Q: Why do you think authoritarian leaders go after people like you, people who deal in ideas? When you said there’s a playbook, we’ve seen that in places all around the world.
A: From time immemorial.
Q: But as someone who’s the subject of that kind of censure, I’m wondering why you think it happens.
A: They are terrified of people who they feel can communicate, not just cerebrally, but emotionally. However small they are, and even however little access they have to the mainstream or to the thundering, pulpit-thumping television anchors, they know there are some people who people eventually do listen to. They know who is read. They know who is loved. They also know who is not invested in the things that everyone else is invested in — fame and money and awards. There are a lot of people like that who they know will not bow down. We are just people who look at things and say it how it is.
From a NYT interview with he Interview with Arundhati Roy on “How to Survive in a ‘Culture of Fear,” Booker Prize winner for God of Small Things.
This final quote in a wonderful interview with the courageous Roy who has spent decades of her life speaking out to an authoritarian government about justice, freedom and the right to write so inspires the writer in me. Even when I feel small in the face of the vast injustices being perpetrated in the U.S. now, I have to write, to speak out, to let my small voice add to many others. Dictators are impermanent, however solid and powerful they seem today. Love is more powerful than hate, courage more true than silence in the face of injustice. One commentator told Roy that she speaks out as if was already killed, therefore free to be and do as she wished. Let’s imitate her freedom and courage, but speak our own truth.
The Power of Love2 