Truth and politics
Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter, winner of the 2005 Nobel Prize
for Literature and one of the most celebrated and iconoclastic
playwrights of the past 50 years, died Wednesday in London after a long
battle with cancer. Mr. Pinter, the son of a Jewish tailor, was born in
London’s East End on Oct. 10, 1930. He won admission to the Royal
Academy of Dramatic Art but dropped out to turn his attention to writing
poems under the name “Harold Pinta.” His first play, “The Room,” opened
in 1957, but it was his next effort that made his name: “The Birthday
Party,” the story of a young man hiding from childhood guilt when his
home is beset by invaders, was savaged by critics when it also opened in
1957. Soon, though, both critics and audiences embraced Mr. Pinter with
the premieres of “The Dumb Waiter” and “The Caretaker.” A steady stream
of new plays followed over the next two decades, including “The
Homecoming” in 1964 and “No Man’s Land” in 1974. In all, he wrote more
than 30 plays, a novel, “The Dwarfs,” and a number of screenplays
including “The Quiller Memorandum” in 1965, “The Last Tycoon” in 1974
and “The French Lieutenant’s Woman” in 1980. We reproduce below an
extract from his Nobel Prize Lecture: Truth and Politics Harold Pinter,
Nobel Laureate for Literature.
Political language, as used by politicians, does not venture into any
of this territory since the majority of politicians, on the evidence
available to us, are interested not in truth but in power and in the
maintenance of that power. To maintain that power it is essential that
people remain in ignorance, that they live in ignorance of the truth,
even the truth of their own lives. What surrounds us therefore is a vast
tapestry of lies, upon which we feed.
As every single person here knows, the justification for the invasion
of Iraq was that Saddam Hussein possessed a highly dangerous body of
weapons of mass destruction, some of which could be fired in 45 minutes,
bringing about appalling devastation. We were assured that was true. It
was not true. We were told that Iraq had a relationship with Al Quaeda
and shared responsibility for the atrocity in New York of September 11th
2001. We were assured that this was true. It was not true. We were told
that Iraq threatened the security of the world. We were assured it was
true. It was not true.
The truth is something entirely different. The truth is to do with
how the United States understands its role in the world and how it
chooses to embody it.
But before I come back to the present I would like to look at the
recent past, by which I mean United States foreign policy since the end
of the Second World War. I believe it is obligatory upon us to subject
this period to at least some kind of even limited scrutiny, which is all
that time will allow here.
Everyone knows what happened in the Soviet Union and throughout
Eastern Europe during the post-war period: the systematic brutality, the
widespread atrocities, the ruthless suppression of independent thought.
All this has been fully docu mented and verified.But my contention here
is that the US crimes in the same period have only been superficially
recorded, let alone documented, let alone acknowledged, let alone
recognised as crimes at all. I believe this must be addressed and that
the truth has considerable bearing on where the world stands now.
Although constrained, to a certain extent, by the existence of the
Soviet Union, the United States’ actions throughout the world made it
clear that it had concluded it had carte blanche to do what it liked.
Direct invasion of a sovereign state has never in fact been America’s
favoured method. In the main, it has preferred what it has described as
‘low intensity conflict’. Low intensity conflict means that thousands of
people die but slower than if you dropped a bomb on them in one fell
swoop. It means that you infect the heart of the country, that you
establish a malignant growth and watch the gangrene bloom. When the
populace has been subdued - or beaten to death - the same thing - and
your own friends, the military and the great corporations, sit
comfortably in power, you go before the camera and say that democracy
has prevailed. This was a commonplace in US foreign policy in the years
to which I refer.
The tragedy of Nicaragua was a highly significant case. I choose to
offer it here as a potent example of America’s view of its role in the
world, both then and now. I was present at a meeting at the US embassy
in London in the late 1980s.
The United States Congress was about to decide whether to give more
money to the Contras in their campaign against the state of Nicaragua. I
was a member of a delegation speaking on behalf of Nicaragua but the
most important member of this delegation was a Father John Metcalf. The
leader of the US body was Raymond Seitz (then number two to the
ambassador, later ambassador himself). Father Metcalf said: ‘Sir, I am
in charge of a parish in the north of Nicaragua. My parishioners built a
school, a health centre, a cultural centre. We have lived in peace. A
few months ago a Contra force attacked the parish. They destroyed
everything: the school, the health centre, the cultural centre. They
raped nurses and teachers, slaughtered doctors, in the most brutal
manner. They behaved like savages. Please demand that the US government
withdraw its support from this shocking terrorist activity.’ Raymond
Seitz had a very good reputation as a rational, responsible and highly
sophisticated man. He was greatly respected in diplomatic circles. He
listened, paused and then spoke with some gravity. ‘Father,’ he said,
‘let me tell you something. In war, innocent people always suffer.’
There was a frozen silence. We stared at him. He did not flinch.
Innocent people, indeed, always suffer.
Finally somebody said: ‘But in this case “innocent people” were the
victims of a gruesome atrocity subsidised by your government, one among
many. If Congress allows the Contras more money further atrocities of
this kind will take place. Is this not the case? Is your government not
therefore guilty of supporting acts of murder and destruction upon the
citizens of a sovereign state?’ Seitz was imperturbable. ‘I don’t agree
that the facts as presented support your assertions,’ he said.
As we were leaving the Embassy a US aide told me that he enjoyed my
plays. I did not reply.
I should remind you that at the time President Reagan made the
following statement: ‘The Contras are the moral equivalent of our
Founding Fathers.’ The United States supported the brutal Somoza
dictatorship in Nicaragua for over 40 years. The Nicaraguan people, led
by the Sandinistas, overthrew this regime in 1979, a breathtaking
popular revolution.
The Sandinistas weren’t perfect. They possessed their fair share of
arrogance and their political philosophy contained a number of
contradictory elements. But they were intelligent, rational and
civilised. They set out to establish a stable, decent, pluralistic
society. The death penalty was abolished. Hundreds of thousands of
poverty-stricken peasants were brought back from the dead. Over 100,000
families were given title to land. Two thousand schools were built. A
quite remarkable literacy campaign reduced illiteracy in the country to
less than one seventh. Free education was established and a free health
service. Infant mortality was reduced by a third. Polio was eradicated.
The United States denounced these achievements as Marxist/Leninist
subversion. In the view of the US government, a dangerous example was
being set. If Nicaragua was allowed to establish basic norms of social
and economic justice, if it was allowed to raise the standards of health
care and education and achieve social unity and national self respect,
neighbouring countries would ask the same questions and do the same
things. There was of course at the time fierce resistance to the status
quo in El Salvador.
I spoke earlier about ‘a tapestry of lies’ which surrounds us.
President Reagan commonly described Nicaragua as a ‘totalitarian
dungeon’. This was taken generally by the media, and certainly by the
British government, as accurate and fair comment. But there was in fact
no record of death squads under the Sandinista government. There was no
record of torture. There was no record of systematic or official
military brutality. No priests were ever murdered in Nicaragua. There
were in fact three priests in the government, two Jesuits and a
Maryknoll missionary. The totalitarian dungeons were actually next door,
in El Salvador and Guatemala. The United States had brought down the
democratically elected government of Guatemala in 1954 and it is
estimated that over 200,000 people had been victims of successive
military dictatorships.
Six of the most distinguished Jesuits in the world were viciously
murdered at the Central American University in San Salvador in 1989 by a
battalion of the Alcatl regiment trained at Fort Benning, Georgia, USA.
That extremely brave man Archbishop Romero was assassinated while saying
mass.
It is estimated that 75,000 people died. Why were they killed? They
were killed because they believed a better life was possible and should
be achieved.
That belief immediately qualified them as communists. They died
because they dared to question the status quo, the endless plateau of
poverty, disease, degradation and oppression, which had been their
birthright.
The United States finally brought down the Sandinista government. It
took some years and considerable resistance but relentless economic
persecution and 30,000 dead finally undermined the spirit of the
Nicaraguan people. They were exhausted and poverty stricken once again.
The casinos moved back into the country. Free health and free
education were over. Big business returned with a vengeance. ‘Democracy’
had prevailed.
But this ‘policy’ was by no means restricted to Central America. It
was conducted throughout the world. It was never-ending. And it is as if
it never happened. The United States supported and in many cases
engendered every right wing military dictatorship in the world after the
end of the Second World War. I refer to Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay,
Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines, Guatemala, El
Salvador, and, of course, Chile. The horror the United States inflicted
upon Chile in 1973 can never be purged and can never be
forgiven.Hundreds of thousands of deaths took place throughout these
countries. Did they take place? And are they in all cases attributable
to US foreign policy? The answer is yes they did take place and they are
attributable to American foreign policy. But you wouldn’t know it.
It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening
it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. The crimes
of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious,
remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You
have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical
manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for
universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of
hypnosis. I put to you that the United States is without doubt the
greatest show on the road. Brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless it
may be but it is also very clever. As a salesman it is out on its own
and its most saleable commodity is self love. It’s a winner. Listen to
all American presidents on television say the words, ‘the American
people’, as in the sentence, ‘I say to the American people it is time to
pray and to defend the rights of the American people and I ask the
American people to trust their president in the action he is about to
take on behalf of the American people.’ |