To me, there is nothing higher than fiction. Nothing. It is fundamentally who I am. I am a teller of stories. For me, that's the only way I can make sense of the world, with all the dance that it involves.
NGOs have a complicated space in neoliberal politics. They are supposed to mop up the anger. Even when they are doing good work, they are supposed to maintain the status quo. They are the missionaries of the corporate world.
Interpretation
What this quote means
NGOs play a dual role in society by addressing issues while also perpetuating existing power structures.
In this quote, Arundhati Roy critiques the role of NGOs in neoliberal politics, suggesting that while they may undertake good initiatives to address social issues, they ultimately serve to uphold the status quo rather than challenge the systemic problems. This portrayal of NGOs as 'missionaries of the corporate world' implies that their existence can distract from the root causes of societal issues, thereby allowing the broader political and economic frameworks to persist unchallenged.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the limitations of charity work at a social justice seminar.
More from Arundhati Roy
All quotes →When she listened to songs that she loved on the radio, something stirred inside her. A liquid ache spread under her skin, and she walked out of the world like a witch.
Caste is about dividing people up in ways that preclude every form of solidarity, because even in the lowest castes, there are divisions and sub-castes, and everyone's co-opted into the business of this hierarchical, silo-ised society.
When I decided to write 'The God of Small Things', I had been working in cinema. It was almost a decision to downshift from there. I thought that 300 people would read it. But it created a platform of trust.
In California, there are huge problems because of dams. I'm against big dams, per se, because I think that they are economically unfeasible. They're ecologically unsustainable. And they're hugely undemocratic.
To call someone 'anti-American', indeed, to be anti-American, is not just racist, it's a failure of the imagination.
Similar quotes
Struggles do not end when countries attempt the transition to democracy.
There does not have to be trade-off between growth and social protection. A democracy does not mean much if it doesn't respond to the needs and will of its people.
Our only real hope for democracy is that we get the money out of politics entirely and establish a system of publicly funded elections.
Our tax policy is engineered by people who view tax as a means of achieving changes in our social structure.
It is amazing how soon one becomes accustomed to the sound of ones voice, when forced to repeat a speech five or six times a day. As election day approaches, the size of the crowds grows; they are more responsive and more interested; and one derives a certain exhilaration from that which, only a few weeks before, was intensely painful. This is one possible explanation of unlimited debate in the Senate.
We do not create terrorism by fighting the terrorists. We invite terrorism by ignoring them.