Tomaa,

  Pinter is a must-read for literature or political science students.  His blunt approach to truth and unique literary style have already developed into a school of thought called the pinteresque.

  I find his articles very illuminating, indeed.

  Momodou.

Momodou S Sidibeh <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
  In case you are too lazy to use your browser, here is the entire
lecture. I find it immensly inspiring:

Sidibeh.


Harold Pinter – Nobel Lecture


Art, Truth & Politics

In 1958 I wrote the following:

'There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal,
nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily
either true or false; it can be both true and false.'

I believe that these assertions still make sense and do still apply to
the exploration of reality through art. So as a writer I stand by them
but as a citizen I cannot. As a citizen I must ask: What is true? What
is false?

Truth in drama is forever elusive. You never quite find it but the
search for it is compulsive. The search is clearly what drives the
endeavour. The search is your task. More often than not you stumble upon
the truth in the dark, colliding with it or just glimpsing an image or a
shape which seems to correspond to the truth, often without realising
that you have done so. But the real truth is that there never is any
such thing as one truth to be found in dramatic art. There are many.
These truths challenge each other, recoil from each other, reflect each
other, ignore each other, tease each other, are blind to each other.
Sometimes you feel you have the truth of a moment in your hand, then it
slips through your fingers and is lost.

I have often been asked how my plays come about. I cannot say. Nor can I
ever sum up my plays, except to say that this is what happened. That is
what they said. That is what they did.

Most of the plays are engendered by a line, a word or an image. The
given word is often shortly followed by the image. I shall give two
examples of two lines which came right out of the blue into my head,
followed by an image, followed by me.

The plays are /The Homecoming/ and /Old Times/. The first line of /The
Homecoming/ is 'What have you done with the scissors?' The first line of
/Old Times/ is 'Dark.'

In each case I had no further information.

In the first case someone was obviously looking for a pair of scissors
and was demanding their whereabouts of someone else he suspected had
probably stolen them. But I somehow knew that the person addressed
didn't give a damn about the scissors or about the questioner either,
for that matter.

'Dark' I took to be a description of someone's hair, the hair of a
woman, and was the answer to a question. In each case I found myself
compelled to pursue the matter. This happened visually, a very slow
fade, through shadow into light.

I always start a play by calling the characters A, B and C.

In the play that became /The Homecoming/ I saw a man enter a stark room
and ask his question of a younger man sitting on an ugly sofa reading a
racing paper. I somehow suspected that A was a father and that B was his
son, but I had no proof. This was however confirmed a short time later
when B (later to become Lenny) says to A (later to become Max), 'Dad, do
you mind if I change the subject? I want to ask you something. The
dinner we had before, what was the name of it? What do you call it? Why
don't you buy a dog? You're a dog cook. Honest. You think you're cooking
for a lot of dogs.' So since B calls A 'Dad' it seemed to me reasonable
to assume that they were father and son. A was also clearly the cook and
his cooking did not seem to be held in high regard. Did this mean that
there was no mother? I didn't know. But, as I told myself at the time,
our beginnings never know our ends.

'Dark.' A large window. Evening sky. A man, A (later to become Deeley),
and a woman, B (later to become Kate), sitting with drinks. 'Fat or
thin?' the man asks. Who are they talking about? But I then see,
standing at the window, a woman, C (later to become Anna), in another
condition of light, her back to them, her hair dark.

It's a strange moment, the moment of creating characters who up to that
moment have had no existence. What follows is fitful, uncertain, even
hallucinatory, although sometimes it can be an unstoppable avalanche.
The author's position is an odd one. In a sense he is not welcomed by
the characters. The characters resist him, they are not easy to live
with, they are impossible to define. You certainly can't dictate to
them. To a certain extent you play a never-ending game with them, cat
and mouse, blind man's buff, hide and seek. But finally you find that
you have people of flesh and blood on your hands, people with will and
an individual sensibility of their own, made out of component parts you
are unable to change, manipulate or distort.

So language in art remains a highly ambiguous transaction, a quicksand,
a trampoline, a frozen pool which might give way under you, the author,
at any time.

But as I have said, the search for the truth can never stop. It cannot
be adjourned, it cannot be postponed. It has to be faced, right there,
on the spot.

Political theatre presents an entirely different set of problems.
Sermonising has to be avoided at all cost. Objectivity is essential. The
characters must be allowed to breathe their own air. The author cannot
confine and constrict them to satisfy his own taste or disposition or
prejudice. He must be prepared to approach them from a variety of
angles, from a full and uninhibited range of perspectives, take them by
surprise, perhaps, occasionally, but nevertheless give them the freedom
to go which way they will. This does not always work. And political
satire, of course, adheres to none of these precepts, in fact does
precisely the opposite, which is its proper function.

In my play /The Birthday Party/ I think I allow a whole range of options
to operate in a dense forest of possibility before finally focussing on
an act of subjugation.

/Mountain Language/ pretends to no such range of operation. It remains
brutal, short and ugly. But the soldiers in the play do get some fun out
of it. One sometimes forgets that torturers become easily bored. They
need a bit of a laugh to keep their spirits up. This has been confirmed
of course by the events at Abu Ghraib in Baghdad. /Mountain Language/
lasts only 20 minutes, but it could go on for hour after hour, on and on
and on, the same pattern repeated over and over again, on and on, hour
after hour.

/Ashes to Ashes/, on the other hand, seems to me to be taking place
under water. A drowning woman, her hand reaching up through the waves,
dropping down out of sight, reaching for others, but finding nobody
there, either above or under the water, finding only shadows,
reflections, floating; the woman a lost figure in a drowning landscape,
a woman unable to escape the doom that seemed to belong only to others.

But as they died, she must die too.

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 documented 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.'

It's a scintillating stratagem. Language is actually employed to keep
thought at bay. The words 'the American people' provide a truly
voluptuous cushion of reassurance. You don't need to think. Just lie
back on the cushion. The cushion may be suffocating your intelligence
and your critical faculties but it's very comfortable. This does not
apply of course to the 40 million people living below the poverty line
and the 2 million men and women imprisoned in the vast gulag of prisons,
which extends across the US.

The United States no longer bothers about low intensity conflict. It no
longer sees any point in being reticent or even devious. It puts its
cards on the table without fear or favour. It quite simply doesn't give
a damn about the United Nations, international law or critical dissent,
which it regards as impotent and irrelevant. It also has its own
bleating little lamb tagging behind it on a lead, the pathetic and
supine Great Britain.

What has happened to our moral sensibility? Did we ever have any? What
do these words mean? Do they refer to a term very rarely employed these
days – conscience? A conscience to do not only with our own acts but to
do with our shared responsibility in the acts of others? Is all this
dead? Look at Guantanamo Bay. Hundreds of people detained without charge
for over three years, with no legal representation or due process,
technically detained forever. This totally illegitimate structure is
maintained in defiance of the Geneva Convention. It is not only
tolerated but hardly thought about by what's called the 'international
community'. This criminal outrage is being committed by a country, which
declares itself to be 'the leader of the free world'. Do we think about
the inhabitants of Guantanamo Bay? What does the media say about them?
They pop up occasionally – a small item on page six. They have been
consigned to a no man's land from which indeed they may never return. At
present many are on hunger strike, being force-fed, including British
residents. No niceties in these force-feeding procedures. No sedative or
anaesthetic. Just a tube stuck up your nose and into your throat. You
vomit blood. This is torture. What has the British Foreign Secretary
said about this? Nothing. What has the British Prime Minister said about
this? Nothing. Why not? Because the United States has said: to criticise
our conduct in Guantanamo Bay constitutes an unfriendly act. You're
either with us or against us. So Blair shuts up.

The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state
terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of
international law. The invasion was an arbitrary military action
inspired by a series of lies upon lies and gross manipulation of the
media and therefore of the public; an act intended to consolidate
American military and economic control of the Middle East masquerading –
as a last resort – all other justifications having failed to justify
themselves – as liberation. A formidable assertion of military force

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