'I Am Ashamed of How Gutless, Spineless Our Government Has Been'

Written By Grahame Russell

Arundhati Roy commenting on “bomb-dropping imperial power and its allies who are trying to bully the whole world into submission”

Rights Action believes that what Arundhati Roy says applies equally to the U.S. and Canada. Rights Action is ashamed and distressed about how complicit our governments are. Canada is openly playing junior partner to the U.S. as it tries to “bully the whole world into submission”, violently attempting ‘regime changes’ across the Americas, and – together with Israel – wreaking destruction and death across Palestine, Lebanon and Iran.

As always, it remains up to the people of the U.S. and Canada to hold ourselves to account, and to change how we act within our borders, and how we co-exist on this planet with other countries and peoples, and all life forms.

'I Am Ashamed of How Gutless, Spineless Our Government Has Been': Arundhati Roy on US-Israel War on Iran
Jahnavi Sen, 09/Mar/2026
https://thewire.in/books/arundhati-roy-iran-war-statement

Arundhati Roy, Kamani Auditorium, Gurgaon, India, March 9, 2026
Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBKx4l-3ZYM

“I have something to say because I’m my mother’s daughter and because I need to straighten my shoulders and say this. It’s a little statement about the war that is about to consume the world. I know we are here today to talk about [my book] “Mother Mary Comes To Me”. But how can we end the day without talking about those beautiful cities—Tehran, Isfahan and Beirut that are up in flames?

“In keeping with my Mother Mary’s spirit of candour and impoliteness I would like to use this platform to say something about the unprovoked and illegal attack by the United States and Israel on Iran. It is of course, a continuation of the US-Israeli genocide in Gaza. It’s the same old genocidaires using the same old playbook. Murdering women and children. Bombing hospitals. Carpet bombing cities. And then playing the victim.

“But Iran in not Gaza. The theatre of this new war could expand to consume the whole world. We are on the brink of nuclear calamity and economic collapse. The same country that bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki could be readying itself to bomb one of the most ancient civilizations in the world.

“There will be other occasions to speak of this in detail, so here, let me simply say that I stand with Iran. Unequivocally. 

“Any regimes that need changing, including the US, Israel and ours, need to be changed by the people, not by some bloated, lying, cheating, greedy, resource-grabbing, bomb-dropping imperial power and its allies who are trying to bully the whole world into submission.

“Iran is standing up to them, while India cowers. I am ashamed of how gutless, how spineless our government has been. Long ago we were a poor country of very poor people. But we had pride. We had dignity. Today we are a rich country with very poor, unemployed people who are fed on a diet of hatred, poison and falsehoods instead of real food. We have lost pride. We have lost dignity. We have lost courage. Except in our movies.

“What sort of people are we whose elected government cannot stand up and condemn the US when it kidnaps and assassinates Heads of State of other countries? Would we like that done to us? For our Prime Minister to have traveled to Israel and embraced Benyamin Netanyahu just days before he attacked Iran—what does it mean? For our government to sign a groveling trade deal with the US that literally sells our farmers and textile industry down the river, only days before the US Supreme court declared Trump’s tariffs illegal—what does it mean? For us to now be given ‘permission’ to buy oil from Russia—what does it mean? What else do we need permission for? To go to the bathroom? To take a day off work? To visit our mothers?

“Every day US politicians including Donald Trump mock and demean us publicly. And our Prime Minister laughs his famous, vacuous laugh. And hugs on. At the height of the genocide in Gaza, the government of India sent thousands of poor Indian workers to Israel to replace expelled Palestinian workers. Today, while Israelis take shelter in bunkers, it is being reported that those Indian workers are not allowed into those shelters. What the hell does all this mean? Who has put us into this absolutely humiliating, shameless, disgusting place in the world?

“Some of you will remember how we used to joke about that florid, overblown Chinese communist term, “Running Dog of Imperialism.” But right now, I’d say, it describes us well. Except of course, in our twisted, toxic movies in which our celluloid heroes strut on, winning phantom war after war, dumb and over-muscled. Fueling our insatiable bloodlust with their gratuitous violence and their shit for brains.”

Change media sources

Rights Action urges folks to diversify news sources as an antidote to the oftentimes propagandistic reporting coming government and corporate media in the U.S. and Canada. We recommend: Gray Zone, Democracy Now, DropSite News, Real News Network, CounterPunch, Intercept, Canadian Foreign Policy Institute, Breach, rabble.ca, Orinoco Tribune, Al Jazeera News (coverage of Palestine), …

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Grahame Russell
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