Arundhati Roy's Public Power: A Closer Look at the India's Prominent Female Activist, Writer

When freedom means occupation, when democracy means neoliberal capitalism, when reform means repression, when words like "empowerment" and "peacekeeping" make your blood run cold- why, then, "public power" could mean whatever you want it to mean.
-Arundhati Roy (5)

Arundhati Roy gave the speech "Public Power: In the Age of Empire" back in August of 2004. Almost two years later, it still rings true. The United States in still fighting in the Middle East, first against terrorism, then to find weapons of mass destruction, and now to free countries of tyranny and set them up to have a peaceful democracy. That sounds like a superb goal, but the question needs to be asked: Do the people living in those countries want to be "freed"? And if so, do they really want to be like the United States?

September 11, 2001 really woke up Americans. Before that, most Americans probably didn't realize that outsiders didn't agree with the way the country was run and disagreed with capitalism. It was an unfortunate attack that took thousands of innocent lives, but once the story came out about who did it and why, the surprise disappeared, at least for me personally. I was a junior history major at Nazareth College at the time and had learned a bit about foreign affairs and international relations. While I do consider the tactics chosen to make the statement that the terrorists wanted to make was wrong, I do realize that they had to do something on a colossal scale in order to attract attention.