Say Anything, Except What Cannot Be Said

I’m working my way through the anti-Trump reading list. Back in January I started reading Things That Can And Cannot Be Said, which is primarily a dialogue between Arundhati Roy – the famous Indian novelist and activist – and John Cusack. Yes, that John Cusack. The Actor. Of Say Anything fame. Apparently he’s a big freedom of the press activist and he became friends with Arundhati Roy through a board they serve on.

There are so many improbable things about this book, starting with the relationship between its authors. But it gets even crazier – the book is essentially a dialogue they shared around the time they decided, together, to take Daniel Ellsberg (yes that Daniel Ellsberg. Of Pentagon Papers fame.) to Moscow to meet with Edward Snowden. This fact alone – the setup, the circumstances, the beautiful prose of two artists framing a discussion of tragedy and betrayal – make it worth the short read.

The deeper messages though are disturbing and prescient. The core of the conversation is about citizenship and what is the true purpose of government, and how do whistleblowers fit into all of it. Arundhati Roy is a huge anti-corporate activist and she sees the plight of Edward Snowden through that lens. The lens that focuses on how corporations own and run our government. We believe we, the citizens, control government and its actions, and that is either (or both) naïve or stupid. In fact, governments act in the interests of the moneyed classes but they sell those interests to us, convince us to vote for them, on the basis of projected values – like patriotism and nationalism, among other things. She questions patriotism at its core, asking what is the point of loyalty to an idea. She considers use of nuclear weapons the logical extreme of the nation-state, which only exists, in her mind, to protect empire. Meaning, to protect our right to extract resources and value out of other places, regardless of what the people who live there think or want.

Into this situation comes someone like Edward Snowden, who become alarmed by the NSA’s unlimited ability to spy on American citizens. His outrage, his sense of betrayal at that fact, is only possible because he believed so deeply in the promise of America. Our singularity. Our unique belief in freedom and rights.

And so he spilled the beans. His telling of the story – in a dialogue with Daniel Ellsberg only partly shared in the book – hinges on the fact that via NSA, the moneyed class knows everything about us but we know nothing about them. And that means democracy, at its core, is basically broken. Because they can convince us of anything, because they know everything about us. And we know nothing about them.

It is a scary vision that feels too true to me. Part of the book includes Arundhati Roy detailing all the American interventions in other countries, and of course Daniel Ellsberg’s confession that he combed reports to find instances of atrocities that could be used to justify American bombing of Vietnam. At this moment, when we’ve just bombed Syria supposedly in retaliation for gassing their own citizens, it feels apt to be reminded of how many other times we’ve bombed other countries, at what cost, supposedly for greater goods that fail to materialize. If Snowden though America’s promise was its ethics, Arundhati Roy argues it is all based on a lie.  

Arundhati Roy is a fierce revolutionary. She has been vilified by some factions in India for arguing against non-violence. She argues that when indigenous people face complete subjugation by corporations – for example when mines are being dug or dams being built – what is the point of non-violence. Those people may face certain annihilation at the hands of an entity that isn’t even a real thing. Of course they should fight back. The book, published in 2014, presages our current national conflict over Standing Rock. I have heard people try to discredit the Standing Rock fight by claiming its activists are not really non-violent. But Roy, and I, would ask: why should they be? Their very survival is at stake.

She also points out that Narendra Modi, current Prime Minister of India, preceded Donald Trump into office but shares his divisive nationalist populism. They are cut from whole cloth. The movement we are up against is global. I don’t know if I find that comforting or terrifying. Probably both.

This book blew my mind and it references a gazillion big ideas that need more books to explain and be explained. But it reinforced my belief that Edward Snowden is a hero of any fight for real freedom. Is government a force for good or evil? I guess it depends on how much citizens can wrest control of it away from corporations and the super-rich. And understanding what we’re up against is part of that fight.

It doesn’t help right now to be paranoid. Or to feel that the obstacles we face are too big to confront. But it does help to try to see clearly, and to put our current events in some context. So much of the Bhagavad Gita and the Yoga Sutras are about clearing away the noise and distractions so we can see clearly and know what action to take.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the tropes of resistance lately – are we really resisting? Or are we just feeling really good about ourselves because we look good at the rally? And we feel fierce? A final thought from Arundhati Roy – she writes about how easily resistance and opposition are coopted and turned into something cool that fuels consumerist culture, but robs resistance of any real power. If you followed the brief rollout of the Pepsi ad that included a rally, you can see how this is already happening. It’s important that we stay clear on our true aim. It’s not to rally. Rallies are a tool to accomplish something else – for me, the full liberation of all peoples, and claiming power for people against the agendas of corporate and individual wealth.

We are so lucky to live in a time that flourishes with ideas, insights, analyses. However much I feel overwhelmed, I’m also grateful for the sages who offer us wisdom in this moment of darkness.

With gratitude, solidarity and love.