SYDNEY — In an interview printed in the October 14 Bulletin magazine, Indian writer and anti-globalisation campaigner Arundhati Roy, comparing Australia's Aborigines to India's untouchables, said she wanted to donate her $50,000 Sydney Peace Prize to Aboriginal political activities.

Untouchability, Roy said, “is one of the most cruel forms of discrimination, but one thing that didn't happen to them was the attempt to genocidally wipe them out, which happened in Australia.

“I don't want to give the money to Aboriginal communities as some act of charity. I want to give it to people who are involved with political work there... there's no complicated reason, it's just a straightforward political fight for survival and for right.”

The 1997 Booker Prize winner for her novel God of Small Things is due to accept the award on November 4.

“It is funny, I've spent so much time in South Africa recently and the white South Africans have a fascination for Australia. So, I was talking to some black friends and they laughed and said, ‘Yeah, it's because they think the Australians got it right. They just killed the blacks. The South Africans let us survive.'”

From Green Left Weekly, October 20, 2004.
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