have been fortunate to find like-minded people who have been invaluable in helping me understand the world and myself, helping me to restore my humanity, helping me to find my role creating social change (the only real way one's humanity can be restored, though restoration of one's humanity, if it can be considered a goal, can never be selfish, because it is difficult and inevitably involves pain and discomfort)
no one person sat me down and explained why organizing was important- i investigated different avenues for social change, participated in projects and campaigns that seemed worthwhile, that seemed like things i could learn from and use and met/talked with various people- it was the cumulative effect that was decisive- transformation always occurs this way
why i chose to go to law school- every avenue of change seems to have a legal component- i had a hunch it would be useful to know- i don't know whether going to through law school will necessarily help me figure out what kind of role i will play in social justice work, but i know it won't be wasted- it seems a good way to use my privilege and access
bookie, from KmB/people's c.o.r.e. noted that the level of people's struggle in the u.s. is low compared to a place like the philippines and that absent a vanguard party, there isn't much we can do other than run a non-profit to do community based organizing and support movements abroad
of course what he said was thorougly more complex and convincing- it illuminates a bit but it's unsatisfying. regardless, every answer produces more questions. if i had a satisfying answer for emancipation, i wouldn't be in law school.
thus far, different types of grassroots organizing seems to be what i most want to do- i've explored advocacy somewhat- now i am exploring the role of legal work- particularly its uses in organizing and role in society
so far (for summer jobs) i have interviews for the Law Students in Action Project in Rochester, NY- it's difficult to find a description of what exactly I'd be doing so I really can't tell how useful it'd be- Harlem Neihborhood Defender's Association- this is the most appealing possibility so far, I wonder how what its relationship to CBOs looks like- Race and Poverty Action Council- this is DC advocacy, not very appealing, and Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights, Boston- looks like advocacy also, not that appealing
one of these summers I want to work with Asian Legal Outreach at Greater Boston Legal Services, it has a strong presence with API CBOs in Boston- i'll look into the possibility of working for a peasant's union in the philippines for the summer as well- it's definitely the most appealing option
when I get back, I'm going to observe hearings at juvenile justice court with gloria tan, maybe get involved somehow? i think i'll keep volunteering at shelter legal services- but i'm not learning about the role of legal work in organizing, only about legal work from a direct-service perspective- regardless, it is a form of mass work, which is always important and useful- the immigration-detention NLG working group is advocacy-based, which is disappointing- the somerville divestment project is organizing-based but it is single issue solidarity work and doesn't seek to develope participants, only to achieve the result of a divestment resolution
i'm starting to doubt the worthiness of building an NLG chapter at BU- it's starting to appear pointless
the azine and reading group has been good
regardless of how my explorations thus far, i'm not too concerned- my theoretical thinking has developed somewhat in how i see the role of law in society- through direct service as a form of mass work i have an increasingly better understanding of the needs of the people- i don't have a very clear picture of the role legal work can/should play in organizing but it should get increasingly clear
some next steps: i want to take an immigration case at SLS so i can learn the immigration system better- i want to get into labor and employment law- i want to learn about housing law
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halfway through "pedagogy for liberation" dialogues between ira shore and paulo freire- it totally rocks
a great metaphor: teachers and students are a flotilla of ships seeking truth, the teacher must have a strong presence in guiding the ships- but truth is sought together and arrived at together
i feel i am much more focused now on personal transformation on the individual level than ever before- it is a pedagogical/political issue- don't have the energy or time to elaborate on my thoughts tho
interview with LSAP went well- it's a referral project, they'll forward my info to a legal services group and a group that does class action suits usually around labor and civil rights, both in rochester- also to a legal group that does migrant farmworker stuff-
