Art, truth and politics
Art, truth and politics
ADDRESS FOR NOBEL LITERATURE
Harold Pinter - Stockholm - December 7, 2005
In 1958 I wrote the following: 'There is a rigid distinction between what is real and what is unreal, between what is true and what is false. One thing is not necessarily true or false, it can be true and false together '.
I believe that these assertions still make sense and apply to the exploration of reality through art. So as a writer, I remain faithful to them, but as a citizen I can not. As a citizen I must ask: what is it? What is false? The dramatic truth is always elusive. Although it is never completely, his research is compulsive. His research is clearly what drives the effort. His research is the task that you have. More often than not you stumble in the dark think in truth, bumping against or just glimpsing an image or a shape which seems to correspond to the truth, often without realizing that I did. But the actual truth is that there is never one truth to be found in the art dramatic. There are many. These truths challenge each other, they retreat, reflect, you know it, you are naughty, they are blind. Sometimes it feels to have in my hands the moment of truth, then it slips from his fingers and perduta.Spesso I was asked how do my plays. I do not know how to explain. I do not know even to summarize my work, except to say that what has happened. What has been said. What was fatto.La most of the works are generated by a joke, a word or an image. Often the word is quickly followed by the image. I will the example of two jokes that I came to her mind to be expected, followed by an image, followed by dramas are me.I 'Homecoming' and 'old days'. The first line of The Homecoming is 'What did you do with scissors?' The first line of Old Times is 'Dark'. In both cases I had no more informazioni.Nel first case someone was obviously looking for a pair of scissors and asked someone there to close that account suspected of being stolen. But somehow I knew that the person to whom he addressed did not care about the scissors or, in this respect, those who questioned her. 'Dark' understood as the description of someone's hair, the hair of a woman, and was the response to a question. In both cases I found myself forced to follow the argument. This happened visually, a very slow fade, through shadow into luce.Comincio always a play by calling the characters A, B and C. In the text became 'Homecoming' I saw a man get into a bare room and ask a question of a younger man sitting on an ugly sofa reading a racing paper. Somehow I suspected that A was B's father and the son was, but I had no proof. This was however confirmed a short time later when B (later to become Lenny) says to A (which would become Max), 'Dad, do you mind if I change topic? I want to ask you something. Lunch before, what name did he have? How do you call? Why not buy a dog? You're a dog cook. Seriously. You think you're cooking for a lot of dogs'. So the fact that B calls A 'Dad' made me likely that they were father and son. A was also clearly the cook and his cooking did not seem held in high esteem. All this meant that there was no mother? I did not know. But as I said at the time, our beginnings never know our ends. 'Dark'. A large window. The evening sky. A man, A (who was to become Deeley), and a woman, B (which was to become Kate), sitting with a drink in hand. 'Fat or thin?' the man asks. Who are they talking about? But then I see, standing at the window, a woman, C (which was to become Anna), in another location of light, her back, her hair scuri.È a strange moment, the moment of creating characters who up at that time had no existence. What follows is uneven, uncertain, even hallucinatory, although sometimes it can be an unstoppable avalanche. His position is unique. In a sense, is not pleasing to the characters. The characters are the resistance, it is not easy to live with them, are impossible to define. They certainly can not be imposed. To a certain extent you play with them a game that has no end, cat and mouse, blind man's buff, hide and seek. But in the end you are in the hands of flesh and blood people, people with their own will and individual sensitivity, assembled from components that you can not change, manipulate or distorcere.Così the language of art is largely an ambiguous, shifting sands , a trampoline, a spring ice that could wash you, the author, in any momento.Ma, as I said, the search for truth can never stop. Can not be delayed, can not be postponed. Should be addressed, just in time reale.Il political theater has a completely different range of problems. Preaching should be avoided at all costs. Objectivity is essential. The characters must be able to breathe the air they own. The author can not put limits on them to force them to satisfy their tastes or inclinations or pregiudizi.Egli must be prepared to approach a variety of angles, from a range of perspectives to be full and free of inhibitions; occasion to take them by surprise, perhaps, but nevertheless give them the freedom to follow the path they want. This does not always work. And political satire, of course, does not keep any of these precepts, and in fact does precisely the opposite, which is its function specifica.Nel my book 'The Birthday' I think I've allowed a whole range of options to operate in a dense forest of possibility before finally focusing on an act of enslavement. 'The mountain language 'does not aspire to such a range of operations. It remains brutal, short and unpleasant. But the work the soldiers find ways to have fun. Sometimes he forgets that torturers become bored easily. They need to have a laugh to keep up the spirit. This course has been confirmed by the facts of Abu Ghraib in Baghdad. The language of the mountain takes only 20 minutes, but could go on for hours and hours ahead, the same pattern repeated again and again and again and again, hour after hour. 'Ashes to Ashes', on the other hand, appears to me take place underwater. A woman who drowns, her hand stretched over the waves, sliding down invisible, looking for others, but finding no one above or or under water, finding only shadows, reflections, floating. The woman, a figure lost in a landscape that overwhelms a woman unable to escape the fate that seemed to be only altri.Ma as they died, she must morire.Il political language, as used by politicians, does not venture into none of these areas as most of the politicians, for what is being demonstrated, it is not interested in truth but in power and the preservation of that power. To maintain that power it is essential that people remain in ignorance, living in ignorance of the truth, even the truth of his own life. What surrounds us therefore is a vast tapestry of lies, of which there nutriamo.Come everyone knows, the justification for the invasion of Iraq was that Saddam Hussein possessed a highly dangerous arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, some of which could be operated in 45 minutes, causing appalling devastation. We were assured that was true. It was not true. We were told that Iraq had ties with Al Qaeda and was jointly responsible for the atrocities of September 11, 2001 in New York. We were assured that was true. It was not true. We were told that Iraq threatened the security of the world. We were assured that was true. It was not vero.La truth is something entirely differente.La truth has to do with how the U.S. intends to their role in the world and they choose to sostenerlo.Ma before returning to this I would like to take a look at the recent past, I mean the United States foreign policy since the end of war mondiale.Credo it is fair for us to subject this period to even a limited analysis, that there is time allowed by disposizione.Tutti know what happened in the Soviet Union and throughout Eastern Europe in the postwar period: the systematic brutality, the widespread atrocities, the ruthless suppression of independent thought. All this is fully documented and verificato.Ma here I argue that the U.S. crimes in the same period have only been superficially recorded, let alone have been documented, much less considered, let alone recognized as crimes. I think we should reflect on this and that truth has a significant relationship with the state in which the world faces today. Although you need to some extent on the existence of the Soviet Union, the U.S. actions around the world shows that they believed they had carte blanche to do what volevano.In effects Direct invasion of a sovereign state is not America was never the preferred method. Overall, they preferred what they described as 'low intensity conflict'. Low intensity conflict means that thousands of people die but slower than if you go off in one fell swoop on them a bomb. It means that you infect the heart of the village, which causes a malignant proliferation and watch the gangrene bloom. After the people have been subjected to - or, what is the same, beaten to death - and your friends, the military and large corporations, sit comfortably in power, you go in front of a camera and say that democracy has prevailed. This was a constant element of U.S. foreign policy the years to which I riferisco.La tragedy of Nicaragua was a highly significant case. I choose to offer it here as a powerful example of the vision of its role in the world by America, now and then. I was present at a meeting at the U.S. embassy in London in the late eighties. The United States Congress was about to decide whether to give more money to the Contras in their campaign against the state of Nicaragua.Io I was a member of a delegation that spoke in the interests of Nicaragua but the most important member of this delegation was Father John Metcalf. The Head of Delegation of the U.S. was Raymond Seitz (then number two of the embassy, \u200b\u200blater ambassador himself). Father Metcalf said: 'I am in charge of a parish in the north of Nicaragua. My parishioners built a school, a clinic, a cultural center. We lived in peace. A few months ago a group of Contras attacked the parish. They destroyed everything: the school, a clinic, the cultural center. They raped nurses and teachers, slaughtered doctors, in the most brutal. They behaved like savages. Please ask the U.S. government to withdraw its support for this abominable terrorist activity. 'Raymond Seitz had a very good reputation for rational, responsible and highly sophisticated. 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. I stared at him. Scompose.La not innocent people, in fact, suffers sempre.Alla Finally, someone said, 'But in this case "innocent people" was the victim of a gruesome atrocity subsidized by its government, one among many. If Congress grants to the Contras more money further atrocities of this sort will happen. Is not it? His government is therefore not guilty to supporting acts of murder and destruction against the citizens of a sovereign state? 'Seitz was imperturbable. 'I do not agree that the facts represented support your assertions,' disse.Mentre were leaving the Embassy a U.S. officer told me that he enjoyed my plays. Risposi.Dovrei not remember that at the time President Reagan made the following statement: 'The Contras are the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers.' In Nicaragua, the United States supported the brutal Somoza dictatorship for over 40 years. The Nicaraguan people, led by the Sandinistas, overthrew this regime in 1979, an extraordinary revolution popolare.I Sandinistas were not perfect. They had their good dose of arrogance and their political philosophy contained a number of contradictory elements. But they were intelligent, rational and civil. It is proposed to establish a balanced society, decent, pluralistic society. The death penalty was abolished. Hundreds of thousands of poor peasants were torn to death. More than 100,000 families were given land. Two thousand schools were built. A massive literacy campaign reduced illiteracy in the country less than one seventh. Were set free education and free health service. Infant mortality was reduced by one third. Polio was debellata.Gli United States denounced these achievements as Marxist-Leninist subversion. In view of the U.S. government, was creating a dangerous precedent. If Nicaragua was allowed to establish basic norms of social and economic justice, to raise standards of health and education and achieve social cohesion and national pride, neighbors would pursue the same goals and did the same things. Of course, at that time there was strong opposition to the status quo in El Salvador.Ho spoke before a 'tapestry of lies' which surrounds us. President Reagan commonly described Nicaragua as a 'totalitarian secret'. This was generally regarded by the media, and certainly by the British government, a proper and fair trial. But in fact there was no sign of death squads under the Sandinista government. There was no sign of torture. There was no of military brutality, systematic or official. No priest has ever been killed in Nicaragua. There were three priests in the rest of the government, two Jesuits and a missionary, Maryknoll. The totalitarian dungeons were actually next door, in El Salvador and Guatemala. In 1954 the U.S. brought down the democratically elected government of Guatemala, and are estimated at more than 200,000 victims of the successive dictatorships militari.Sei Jesuits among the most eminent in the world were slaughtered at the University of Central San Salvador in 1989 by a battalion of Alcatl regiment trained at Fort Benning in Georgia, USA. The brave Archbishop Romero was assassinated while saying mass. An estimated 75,000 people died. Why were killed? They were killed because they believed a better life was possible and should be achieved. This ideal immediately qualified them as communists. They died because they dared to question the status quo, the endless accumulation of misery, disease, degradation and oppression, which was their right to nascita.Gli United States to overthrow the Sandinista government order. It took years for some reason have a strong opposition but in the end the relentless economic persecution and 30,000 dead sap the spirit of the people of Nicaragua. They found themselves exhausted and returned again poverissimi.I casino in the country. Health care and free education were over. Big capital returned on their shields. The 'Democracy' had prevalso.Ma this 'policy' was by no means restricted to Central America. It was implemented all over the world. Was infinite. And it is as if not end mai.Gli United States supported and in many cases created every right-wing military dictatorship in the world after the Second World War. I refer to Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile and of course The horror the United States inflicted upon Chile in 1973 can never be purged and can never be perdonato.Centinaia of thousands of deaths occurred in all these countries. Occurred? And they are in all cases attributable to U.S. foreign policy? The answer is yes, occurred and are attributable to American foreign policy. But no one wanted sapere.Tutto this has never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening, not happening. It did not matter. Was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, relentless, but very few have really spoken. Congratulations America. He carried a scientific manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as directed under the universal good. It is a great, even brilliant, number of hypnosis, a large successo.Vi invite you to consider that the United States is without doubt the greatest show on the road. They can be brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless, they are also very skilled. As salesmen is unsurpassed and their merchandise is sold as self-love. They are winning. Listen to all American presidents on television say the words' the American people ', as in the phrase' I say to the American people that it is time to pray and to defend the rights of the American people and I ask the American people to have confidence in its chairman for the action it intends to play in the interest of the American people. 'It's a brilliant ploy. Language is actually employed to keep thought at bay. The words 'the American people' confer an extremely voluptuous cushion of reassurance. There is no need to think. Just sit back on the pillow. The cushion may be suffocating intelligence and critical faculties but it's very comfortable. This of course does not cover 40 million people living below the poverty line and the 2 million men and women imprisoned in the vast gulag prison USA.Gli across the United States does not care about more than low-intensity conflicts. They do not see no more reason to be reluctant or even misunderstandings. They put their cards on the table without fear or concern. Simply do not care about the United Nations, international law or critical dissent, which they regard as impotent and irrelevant. They also have a sheep bleating that goes behind obediently, the pathetic and supine Great Bretagna.Che what happened to our moral sensibility? We have never had one? What do these words mean? They refer to a term very rarely employed these days: consciousness? The awareness of acting not only our actions but also our shared responsibility in the acts of others? All this is dead? Look at Guantanamo Bay. Hundreds of people detained without charge for over three years, without legal counsel or due process, technically detained indefinitely. This totally illegitimate structure is maintained in defiance of the Geneva Convention. It is not only tolerated but hardly remembered by what is called the 'international community'. This criminal outrage is committed by a country which claims to be 'The leadership of the free world'. Think of those at Guantanamo? What the media say about them? Mention when it happens - a short article on page six. They have been consigned to a no man's land from which indeed may never return. Currently, many of them are on hunger strike, force-fed, including British residents. Nothing in these procedures with regard to feeding. No sedatives or anesthetics. Just a tube stuck inside the nose and throat. You vomit blood. This is torture. What do you say to the British Foreign Secretary? None. What do you think the British Prime Minister? None. Why? Why does the U.S. have said, criticize our conduct in Guantanamo Bay constitutes an unfriendly act. Either you are with us or against us. So Blair keeps his mouth chiusa.L 'invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the idea of \u200b\u200binternational law. The invasion was an arbitrary military action inspired by a series of lies on lies and a gross manipulation of the media and therefore of the public, an act intended to consolidate American military and economic control of the Middle East in disguise, as a last resort by liberation - since all else failed self-justifications. A formidable assertion of military force responsible for the death and mutilation of thousands and thousands of people to the Iraqi people innocenti.Abbiamo brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of murder and choice, suffering, degradation and death and we call this 'export freedom and democracy in the Middle East'. How many people have to kill to earn the status of a murderer and war criminal? One hundred thousand? There are more than enough, I guess. So it is right that Bush and Blair to be cited before the International Criminal Court. But Bush has been clever, has not ratified the International Criminal Court. So Bush has warned that if any American soldier or politician if you hold the bar, he will send the Marines. But Tony Blair has ratified the Court and therefore can be prosecuted. We can provide your address the Court, if you are interested: it is at number 10 Downing Street, Londra.La death in this context is irrelevant. Both Bush and Blair set aside for the good death. At least 100,000 Iraqis have been killed by American bombs and missiles before the beginning of the Iraqi insurgency. These people do not count. Their deaths do not exist. They are a black hole. They are not even registered as dead. 'We do not count the dead,' said the American general Tommy Franks.All 'invasion began, there was a photograph published on the front page of British newspapers of Tony Blair kissing the cheek an Iraqi child. 'The gratitude of a child,' said the caption. A few days later, on an inside page, the story was with a photograph of another child of four years, without arms. His family was blown up by a missile, he was the only survivor. 'When you regain my arms?' she asked. The episode was dropped. Well, Tony Blair did not take the arms or that child, nor the body of any other mutilated child, nor the body of any bloody corpse. Blood is dirty. You dirty shirt and tie while you're making a sincere speech to televisione.I 2,000 American dead are an embarrassment. Are transported to their graves in the dark. Funeral services are confidential, safe place. The mutilated rot in their beds, some for the rest of their lives. So be it that the dead mutilated rot, graves in the present hour differente.Ecco an excerpt from a poem by Pablo Neruda, 'I explain some things': And one morning all that was burning, one morning the bonfires
rose from the earth devouring human beings and from then on fire
,
gunpowder from then on, and since then
sangue.Banditi with planes and Moors, bandits with
finger rings and duchesses, bandits with
Dominican
blessing came from the sky to kill children and the streets
blood Children
flowed easily, like the blood of the dragons bambini.Sciacalli despicable, stones that the dry thistle damping and spits, vipers abominable vipere.Al to your presence in Spain I saw the blood rise like a tide to drown in a wave of pride and coltelli.Generali felons:
see my dead house, look
broken Spain: from every house
volumes of fire
instead of flowers, from every cavity
of Spain Spain emerges that,
and from every dead child a rifle precision
and from every crime bullets are born one day hitting
your cuori.E you ask: why
not his poetry speak of dreams and leaves
and the great volcanoes of his land natia.Venite see the blood in the streets. Come
to see the blood in the streets.
Come and see the blood in the streets! * Let me make it clear that in quoting the poetry of Neruda does not compare in any way the English Republic of Iraq Saddam Hussein. I quote Neruda because nowhere else in contemporary poetry I've read so powerful and visceral descriptions of the bombing of civili.Ho said before that the U.S. is now totally francs as put the cards on the table. This is the situation. Their official policy is now defined as 'dominance across the board' (Full Spectrum Dominance). It is not a word of mine, is theirs. 'Dominance across the board' means control of land, sea, air and space and all resources connesse.Gli now occupy 702 U.S. military installations in 132 countries around the world, with the notable exception of Sweden, of course. We have no idea how they got there, but there are, and everything is fine. The United States possess 8,000 active and operational nuclear warheads. Two thousand have already been alerted, ready to be launched with 15 minutes' notice. They are developing new nuclear weapons system, known as missile defense. The British, always ready to cooperate, intend to replace its nuclear missile, the Trident. Are focused on who I ask? On Osama bin Laden? On you? About me? Joe Dokes? On China? Paris? Who knows. What we do know is that this madness child - the possession and threat to use nuclear weapons - is at the heart of the current American political philosophy. We must remember that the U.S. is in a state of permanent war and shows no sign of wanting allentare.Molte thousands if not millions, of people in the United States itself is visibly disgusted, ashamed and outraged by the actions of their government, but when you are not a coherent political force - yet. But it is unlikely that anxiety, uncertainty and fear that we see growing daily in the United States diminuiscano.So that President Bush has many extremely competent staff who write the speeches, but I would like to volunteer for this job. I propose the following short speech he can make on television to the nation. I see him grave, hair carefully combed, serious, winning, sincere, often engaging, sometimes with a wry smile, attractive in a unique way, a real man. 'God is good. God is great. God is good. My God is good. Bin Laden's God is bad. His is a bad God. Saddam's God was bad except that he had it. He was a barbarian. We are not barbarians. We do not cut people's heads. We believe in freedom. As God I am not a barbarian. I am the democratically elected leader of a freedom-loving democracy. We are a compassionate society. We give compassionate electrocution and compassionate lethal injection. We are a great nation. I am not a dictator. He is. I am not a barbarian. He is. Yes, it is. All of them are. I possess moral authority. You see this fist? This is my moral authority. And do not forget '. The life of a writer is an extremely vulnerable, almost naked. Do not be crying over. The writer makes his choice and remains faithful. But it is true that one is exposed to the winds, some of them really cold. You end up alone in a dangerous position. You do not find no shelter, no protection - unless you do not mind, in which case of course it builds its own security and, one might conclude, it becomes a politico.Più times this evening I made reference to the death. I will mention now that my poem is called 'Death'. Where was the dead body found?
Who found the dead body?
The dead body was dead when he was found?
How was the dead body found? Who was the dead body? Who was the father or daughter or brother or uncle
or sister or mother or son Of the dead body and left
? The body was dead when was abandoned?
The body was abandoned?
Who was left? The body was naked or dressed as a journey? What makes you declare the dead body dead? You
pronounced dead body dead?:
how much you know the dead body?
How do you know the dead body was dead?
You washed the dead body Did you close both eyes
You buried the body I've left abandoned
You kissed the body mortoQuando look into a mirror we think the image of the face be faithful to us. But let's move a millimeter and the image changes. We are indeed witnessing an endless hall of mirrors. But sometimes a writer has to smash the mirror - because on the other side of that mirror that the truth fissa.Io we believe that despite the enormous obstacles that exist, resolute, constant, dogged determination to define intellectual, as citizens, real truth of our lives and our society is a crucial task that hangs over us all. In fact, it is vincolante.Se such a determination is not embodied in our political vision we have no hope of restoring what is so close for us to be lost - the dignity of man .* Taken from 'I explain some things' by Pablo Neruda (the translation takes into account the original English) © The Nobel Foundation 2005
Art, truth and politics
Art, truth and politics
ADDRESS FOR NOBEL LITERATURE
Harold Pinter - Stockholm - December 7, 2005
In 1958 I wrote the following: 'There is a rigid distinction between what is real and what is unreal, between what is true and what is false. One thing is not necessarily true or false, it can be true and false together '.
I believe that these assertions still make sense and apply to the exploration of reality through art. So as a writer, I remain faithful to them, but as a citizen I can not. As a citizen I must ask: what is it? What is false? The dramatic truth is always elusive. Although it is never completely, his research is compulsive. His research is clearly what drives the effort. His research is the task that you have. More often than not you stumble in the dark think in truth, bumping against or just glimpsing an image or a shape which seems to correspond to the truth, often without realizing that I did. But the actual truth is that there is never one truth to be found in the art dramatic. There are many. These truths challenge each other, they retreat, reflect, you know it, you are naughty, they are blind. Sometimes it feels to have in my hands the moment of truth, then it slips from his fingers and perduta.Spesso I was asked how do my plays. I do not know how to explain. I do not know even to summarize my work, except to say that what has happened. What has been said. What was fatto.La most of the works are generated by a joke, a word or an image. Often the word is quickly followed by the image. I will the example of two jokes that I came to her mind to be expected, followed by an image, followed by dramas are me.I 'Homecoming' and 'old days'. The first line of The Homecoming is 'What did you do with scissors?' The first line of Old Times is 'Dark'. In both cases I had no more informazioni.Nel first case someone was obviously looking for a pair of scissors and asked someone there to close that account suspected of being stolen. But somehow I knew that the person to whom he addressed did not care about the scissors or, in this respect, those who questioned her. 'Dark' understood as the description of someone's hair, the hair of a woman, and was the response to a question. In both cases I found myself forced to follow the argument. This happened visually, a very slow fade, through shadow into luce.Comincio always a play by calling the characters A, B and C. In the text became 'Homecoming' I saw a man get into a bare room and ask a question of a younger man sitting on an ugly sofa reading a racing paper. Somehow I suspected that A was B's father and the son was, but I had no proof. This was however confirmed a short time later when B (later to become Lenny) says to A (which would become Max), 'Dad, do you mind if I change topic? I want to ask you something. Lunch before, what name did he have? How do you call? Why not buy a dog? You're a dog cook. Seriously. You think you're cooking for a lot of dogs'. So the fact that B calls A 'Dad' made me likely that they were father and son. A was also clearly the cook and his cooking did not seem held in high esteem. All this meant that there was no mother? I did not know. But as I said at the time, our beginnings never know our ends. 'Dark'. A large window. The evening sky. A man, A (who was to become Deeley), and a woman, B (which was to become Kate), sitting with a drink in hand. 'Fat or thin?' the man asks. Who are they talking about? But then I see, standing at the window, a woman, C (which was to become Anna), in another location of light, her back, her hair scuri.È a strange moment, the moment of creating characters who up at that time had no existence. What follows is uneven, uncertain, even hallucinatory, although sometimes it can be an unstoppable avalanche. His position is unique. In a sense, is not pleasing to the characters. The characters are the resistance, it is not easy to live with them, are impossible to define. They certainly can not be imposed. To a certain extent you play with them a game that has no end, cat and mouse, blind man's buff, hide and seek. But in the end you are in the hands of flesh and blood people, people with their own will and individual sensitivity, assembled from components that you can not change, manipulate or distorcere.Così the language of art is largely an ambiguous, shifting sands , a trampoline, a spring ice that could wash you, the author, in any momento.Ma, as I said, the search for truth can never stop. Can not be delayed, can not be postponed. Should be addressed, just in time reale.Il political theater has a completely different range of problems. Preaching should be avoided at all costs. Objectivity is essential. The characters must be able to breathe the air they own. The author can not put limits on them to force them to satisfy their tastes or inclinations or pregiudizi.Egli must be prepared to approach a variety of angles, from a range of perspectives to be full and free of inhibitions; occasion to take them by surprise, perhaps, but nevertheless give them the freedom to follow the path they want. This does not always work. And political satire, of course, does not keep any of these precepts, and in fact does precisely the opposite, which is its function specifica.Nel my book 'The Birthday' I think I've allowed a whole range of options to operate in a dense forest of possibility before finally focusing on an act of enslavement. 'The mountain language 'does not aspire to such a range of operations. It remains brutal, short and unpleasant. But the work the soldiers find ways to have fun. Sometimes he forgets that torturers become bored easily. They need to have a laugh to keep up the spirit. This course has been confirmed by the facts of Abu Ghraib in Baghdad. The language of the mountain takes only 20 minutes, but could go on for hours and hours ahead, the same pattern repeated again and again and again and again, hour after hour. 'Ashes to Ashes', on the other hand, appears to me take place underwater. A woman who drowns, her hand stretched over the waves, sliding down invisible, looking for others, but finding no one above or or under water, finding only shadows, reflections, floating. The woman, a figure lost in a landscape that overwhelms a woman unable to escape the fate that seemed to be only altri.Ma as they died, she must morire.Il political language, as used by politicians, does not venture into none of these areas as most of the politicians, for what is being demonstrated, it is not interested in truth but in power and the preservation of that power. To maintain that power it is essential that people remain in ignorance, living in ignorance of the truth, even the truth of his own life. What surrounds us therefore is a vast tapestry of lies, of which there nutriamo.Come everyone knows, the justification for the invasion of Iraq was that Saddam Hussein possessed a highly dangerous arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, some of which could be operated in 45 minutes, causing appalling devastation. We were assured that was true. It was not true. We were told that Iraq had ties with Al Qaeda and was jointly responsible for the atrocities of September 11, 2001 in New York. We were assured that was true. It was not true. We were told that Iraq threatened the security of the world. We were assured that was true. It was not vero.La truth is something entirely differente.La truth has to do with how the U.S. intends to their role in the world and they choose to sostenerlo.Ma before returning to this I would like to take a look at the recent past, I mean the United States foreign policy since the end of war mondiale.Credo it is fair for us to subject this period to even a limited analysis, that there is time allowed by disposizione.Tutti know what happened in the Soviet Union and throughout Eastern Europe in the postwar period: the systematic brutality, the widespread atrocities, the ruthless suppression of independent thought. All this is fully documented and verificato.Ma here I argue that the U.S. crimes in the same period have only been superficially recorded, let alone have been documented, much less considered, let alone recognized as crimes. I think we should reflect on this and that truth has a significant relationship with the state in which the world faces today. Although you need to some extent on the existence of the Soviet Union, the U.S. actions around the world shows that they believed they had carte blanche to do what volevano.In effects Direct invasion of a sovereign state is not America was never the preferred method. Overall, they preferred what they described as 'low intensity conflict'. Low intensity conflict means that thousands of people die but slower than if you go off in one fell swoop on them a bomb. It means that you infect the heart of the village, which causes a malignant proliferation and watch the gangrene bloom. After the people have been subjected to - or, what is the same, beaten to death - and your friends, the military and large corporations, sit comfortably in power, you go in front of a camera and say that democracy has prevailed. This was a constant element of U.S. foreign policy the years to which I riferisco.La tragedy of Nicaragua was a highly significant case. I choose to offer it here as a powerful example of the vision of its role in the world by America, now and then. I was present at a meeting at the U.S. embassy in London in the late eighties. The United States Congress was about to decide whether to give more money to the Contras in their campaign against the state of Nicaragua.Io I was a member of a delegation that spoke in the interests of Nicaragua but the most important member of this delegation was Father John Metcalf. The Head of Delegation of the U.S. was Raymond Seitz (then number two of the embassy, \u200b\u200blater ambassador himself). Father Metcalf said: 'I am in charge of a parish in the north of Nicaragua. My parishioners built a school, a clinic, a cultural center. We lived in peace. A few months ago a group of Contras attacked the parish. They destroyed everything: the school, a clinic, the cultural center. They raped nurses and teachers, slaughtered doctors, in the most brutal. They behaved like savages. Please ask the U.S. government to withdraw its support for this abominable terrorist activity. 'Raymond Seitz had a very good reputation for rational, responsible and highly sophisticated. 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. I stared at him. Scompose.La not innocent people, in fact, suffers sempre.Alla Finally, someone said, 'But in this case "innocent people" was the victim of a gruesome atrocity subsidized by its government, one among many. If Congress grants to the Contras more money further atrocities of this sort will happen. Is not it? His government is therefore not guilty to supporting acts of murder and destruction against the citizens of a sovereign state? 'Seitz was imperturbable. 'I do not agree that the facts represented support your assertions,' disse.Mentre were leaving the Embassy a U.S. officer told me that he enjoyed my plays. Risposi.Dovrei not remember that at the time President Reagan made the following statement: 'The Contras are the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers.' In Nicaragua, the United States supported the brutal Somoza dictatorship for over 40 years. The Nicaraguan people, led by the Sandinistas, overthrew this regime in 1979, an extraordinary revolution popolare.I Sandinistas were not perfect. They had their good dose of arrogance and their political philosophy contained a number of contradictory elements. But they were intelligent, rational and civil. It is proposed to establish a balanced society, decent, pluralistic society. The death penalty was abolished. Hundreds of thousands of poor peasants were torn to death. More than 100,000 families were given land. Two thousand schools were built. A massive literacy campaign reduced illiteracy in the country less than one seventh. Were set free education and free health service. Infant mortality was reduced by one third. Polio was debellata.Gli United States denounced these achievements as Marxist-Leninist subversion. In view of the U.S. government, was creating a dangerous precedent. If Nicaragua was allowed to establish basic norms of social and economic justice, to raise standards of health and education and achieve social cohesion and national pride, neighbors would pursue the same goals and did the same things. Of course, at that time there was strong opposition to the status quo in El Salvador.Ho spoke before a 'tapestry of lies' which surrounds us. President Reagan commonly described Nicaragua as a 'totalitarian secret'. This was generally regarded by the media, and certainly by the British government, a proper and fair trial. But in fact there was no sign of death squads under the Sandinista government. There was no sign of torture. There was no of military brutality, systematic or official. No priest has ever been killed in Nicaragua. There were three priests in the rest of the government, two Jesuits and a missionary, Maryknoll. The totalitarian dungeons were actually next door, in El Salvador and Guatemala. In 1954 the U.S. brought down the democratically elected government of Guatemala, and are estimated at more than 200,000 victims of the successive dictatorships militari.Sei Jesuits among the most eminent in the world were slaughtered at the University of Central San Salvador in 1989 by a battalion of Alcatl regiment trained at Fort Benning in Georgia, USA. The brave Archbishop Romero was assassinated while saying mass. An estimated 75,000 people died. Why were killed? They were killed because they believed a better life was possible and should be achieved. This ideal immediately qualified them as communists. They died because they dared to question the status quo, the endless accumulation of misery, disease, degradation and oppression, which was their right to nascita.Gli United States to overthrow the Sandinista government order. It took years for some reason have a strong opposition but in the end the relentless economic persecution and 30,000 dead sap the spirit of the people of Nicaragua. They found themselves exhausted and returned again poverissimi.I casino in the country. Health care and free education were over. Big capital returned on their shields. The 'Democracy' had prevalso.Ma this 'policy' was by no means restricted to Central America. It was implemented all over the world. Was infinite. And it is as if not end mai.Gli United States supported and in many cases created every right-wing military dictatorship in the world after the Second World War. I refer to Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile and of course The horror the United States inflicted upon Chile in 1973 can never be purged and can never be perdonato.Centinaia of thousands of deaths occurred in all these countries. Occurred? And they are in all cases attributable to U.S. foreign policy? The answer is yes, occurred and are attributable to American foreign policy. But no one wanted sapere.Tutto this has never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening, not happening. It did not matter. Was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, relentless, but very few have really spoken. Congratulations America. He carried a scientific manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as directed under the universal good. It is a great, even brilliant, number of hypnosis, a large successo.Vi invite you to consider that the United States is without doubt the greatest show on the road. They can be brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless, they are also very skilled. As salesmen is unsurpassed and their merchandise is sold as self-love. They are winning. Listen to all American presidents on television say the words' the American people ', as in the phrase' I say to the American people that it is time to pray and to defend the rights of the American people and I ask the American people to have confidence in its chairman for the action it intends to play in the interest of the American people. 'It's a brilliant ploy. Language is actually employed to keep thought at bay. The words 'the American people' confer an extremely voluptuous cushion of reassurance. There is no need to think. Just sit back on the pillow. The cushion may be suffocating intelligence and critical faculties but it's very comfortable. This of course does not cover 40 million people living below the poverty line and the 2 million men and women imprisoned in the vast gulag prison USA.Gli across the United States does not care about more than low-intensity conflicts. They do not see no more reason to be reluctant or even misunderstandings. They put their cards on the table without fear or concern. Simply do not care about the United Nations, international law or critical dissent, which they regard as impotent and irrelevant. They also have a sheep bleating that goes behind obediently, the pathetic and supine Great Bretagna.Che what happened to our moral sensibility? We have never had one? What do these words mean? They refer to a term very rarely employed these days: consciousness? The awareness of acting not only our actions but also our shared responsibility in the acts of others? All this is dead? Look at Guantanamo Bay. Hundreds of people detained without charge for over three years, without legal counsel or due process, technically detained indefinitely. This totally illegitimate structure is maintained in defiance of the Geneva Convention. It is not only tolerated but hardly remembered by what is called the 'international community'. This criminal outrage is committed by a country which claims to be 'The leadership of the free world'. Think of those at Guantanamo? What the media say about them? Mention when it happens - a short article on page six. They have been consigned to a no man's land from which indeed may never return. Currently, many of them are on hunger strike, force-fed, including British residents. Nothing in these procedures with regard to feeding. No sedatives or anesthetics. Just a tube stuck inside the nose and throat. You vomit blood. This is torture. What do you say to the British Foreign Secretary? None. What do you think the British Prime Minister? None. Why? Why does the U.S. have said, criticize our conduct in Guantanamo Bay constitutes an unfriendly act. Either you are with us or against us. So Blair keeps his mouth chiusa.L 'invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the idea of \u200b\u200binternational law. The invasion was an arbitrary military action inspired by a series of lies on lies and a gross manipulation of the media and therefore of the public, an act intended to consolidate American military and economic control of the Middle East in disguise, as a last resort by liberation - since all else failed self-justifications. A formidable assertion of military force responsible for the death and mutilation of thousands and thousands of people to the Iraqi people innocenti.Abbiamo brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of murder and choice, suffering, degradation and death and we call this 'export freedom and democracy in the Middle East'. How many people have to kill to earn the status of a murderer and war criminal? One hundred thousand? There are more than enough, I guess. So it is right that Bush and Blair to be cited before the International Criminal Court. But Bush has been clever, has not ratified the International Criminal Court. So Bush has warned that if any American soldier or politician if you hold the bar, he will send the Marines. But Tony Blair has ratified the Court and therefore can be prosecuted. We can provide your address the Court, if you are interested: it is at number 10 Downing Street, Londra.La death in this context is irrelevant. Both Bush and Blair set aside for the good death. At least 100,000 Iraqis have been killed by American bombs and missiles before the beginning of the Iraqi insurgency. These people do not count. Their deaths do not exist. They are a black hole. They are not even registered as dead. 'We do not count the dead,' said the American general Tommy Franks.All 'invasion began, there was a photograph published on the front page of British newspapers of Tony Blair kissing the cheek an Iraqi child. 'The gratitude of a child,' said the caption. A few days later, on an inside page, the story was with a photograph of another child of four years, without arms. His family was blown up by a missile, he was the only survivor. 'When you regain my arms?' she asked. The episode was dropped. Well, Tony Blair did not take the arms or that child, nor the body of any other mutilated child, nor the body of any bloody corpse. Blood is dirty. You dirty shirt and tie while you're making a sincere speech to televisione.I 2,000 American dead are an embarrassment. Are transported to their graves in the dark. Funeral services are confidential, safe place. The mutilated rot in their beds, some for the rest of their lives. So be it that the dead mutilated rot, graves in the present hour differente.Ecco an excerpt from a poem by Pablo Neruda, 'I explain some things': And one morning all that was burning, one morning the bonfires
rose from the earth devouring human beings and from then on fire
,
gunpowder from then on, and since then
sangue.Banditi with planes and Moors, bandits with
finger rings and duchesses, bandits with
Dominican
blessing came from the sky to kill children and the streets
blood Children
flowed easily, like the blood of the dragons bambini.Sciacalli despicable, stones that the dry thistle damping and spits, vipers abominable vipere.Al to your presence in Spain I saw the blood rise like a tide to drown in a wave of pride and coltelli.Generali felons:
see my dead house, look
broken Spain: from every house
volumes of fire
instead of flowers, from every cavity
of Spain Spain emerges that,
and from every dead child a rifle precision
and from every crime bullets are born one day hitting
your cuori.E you ask: why
not his poetry speak of dreams and leaves
and the great volcanoes of his land natia.Venite see the blood in the streets. Come
to see the blood in the streets.
Come and see the blood in the streets! * Let me make it clear that in quoting the poetry of Neruda does not compare in any way the English Republic of Iraq Saddam Hussein. I quote Neruda because nowhere else in contemporary poetry I've read so powerful and visceral descriptions of the bombing of civili.Ho said before that the U.S. is now totally francs as put the cards on the table. This is the situation. Their official policy is now defined as 'dominance across the board' (Full Spectrum Dominance). It is not a word of mine, is theirs. 'Dominance across the board' means control of land, sea, air and space and all resources connesse.Gli now occupy 702 U.S. military installations in 132 countries around the world, with the notable exception of Sweden, of course. We have no idea how they got there, but there are, and everything is fine. The United States possess 8,000 active and operational nuclear warheads. Two thousand have already been alerted, ready to be launched with 15 minutes' notice. They are developing new nuclear weapons system, known as missile defense. The British, always ready to cooperate, intend to replace its nuclear missile, the Trident. Are focused on who I ask? On Osama bin Laden? On you? About me? Joe Dokes? On China? Paris? Who knows. What we do know is that this madness child - the possession and threat to use nuclear weapons - is at the heart of the current American political philosophy. We must remember that the U.S. is in a state of permanent war and shows no sign of wanting allentare.Molte thousands if not millions, of people in the United States itself is visibly disgusted, ashamed and outraged by the actions of their government, but when you are not a coherent political force - yet. But it is unlikely that anxiety, uncertainty and fear that we see growing daily in the United States diminuiscano.So that President Bush has many extremely competent staff who write the speeches, but I would like to volunteer for this job. I propose the following short speech he can make on television to the nation. I see him grave, hair carefully combed, serious, winning, sincere, often engaging, sometimes with a wry smile, attractive in a unique way, a real man. 'God is good. God is great. God is good. My God is good. Bin Laden's God is bad. His is a bad God. Saddam's God was bad except that he had it. He was a barbarian. We are not barbarians. We do not cut people's heads. We believe in freedom. As God I am not a barbarian. I am the democratically elected leader of a freedom-loving democracy. We are a compassionate society. We give compassionate electrocution and compassionate lethal injection. We are a great nation. I am not a dictator. He is. I am not a barbarian. He is. Yes, it is. All of them are. I possess moral authority. You see this fist? This is my moral authority. And do not forget '. The life of a writer is an extremely vulnerable, almost naked. Do not be crying over. The writer makes his choice and remains faithful. But it is true that one is exposed to the winds, some of them really cold. You end up alone in a dangerous position. You do not find no shelter, no protection - unless you do not mind, in which case of course it builds its own security and, one might conclude, it becomes a politico.Più times this evening I made reference to the death. I will mention now that my poem is called 'Death'. Where was the dead body found?
Who found the dead body?
The dead body was dead when he was found?
How was the dead body found? Who was the dead body? Who was the father or daughter or brother or uncle
or sister or mother or son Of the dead body and left
? The body was dead when was abandoned?
The body was abandoned?
Who was left? The body was naked or dressed as a journey? What makes you declare the dead body dead? You
pronounced dead body dead?:
how much you know the dead body?
How do you know the dead body was dead?
You washed the dead body Did you close both eyes
You buried the body I've left abandoned
You kissed the body mortoQuando look into a mirror we think the image of the face be faithful to us. But let's move a millimeter and the image changes. We are indeed witnessing an endless hall of mirrors. But sometimes a writer has to smash the mirror - because on the other side of that mirror that the truth fissa.Io we believe that despite the enormous obstacles that exist, resolute, constant, dogged determination to define intellectual, as citizens, real truth of our lives and our society is a crucial task that hangs over us all. In fact, it is vincolante.Se such a determination is not embodied in our political vision we have no hope of restoring what is so close for us to be lost - the dignity of man .* Taken from 'I explain some things' by Pablo Neruda (the translation takes into account the original English) © The Nobel Foundation 2005
Art, truth and politics
Art, truth and politics
ADDRESS FOR NOBEL LITERATURE
Harold Pinter - Stockholm - December 7, 2005
In 1958 I wrote the following: 'There is a rigid distinction between what is real and what is unreal, between what is true and what is false. One thing is not necessarily true or false, it can be true and false together '.
I believe that these assertions still make sense and apply to the exploration of reality through art. So as a writer, I remain faithful to them, but as a citizen I can not. As a citizen I must ask: what is it? What is false? The dramatic truth is always elusive. Although it is never completely, his research is compulsive. His research is clearly what drives the effort. His research is the task that you have. More often than not you stumble in the dark think in truth, bumping against or just glimpsing an image or a shape which seems to correspond to the truth, often without realizing that I did. But the actual truth is that there is never one truth to be found in the art dramatic. There are many. These truths challenge each other, they retreat, reflect, you know it, you are naughty, they are blind. Sometimes it feels to have in my hands the moment of truth, then it slips from his fingers and perduta.Spesso I was asked how do my plays. I do not know how to explain. I do not know even to summarize my work, except to say that what has happened. What has been said. What was fatto.La most of the works are generated by a joke, a word or an image. Often the word is quickly followed by the image. I will the example of two jokes that I came to her mind to be expected, followed by an image, followed by dramas are me.I 'Homecoming' and 'old days'. The first line of The Homecoming is 'What did you do with scissors?' The first line of Old Times is 'Dark'. In both cases I had no more informazioni.Nel first case someone was obviously looking for a pair of scissors and asked someone there to close that account suspected of being stolen. But somehow I knew that the person to whom he addressed did not care about the scissors or, in this respect, those who questioned her. 'Dark' understood as the description of someone's hair, the hair of a woman, and was the response to a question. In both cases I found myself forced to follow the argument. This happened visually, a very slow fade, through shadow into luce.Comincio always a play by calling the characters A, B and C. In the text became 'Homecoming' I saw a man get into a bare room and ask a question of a younger man sitting on an ugly sofa reading a racing paper. Somehow I suspected that A was B's father and the son was, but I had no proof. This was however confirmed a short time later when B (later to become Lenny) says to A (which would become Max), 'Dad, do you mind if I change topic? I want to ask you something. Lunch before, what name did he have? How do you call? Why not buy a dog? You're a dog cook. Seriously. You think you're cooking for a lot of dogs'. So the fact that B calls A 'Dad' made me likely that they were father and son. A was also clearly the cook and his cooking did not seem held in high esteem. All this meant that there was no mother? I did not know. But as I said at the time, our beginnings never know our ends. 'Dark'. A large window. The evening sky. A man, A (who was to become Deeley), and a woman, B (which was to become Kate), sitting with a drink in hand. 'Fat or thin?' the man asks. Who are they talking about? But then I see, standing at the window, a woman, C (which was to become Anna), in another location of light, her back, her hair scuri.È a strange moment, the moment of creating characters who up at that time had no existence. What follows is uneven, uncertain, even hallucinatory, although sometimes it can be an unstoppable avalanche. His position is unique. In a sense, is not pleasing to the characters. The characters are the resistance, it is not easy to live with them, are impossible to define. They certainly can not be imposed. To a certain extent you play with them a game that has no end, cat and mouse, blind man's buff, hide and seek. But in the end you are in the hands of flesh and blood people, people with their own will and individual sensitivity, assembled from components that you can not change, manipulate or distorcere.Così the language of art is largely an ambiguous, shifting sands , a trampoline, a spring ice that could wash you, the author, in any momento.Ma, as I said, the search for truth can never stop. Can not be delayed, can not be postponed. Should be addressed, just in time reale.Il political theater has a completely different range of problems. Preaching should be avoided at all costs. Objectivity is essential. The characters must be able to breathe the air they own. The author can not put limits on them to force them to satisfy their tastes or inclinations or pregiudizi.Egli must be prepared to approach a variety of angles, from a range of perspectives to be full and free of inhibitions; occasion to take them by surprise, perhaps, but nevertheless give them the freedom to follow the path they want. This does not always work. And political satire, of course, does not keep any of these precepts, and in fact does precisely the opposite, which is its function specifica.Nel my book 'The Birthday' I think I've allowed a whole range of options to operate in a dense forest of possibility before finally focusing on an act of enslavement. 'The mountain language 'does not aspire to such a range of operations. It remains brutal, short and unpleasant. But the work the soldiers find ways to have fun. Sometimes he forgets that torturers become bored easily. They need to have a laugh to keep up the spirit. This course has been confirmed by the facts of Abu Ghraib in Baghdad. The language of the mountain takes only 20 minutes, but could go on for hours and hours ahead, the same pattern repeated again and again and again and again, hour after hour. 'Ashes to Ashes', on the other hand, appears to me take place underwater. A woman who drowns, her hand stretched over the waves, sliding down invisible, looking for others, but finding no one above or or under water, finding only shadows, reflections, floating. The woman, a figure lost in a landscape that overwhelms a woman unable to escape the fate that seemed to be only altri.Ma as they died, she must morire.Il political language, as used by politicians, does not venture into none of these areas as most of the politicians, for what is being demonstrated, it is not interested in truth but in power and the preservation of that power. To maintain that power it is essential that people remain in ignorance, living in ignorance of the truth, even the truth of his own life. What surrounds us therefore is a vast tapestry of lies, of which there nutriamo.Come everyone knows, the justification for the invasion of Iraq was that Saddam Hussein possessed a highly dangerous arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, some of which could be operated in 45 minutes, causing appalling devastation. We were assured that was true. It was not true. We were told that Iraq had ties with Al Qaeda and was jointly responsible for the atrocities of September 11, 2001 in New York. We were assured that was true. It was not true. We were told that Iraq threatened the security of the world. We were assured that was true. It was not vero.La truth is something entirely differente.La truth has to do with how the U.S. intends to their role in the world and they choose to sostenerlo.Ma before returning to this I would like to take a look at the recent past, I mean the United States foreign policy since the end of war mondiale.Credo it is fair for us to subject this period to even a limited analysis, that there is time allowed by disposizione.Tutti know what happened in the Soviet Union and throughout Eastern Europe in the postwar period: the systematic brutality, the widespread atrocities, the ruthless suppression of independent thought. All this is fully documented and verificato.Ma here I argue that the U.S. crimes in the same period have only been superficially recorded, let alone have been documented, much less considered, let alone recognized as crimes. I think we should reflect on this and that truth has a significant relationship with the state in which the world faces today. Although you need to some extent on the existence of the Soviet Union, the U.S. actions around the world shows that they believed they had carte blanche to do what volevano.In effects Direct invasion of a sovereign state is not America was never the preferred method. Overall, they preferred what they described as 'low intensity conflict'. Low intensity conflict means that thousands of people die but slower than if you go off in one fell swoop on them a bomb. It means that you infect the heart of the village, which causes a malignant proliferation and watch the gangrene bloom. After the people have been subjected to - or, what is the same, beaten to death - and your friends, the military and large corporations, sit comfortably in power, you go in front of a camera and say that democracy has prevailed. This was a constant element of U.S. foreign policy the years to which I riferisco.La tragedy of Nicaragua was a highly significant case. I choose to offer it here as a powerful example of the vision of its role in the world by America, now and then. I was present at a meeting at the U.S. embassy in London in the late eighties. The United States Congress was about to decide whether to give more money to the Contras in their campaign against the state of Nicaragua.Io I was a member of a delegation that spoke in the interests of Nicaragua but the most important member of this delegation was Father John Metcalf. The Head of Delegation of the U.S. was Raymond Seitz (then number two of the embassy, \u200b\u200blater ambassador himself). Father Metcalf said: 'I am in charge of a parish in the north of Nicaragua. My parishioners built a school, a clinic, a cultural center. We lived in peace. A few months ago a group of Contras attacked the parish. They destroyed everything: the school, a clinic, the cultural center. They raped nurses and teachers, slaughtered doctors, in the most brutal. They behaved like savages. Please ask the U.S. government to withdraw its support for this abominable terrorist activity. 'Raymond Seitz had a very good reputation for rational, responsible and highly sophisticated. 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. I stared at him. Scompose.La not innocent people, in fact, suffers sempre.Alla Finally, someone said, 'But in this case "innocent people" was the victim of a gruesome atrocity subsidized by its government, one among many. If Congress grants to the Contras more money further atrocities of this sort will happen. Is not it? His government is therefore not guilty to supporting acts of murder and destruction against the citizens of a sovereign state? 'Seitz was imperturbable. 'I do not agree that the facts represented support your assertions,' disse.Mentre were leaving the Embassy a U.S. officer told me that he enjoyed my plays. Risposi.Dovrei not remember that at the time President Reagan made the following statement: 'The Contras are the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers.' In Nicaragua, the United States supported the brutal Somoza dictatorship for over 40 years. The Nicaraguan people, led by the Sandinistas, overthrew this regime in 1979, an extraordinary revolution popolare.I Sandinistas were not perfect. They had their good dose of arrogance and their political philosophy contained a number of contradictory elements. But they were intelligent, rational and civil. It is proposed to establish a balanced society, decent, pluralistic society. The death penalty was abolished. Hundreds of thousands of poor peasants were torn to death. More than 100,000 families were given land. Two thousand schools were built. A massive literacy campaign reduced illiteracy in the country less than one seventh. Were set free education and free health service. Infant mortality was reduced by one third. Polio was debellata.Gli United States denounced these achievements as Marxist-Leninist subversion. In view of the U.S. government, was creating a dangerous precedent. If Nicaragua was allowed to establish basic norms of social and economic justice, to raise standards of health and education and achieve social cohesion and national pride, neighbors would pursue the same goals and did the same things. Of course, at that time there was strong opposition to the status quo in El Salvador.Ho spoke before a 'tapestry of lies' which surrounds us. President Reagan commonly described Nicaragua as a 'totalitarian secret'. This was generally regarded by the media, and certainly by the British government, a proper and fair trial. But in fact there was no sign of death squads under the Sandinista government. There was no sign of torture. There was no of military brutality, systematic or official. No priest has ever been killed in Nicaragua. There were three priests in the rest of the government, two Jesuits and a missionary, Maryknoll. The totalitarian dungeons were actually next door, in El Salvador and Guatemala. In 1954 the U.S. brought down the democratically elected government of Guatemala, and are estimated at more than 200,000 victims of the successive dictatorships militari.Sei Jesuits among the most eminent in the world were slaughtered at the University of Central San Salvador in 1989 by a battalion of Alcatl regiment trained at Fort Benning in Georgia, USA. The brave Archbishop Romero was assassinated while saying mass. An estimated 75,000 people died. Why were killed? They were killed because they believed a better life was possible and should be achieved. This ideal immediately qualified them as communists. They died because they dared to question the status quo, the endless accumulation of misery, disease, degradation and oppression, which was their right to nascita.Gli United States to overthrow the Sandinista government order. It took years for some reason have a strong opposition but in the end the relentless economic persecution and 30,000 dead sap the spirit of the people of Nicaragua. They found themselves exhausted and returned again poverissimi.I casino in the country. Health care and free education were over. Big capital returned on their shields. The 'Democracy' had prevalso.Ma this 'policy' was by no means restricted to Central America. It was implemented all over the world. Was infinite. And it is as if not end mai.Gli United States supported and in many cases created every right-wing military dictatorship in the world after the Second World War. I refer to Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile and of course The horror the United States inflicted upon Chile in 1973 can never be purged and can never be perdonato.Centinaia of thousands of deaths occurred in all these countries. Occurred? And they are in all cases attributable to U.S. foreign policy? The answer is yes, occurred and are attributable to American foreign policy. But no one wanted sapere.Tutto this has never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening, not happening. It did not matter. Was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, relentless, but very few have really spoken. Congratulations America. He carried a scientific manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as directed under the universal good. It is a great, even brilliant, number of hypnosis, a large successo.Vi invite you to consider that the United States is without doubt the greatest show on the road. They can be brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless, they are also very skilled. As salesmen is unsurpassed and their merchandise is sold as self-love. They are winning. Listen to all American presidents on television say the words' the American people ', as in the phrase' I say to the American people that it is time to pray and to defend the rights of the American people and I ask the American people to have confidence in its chairman for the action it intends to play in the interest of the American people. 'It's a brilliant ploy. Language is actually employed to keep thought at bay. The words 'the American people' confer an extremely voluptuous cushion of reassurance. There is no need to think. Just sit back on the pillow. The cushion may be suffocating intelligence and critical faculties but it's very comfortable. This of course does not cover 40 million people living below the poverty line and the 2 million men and women imprisoned in the vast gulag prison USA.Gli across the United States does not care about more than low-intensity conflicts. They do not see no more reason to be reluctant or even misunderstandings. They put their cards on the table without fear or concern. Simply do not care about the United Nations, international law or critical dissent, which they regard as impotent and irrelevant. They also have a sheep bleating that goes behind obediently, the pathetic and supine Great Bretagna.Che what happened to our moral sensibility? We have never had one? What do these words mean? They refer to a term very rarely employed these days: consciousness? The awareness of acting not only our actions but also our shared responsibility in the acts of others? All this is dead? Look at Guantanamo Bay. Hundreds of people detained without charge for over three years, without legal counsel or due process, technically detained indefinitely. This totally illegitimate structure is maintained in defiance of the Geneva Convention. It is not only tolerated but hardly remembered by what is called the 'international community'. This criminal outrage is committed by a country which claims to be 'The leadership of the free world'. Think of those at Guantanamo? What the media say about them? Mention when it happens - a short article on page six. They have been consigned to a no man's land from which indeed may never return. Currently, many of them are on hunger strike, force-fed, including British residents. Nothing in these procedures with regard to feeding. No sedatives or anesthetics. Just a tube stuck inside the nose and throat. You vomit blood. This is torture. What do you say to the British Foreign Secretary? None. What do you think the British Prime Minister? None. Why? Why does the U.S. have said, criticize our conduct in Guantanamo Bay constitutes an unfriendly act. Either you are with us or against us. So Blair keeps his mouth chiusa.L 'invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the idea of \u200b\u200binternational law. The invasion was an arbitrary military action inspired by a series of lies on lies and a gross manipulation of the media and therefore of the public, an act intended to consolidate American military and economic control of the Middle East in disguise, as a last resort by liberation - since all else failed self-justifications. A formidable assertion of military force responsible for the death and mutilation of thousands and thousands of people to the Iraqi people innocenti.Abbiamo brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of murder and choice, suffering, degradation and death and we call this 'export freedom and democracy in the Middle East'. How many people have to kill to earn the status of a murderer and war criminal? One hundred thousand? There are more than enough, I guess. So it is right that Bush and Blair to be cited before the International Criminal Court. But Bush has been clever, has not ratified the International Criminal Court. So Bush has warned that if any American soldier or politician if you hold the bar, he will send the Marines. But Tony Blair has ratified the Court and therefore can be prosecuted. We can provide your address the Court, if you are interested: it is at number 10 Downing Street, Londra.La death in this context is irrelevant. Both Bush and Blair set aside for the good death. At least 100,000 Iraqis have been killed by American bombs and missiles before the beginning of the Iraqi insurgency. These people do not count. Their deaths do not exist. They are a black hole. They are not even registered as dead. 'We do not count the dead,' said the American general Tommy Franks.All 'invasion began, there was a photograph published on the front page of British newspapers of Tony Blair kissing the cheek an Iraqi child. 'The gratitude of a child,' said the caption. A few days later, on an inside page, the story was with a photograph of another child of four years, without arms. His family was blown up by a missile, he was the only survivor. 'When you regain my arms?' she asked. The episode was dropped. Well, Tony Blair did not take the arms or that child, nor the body of any other mutilated child, nor the body of any bloody corpse. Blood is dirty. You dirty shirt and tie while you're making a sincere speech to televisione.I 2,000 American dead are an embarrassment. Are transported to their graves in the dark. Funeral services are confidential, safe place. The mutilated rot in their beds, some for the rest of their lives. So be it that the dead mutilated rot, graves in the present hour differente.Ecco an excerpt from a poem by Pablo Neruda, 'I explain some things': And one morning all that was burning, one morning the bonfires
rose from the earth devouring human beings and from then on fire
,
gunpowder from then on, and since then
sangue.Banditi with planes and Moors, bandits with
finger rings and duchesses, bandits with
Dominican
blessing came from the sky to kill children and the streets
blood Children
flowed easily, like the blood of the dragons bambini.Sciacalli despicable, stones that the dry thistle damping and spits, vipers abominable vipere.Al to your presence in Spain I saw the blood rise like a tide to drown in a wave of pride and coltelli.Generali felons:
see my dead house, look
broken Spain: from every house
volumes of fire
instead of flowers, from every cavity
of Spain Spain emerges that,
and from every dead child a rifle precision
and from every crime bullets are born one day hitting
your cuori.E you ask: why
not his poetry speak of dreams and leaves
and the great volcanoes of his land natia.Venite see the blood in the streets. Come
to see the blood in the streets.
Come and see the blood in the streets! * Let me make it clear that in quoting the poetry of Neruda does not compare in any way the English Republic of Iraq Saddam Hussein. I quote Neruda because nowhere else in contemporary poetry I've read so powerful and visceral descriptions of the bombing of civili.Ho said before that the U.S. is now totally francs as put the cards on the table. This is the situation. Their official policy is now defined as 'dominance across the board' (Full Spectrum Dominance). It is not a word of mine, is theirs. 'Dominance across the board' means control of land, sea, air and space and all resources connesse.Gli now occupy 702 U.S. military installations in 132 countries around the world, with the notable exception of Sweden, of course. We have no idea how they got there, but there are, and everything is fine. The United States possess 8,000 active and operational nuclear warheads. Two thousand have already been alerted, ready to be launched with 15 minutes' notice. They are developing new nuclear weapons system, known as missile defense. The British, always ready to cooperate, intend to replace its nuclear missile, the Trident. Are focused on who I ask? On Osama bin Laden? On you? About me? Joe Dokes? On China? Paris? Who knows. What we do know is that this madness child - the possession and threat to use nuclear weapons - is at the heart of the current American political philosophy. We must remember that the U.S. is in a state of permanent war and shows no sign of wanting allentare.Molte thousands if not millions, of people in the United States itself is visibly disgusted, ashamed and outraged by the actions of their government, but when you are not a coherent political force - yet. But it is unlikely that anxiety, uncertainty and fear that we see growing daily in the United States diminuiscano.So that President Bush has many extremely competent staff who write the speeches, but I would like to volunteer for this job. I propose the following short speech he can make on television to the nation. I see him grave, hair carefully combed, serious, winning, sincere, often engaging, sometimes with a wry smile, attractive in a unique way, a real man. 'God is good. God is great. God is good. My God is good. Bin Laden's God is bad. His is a bad God. Saddam's God was bad except that he had it. He was a barbarian. We are not barbarians. We do not cut people's heads. We believe in freedom. As God I am not a barbarian. I am the democratically elected leader of a freedom-loving democracy. We are a compassionate society. We give compassionate electrocution and compassionate lethal injection. We are a great nation. I am not a dictator. He is. I am not a barbarian. He is. Yes, it is. All of them are. I possess moral authority. You see this fist? This is my moral authority. And do not forget '. The life of a writer is an extremely vulnerable, almost naked. Do not be crying over. The writer makes his choice and remains faithful. But it is true that one is exposed to the winds, some of them really cold. You end up alone in a dangerous position. You do not find no shelter, no protection - unless you do not mind, in which case of course it builds its own security and, one might conclude, it becomes a politico.Più times this evening I made reference to the death. I will mention now that my poem is called 'Death'. Where was the dead body found?
Who found the dead body?
The dead body was dead when he was found?
How was the dead body found? Who was the dead body? Who was the father or daughter or brother or uncle
or sister or mother or son Of the dead body and left
? The body was dead when was abandoned?
The body was abandoned?
Who was left? The body was naked or dressed as a journey? What makes you declare the dead body dead? You
pronounced dead body dead?:
how much you know the dead body?
How do you know the dead body was dead?
You washed the dead body Did you close both eyes
You buried the body I've left abandoned
You kissed the body mortoQuando look into a mirror we think the image of the face be faithful to us. But let's move a millimeter and the image changes. We are indeed witnessing an endless hall of mirrors. But sometimes a writer has to smash the mirror - because on the other side of that mirror that the truth fissa.Io we believe that despite the enormous obstacles that exist, resolute, constant, dogged determination to define intellectual, as citizens, real truth of our lives and our society is a crucial task that hangs over us all. In fact, it is vincolante.Se such a determination is not embodied in our political vision we have no hope of restoring what is so close for us to be lost - the dignity of man .* Taken from 'I explain some things' by Pablo Neruda (the translation takes into account the original English) © The Nobel Foundation 2005
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