"Art, Truth and Politics"

Noble Lecture by Harold Pinter, December 7, 2005

The United States supported the brutal Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua for over forty 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 civilized. 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. 2,000 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 healthcare and education and achieve social unity and national self-respect, neighboring 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's 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 "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 two million men and women imprisoned in the vast gulag of prisons, which extends across the United States.

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 favor. 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 anesthetic. 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 criticize 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 responsible for the death and mutilation of thousands and thousands of innocent people.

How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? 100,000? More than enough, I would have thought. Therefore, it is just that Bush and Blair be arraigned before the International Criminal Court of Justice. But Bush has been clever. He has not ratified the International Criminal Court of Justice. Therefore, if any American soldier or, for that matter, politician finds himself in the dock, Bush has warned that he will send in the Marines. But Tony Blair has ratified the Court and is therefore available for prosecution. We can let the Court have his address, if they're interested. It is Number 10, Downing Street, London.

Death in this context is irrelevant. Both Bush and Blair place death well away on the back burner. At least 100,000 Iraqis were killed by American bombs and missiles before the Iraq insurgency began. These people are of no moment. Their deaths don't exist. They are blank. They're not even recorded as being dead. "We don't do body counts," said the American general Tommy Franks.

Early in the invasion, there was a photograph published on the front page of British newspapers of Tony Blair kissing the cheek of a little Iraqi boy. "A grateful child," said the caption. A few days later, there was a story and photograph on an inside page of another four-year-old boy with no arms. His family had been blown up by a missile. He was the only survivor. "When do I get my arms back?" he asked. This story was never referred to again. Well, Tony Blair wasn't holding him in his arms, nor the body of any other mutilated child, nor the body of any bloody corpse. Blood is dirty. It dirties your shirt and tie when you're making a sincere speech on television.

The 2,000 American dead are an embarrassment. They are transported to their graves in the dark. Funerals are unobtrusive, out of harm's way. The mutilated rot in their beds, some for the rest of their lives. So the dead and the mutilated both rot, in different kinds of graves.

Here is an extract from a poem by Pablo Neruda, "I'm Explaining a Few Things":

And one morning all that was burning, _one morning the bonfires _leapt out of the earth _devouring human beings _and from then on fire, _gunpowder from then on, _and from then on blood. _Bandits with planes and Moors, _bandits with finger-rings and duchesses, _bandits with black friars spattering blessings _came through the sky to kill children _and the blood of children ran through the streets _without fuss, like children's blood.

Jackals that the jackals would despise _stones that the dry thistle would bite on and spit out, _vipers that the vipers would abominate.

Face to face with you I have seen the blood _of Spain tower like a tide _to drown you in one wave _of pride and knives.

Treacherous _generals: _see my dead house, _look at broken Spain: _from every house burning metal flows _instead of flowers _from every socket of Spain _Spain emerges _and from every dead child a rifle with eyes _and from every crime bullets are born _which will one day find _the bull's eye of your hearts.

And you will ask: why doesn't his poetry _speak of dreams and leaves _and the great volcanoes of his native land.

Come and see the blood in the streets. _Come and see _the blood in the streets. _Come and see the blood _in the streets!

Let me make it quite clear that in quoting from Neruda's poem, I am in no way comparing Republican Spain to Saddam Hussein's Iraq. I quote Neruda, because nowhere in contemporary poetry have I read such a powerful visceral description of the bombing of civilians.

I have said earlier that the United States is now totally frank about putting its cards on the table. That is the case. Its official declared policy is now defined as "full spectrum dominance." That is not my term, it is theirs. "Full spectrum dominance" means control of land, sea, air and space and all attendant resources.

The United States now occupies 702 military installations throughout the world in 132 countries, with the honorable exception of Sweden, of course. We don't quite know how they got there, but they are there all right.

The United States possesses 8,000 active and operational nuclear warheads. 2,000 are on hair-trigger alert, ready to be launched with fifteen minutes warning. It is developing new systems of nuclear force, known as bunker busters. The British, ever cooperative, are intending to replace their own nuclear missile, Trident. Who, I wonder, are they aiming at? Osama bin Laden? You? Me? Joe Dokes? China? Paris? Who knows? What we do know is that this infantile insanity, the possession and threatened use of nuclear weapons, is at the heart of present American political philosophy. We must remind ourselves that the United States is on a permanent military footing and shows no sign of relaxing it.

Many thousands, if not millions, of people in the United States itself are demonstrably sickened, shamed and angered by their government's actions, but as things stand, they are not a coherent political force-yet. But the anxiety, uncertainty and fear, which we can see growing daily in the United States, is unlikely to diminish.

I know that President Bush has many extremely competent speech writers, but I would like to volunteer for the job myself. I propose the following short address, which he can make on television to the nation. I see him grave, hair carefully combed, serious, winning, sincere, often beguiling, sometimes employing a wry smile, curiously attractive, a man's 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 he didn't have one. He was a barbarian. We are not barbarians. We don't chop people's heads off. We believe in freedom. So does 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. They all are. I possess moral authority. You see this fist? This is my moral authority. And don't you forget it."

A writer's life is a highly vulnerable, almost naked activity. We don't have to weep about that. The writer makes his choice and is stuck with it. But it is true to say that you are open to all the winds, some of them icy indeed. You are out on your own, out on a limb. You find no shelter, no protection, unless you lie, in which case of course you have constructed your own protection and, it could be argued, become a politician.

I have referred to death quite a few times in this speech. I shall now quote a poem of my own called "Death."

Where was the dead body found? _Who found the dead body? _Was the dead body dead when 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 and abandoned body?

Was the body dead when abandoned? _Was the body abandoned? _By whom had it been abandoned?

Was the dead body naked or dressed for a journey?

What made you declare the dead body dead? _Did you declare the dead body dead? _How well did you know the dead body? _How did you know the dead body was dead?

Did you wash the dead body? _Did you close both its eyes? _Did you bury the body? _Did you leave it abandoned? _Did you kiss the dead body?

When we look into a mirror, we think the image that confronts us is accurate. But move a millimeter, and the image changes. We are actually looking at a never-ending range of reflections. But sometimes a writer has to smash the mirror, for it is on the other side of that mirror that the truth stares at us.

I believe that despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies is a crucial obligation which devolves upon us all. It is in fact mandatory.

If such a determination is not embodied in our political vision, we have no hope of restoring what is so nearly lost to us: the dignity of man.

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