Arundhati Roy Sings of September

Indian novelist Arundhati Roy’s writing is lyrical; her voice is musical. Her words give me chills the way a good song does. She makes me feel the weight of our time, the weight of my place in the world, the horrible weight of the powerful against the powerless. That is the power of music. It can cause an otherwise comfortable person to feel that sharp edge of sadness — a hint of the magnitude of grief that exists in the world. It can make the grieving feel less alone.

So please humor my comparison of Roy’s speech to music.

For reasons that I don’t fully understand, fiction dances out of me. And non-fiction is wrenched out by the aching, broken world I wake up to every morning.  – Roy, “Come September”

In September, 2002, Roy delivered a speech — read a speech, actually, since the words were written in advance — carefully, carefully — about September 11. It was called “Come September.”

September 11 was the day a group of well-organized terrorists murdered thousands of innocent civilians and shattered the naive heart of the world’s most powerful nation. It was also the day, eighteen years earlier, when the U.S. CIA helped topple a democratically elected president in Chile and replace him with a murderous dictator.

Chileans tell the story of how the musician Victor Jara had his hands cut off in front of a crowd in the Santiago stadium. Before they shot him, Pinochet’s soldiers threw his guitar at him and mockingly asked him to play. – Roy, “Come September”

There, again, is a testament to the power of music. How can a dictatorial machine feel so threatened by a musician’s hands?

There were many songs written about September 11 — songs that honored the rescuers who rushed unhesitatingly into the towers (some of whom have developed cancer and other illnesses and have had to fight the U.S. government to cover their medical expenses). There were songs that mourned the dead, and songs that hailed that complex thing called America.

There were also those, like Roy, who sang the horrible weight of the truth.

In the immediate wake of September 11, I can remember feeling a profound sense of patriotism for the first time in my life. I was 14. To me, the American flags cropping up on lawns across my suburban neighborhood meant that we were all in this together. They honored the brave men and women who had rushed into burning towers to save others; they recognized the common grief of a diverse and shattered people. Within weeks, I watched what I saw as a symbol of solidarity became become a banner of war, as we used the brave sacrifice of the rescuers and the deaths of innocent thousands as justification for rushing into Afghanistan, and perpetrating a slaughter of our own.

October 7, 2011 is the tenth anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan. A series of well-coordinated attacks in Kabul Tuesday proved the consequences of that invasion are still reverberating and multiplying.

There have been numerous stories about the impact of September 11 on those American youth who were coming of age when it happened. Some have told reporters the event shattered the sense of security and confidence they felt as members of middle-class America. Mine was shattered with the invasion of Afghanistan. I have not felt confident in this country since.

Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink wrap people’s brains, and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead. – Roy, “Come September”

Roy’s speech roams gracefully from U.S. interference in Latin America and Afghanistan to the occupation of Palestine by Israel. “September 11, 1922 to September 11, 2002. Eighty years is a long time to have been waging war,” she says. Her words still ring true today, as Palestine applies for statehood from the United Nations and the United States scrambles to derail a U.N. vote on the issue.

Ten years after September 11, 2001 and nine years after Roy’s speech, we continue to live in uncertain and dangerous times. Confidence and security are elusive things, reserved for the privileged and the undiscerning. In such times, grace, poetry, and music are sorely needed. I am not certain of the future. But I am grateful for the music.

Photo: Arundhati Roy from http://www.salon.com/sept97/00roy.html.

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