It’s very simple – organisation was the way forward but the public servants entrusted with the responsibility of government, that we employed, for some reason or another, were simply, literally allowed to succumb to bribery! When anyone complained some idiot would always say “aaahh it’s always been like this!” So, whoever had big money effectively was able to incur political favors. As Chomsky so rightly said –

“Concentration of wealth yields concentration of political power. And concentration of political power gives rise to legislation that increases and accelerates the cycle”

– and so not only the gulf between the rich & the poor widened at an ever-increasing rate but such was man’s capacity for greed, the more one accumulated, the greedier one got! More profit meant bigger bonuses….. therefore it was inevitable – there had to come a time when the only way profits could rise was if safety standards were lowered & environmental safeguards were scrapped. And once again, it hasn’t always been like this. I reckon really only in the past 30 years has this form of environmental butchery gone into overdrive.

So, we’re in the Khazi. We have zero political representation. Even then our elections are rigged so that some poxy country in the Middle East gets a Prime Minister who’ll forever lick their arse. The only power we have is strength in numbers. However, without organisation, quantity isn’t worth a bar of soap. Yet even if we managed to organise ourselves so that we could operate as a single entity, tactically we have to be flawless. I believe this lady is 100% correct – the only way we can really hurt them is if we boycott big business big time.

Arundhati Roy