The Age (Melbourne, Australia)
September 19, 2009 Saturday
First Edition

NON-FICTION: Listening to Grasshoppers

by STEVEN CARROLL

Listening to Grasshoppers
Arundhati Roy Hamish
Hamilton, $39.95

THE title comes from a lecture on the subject of genocide
â?¬’ specifically, the systematic murder of 1.5 million
Armenians by Turkish authorities in 1915. Its subject is integral to
much of what Arundhati Roy says on the aligned themes of the future of
democracy "now that democracy and the free market have fused into a
single predatory organism", and the problematic role of "progress" in,
especially, Western democracy. When she questions the future of
democracy it should be emphasised that she is not talking about
"lapsing into discredited models". These are forthright essays,
clearly argued and highly pertinent. But there are times when her
presentation of key concepts are reductive â?¬’ "progress",
for example, which she mostly sees as intrinsic to imperialism and the
genocide that always accompanies imperialistic expansion.