Political Predicaments

Lori Berenson and her son, Salvador, in Lima, Peru.

A Moment of Calm Berenson prepared her son for the chance
that she could have returned to prison.

On Parole Lori Berenson at the apartment where she is living in Lima. The
conditions of her parole require her to remain in Peru until 2015.

Berenson before a court in Lima, Peru, defending her parole, January 2011.

These images* all come from the cover story in today's New York Times Magazine on the travails of Lori Berenson. It seems pretty clear both that Berenson was railroaded by a desperate and repressive Peruvian government who imprisoned her for a decade and a half and that she set herself up for being railroaded by consorting with militants on Peru who were rapidly going over the deep end. She herself admits the latter point.

How does one simultaneously condemn exploitative and oppressive circumstances without, at the same time, seeming to - or, for that matter, actually - endorsing whatever popular resistance might arise in the face of such circumstances? Activists are caught in a bind and, too often, like Berenson if we take her at her word, allow themselves to be absorbed not into opposition, but into violent opposition. This is a predicament that seems to me to be unavoidable for critics - I think here of someone like Arundhati Roy - who neither endorse or excuse violent resistance nor condone though their silence the actions and circumstances that give rise to it.

The problem, in part, is that no matter how carefully you articulate your stance, there are those who will misconstrue your words, sometimes willfully, sometime by simply not listening. Roy, I think, is a perfect example of that. And, of course, as was the case in Peru during the 1980s and 1990s, both the government and the armed opposition proved more than willing to simply eliminate those who did not simply embrace one side or the other. Berenson is not a terribly sympathetic figure; she surely did not navigate the predicament she confronted very well. But that in no way implies that she brought that predicament on herself.
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* Note: All four images © Mary Ellen Mark for The New York Times. Our "paper of record" seems pretty adept at recruiting good talent!

Heroines: Arundhati Roy (24 Novemeber 1961 ~ )

Arundhati Roy (2010). Photograph: AFP.

I have commented here numerous times on Arundhati Roy and her courage in speaking out on matters and in ways that are politically unpopular. Yesterday was her birthday.

Arundhati Roy Speaks

Arundhati Roy. Photograph © Jeanbaptistparis/Flickr.

Today The New York Times ran this Op-Ed by Arundhati Roy. And DemocracyNow! ran this interview with her today as well. Roy is a smart, articulate, courageous woman. And that, on top of being a wondrously talented writer. She has, over the course of a decade or so, become a vigorous critic of a host of policies pursued by the Indian government and of uncontrolled globalization. Indeed, she is especially adept at pointing out how the two are intimately intertwined. And she regularly calls attention to the plight of those - typically the poorest Indians - who get squeezed as the Indian state intersects with neo-liberal political economics. This has gotten her into political and legal trouble on several occasions. Most recently she has spoken forcefully about the ongoing violence in Kashmir in ways that have many demanding that she be charged and tried for sedition. But Roy has defenders as well. And much of the discussion about her and the criticisms she voices ought better be focused on Kashmir and the problems there to which she is calling attention. Those problems are complex, as is the way forward. (For a slew of recent reports and essays on Kashmir from The Guardian and The New York Times look here and here.) Roy herself acknowledges as much even as she insists that the way forward must be democratic and pluralist. But complaining about Arundhati Roy is a way of blaming the messenger instead of attending to the message.