Amitav Ghosh interview | ‘Planetary crisis is a kind of bio-political war, akin to those of the past’
The HinduCelebrated writerAmitav Ghoshsays the “planetary crisis” is akin to the “bio-political wars of the past” and holds that “things are really not good” in the world today. Speaking of his new bookThe Nutmeg’s Curse, Mr. Ghosh said that violence directed at people, ultimately, becomes violence directed at the environment. I heard the President of Palau, one of the Pacific islands’ nations, at COP 26 saying, ‘you might as well bomb us’, and I think that was a very, very sound statement, because, in fact this planetary crisis is a kind of war. It’s a crucial moment in a way, where this violence directed at people, ultimately, also becomes violence directed at the environment to create a process of extraction. But, you know, it’s precisely because the history of the United States is so closely documented, that it has made possible a completely alternative telling of these histories.
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